Johannisburg Palace

Built between 1605 and 1614 for the archbishop-electors of Mainz in red Main sandstone, the palace is a square block with four corner towers and was one of the most important Renaissance buildings in Germany before being gutted in 1944; reconstruction ran into the 1970s. It holds the largest collection anywhere of architectural models in cork, made from 1792 onward by Carl May and his son as scale reproductions of Roman monuments, the material chosen because its texture reads convincingly as weathered stone at small scale. A separate building nearby, the Pompejanum, is a replica Roman villa built for Ludwig I in the 1840s.

History

The palace was built between 1605 and 1614 by the architect Georg Ridinger for Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg, Archbishop of Mainz, paid for largely by taxes from Eichsfeld, Erfurt and the Mainz Oberstift; it took in the keep of the 14th-century castle that had stood here until troops of Margrave Albert Alcibiades burned it, with most of the town, on 10 August 1552. Until 1803 it was the second residence of the archbishop-electors of Mainz, its interior was remodelled in the neoclassical style by Emanuel Herigoyen at the end of the 18th century, and after a spell in the Principality of Aschaffenburg and the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, from 1810 to 1813, it passed to Bavaria. King Ludwig I used it as his summer residence, calling Aschaffenburg his "Bavarian Nice", and had the Pompejanum built within sight of it; badly damaged at the end of the Second World War, it was rebuilt from 1951 over more than twenty years (Wikipedia, Schloss Johannisburg).

Highlights

• The cork models - Roman monuments reproduced in cork at scale.
• The sandstone block - a square Renaissance palace with four towers.
• The Pompejanum - a replica Roman house built in the 1840s nearby.
• The Main terrace - the palace front above the river and vineyards.

When to go

April to October; the Pompejanum closes for winter while the palace stays open with reduced hours. Both close Mondays. Allow half a day for the pair.

Good to know

Most of the palace is postwar reconstruction. The Pompejanum is closed for several winter months. Aschaffenburg is otherwise an ordinary working town.

Nearby

Miltenberg lies upriver; Frankfurt is northwest.

Key facts