Court Chapel in the Würzburg Residence
Architectural and Art History
The Court Chapel in the Würzburg Residence was structurally completed under Prince-Bishop Carl von Schönborn (reigned 1729–1746) in the years 1732–33. As in the rest of the Residence building, the architect responsible was Balthasar Neumann. He also coordinated the staff of artists and craftsmen who were involved in decorating the church’s interior. When the rich interior decorations had been largely completed, the church was dedicated to the Blessed Trinity on 15 September 1743.
Planning and site
The only outward sign of the Court Chapel in the south-west corner of the Würzburg Residence is its relatively small entrance, set above a few steps and bearing restrained sculptural decoration. Nor does it have a tower; the indispensable church bells are almost hidden away in a roof turret on the transverse section between the two interior courtyards in the south block. The chapel’s two exterior walls, the three-bayed entrance façade on the Residence square, and the long side on the court garden extending over eight window bays to the start of the south oval, are otherwise completely consistent with the Residence’s four-storey façade system.
During the course of planning for the Residence, the various architects involved sited the Court Chapel in a variety of different places in the building complex, construction of which started in 1720. Initially it was always positioned in the northern part. Balthasar Neumann placed it at first as a simple square space in the north-east corner, diametrically opposite to its current site; Maximilian von Welsch then designed it as a central space in the oval at the centre of the northern side; Robert de Cotte set it at the centre of the complex in the position of today’s staircase, opposite to a staircase in the southern part of the building; and Germain Boffrand put it back in the northern oval again, extended with a choir in the transverse block between the courtyards in the north part of the complex. Originally arch-shaped windows that are still visible on the main floor of this transverse block (now the Princes’ Hall), which were built at the time, still recall this stage of the planning. The building of the north oval was then completely abandoned, and the Court Chapel was ultimately erected in the south-west corner of the Residence in accordance with new plans drawn up by Balthasar Neumann in 1732.
Interior architecture
The surprising element for every visitor is the way in which the entirely rectilinear exterior walls of the Court Chapel conceal an interior in which all of the walls describe curves. However, due to the complexity of the architectural structure, and even more so due to the rich architectural and sculptural decoration, the structure of the space is not evident at first glance – although almost all of the relatively small hall is completely visible after only a few steps (interior length 34.95 m, width 13.35 m, height 18.75 m; 114.67 _ 43.80 _ 61.52 feet). In both the ground plan and the vaulting, Balthasar Neumann has inscribed a series of three tangential ovals into a surface area that is actually oblong – two small, transversely located oval rotundas, which include the entrance and choir areas; and between them, a larger longitudinally positioned oval, in which the two side altars are placed. This structure is most easily read in the area of the vaulting, where two smaller oval domes above the gallery and the main altar frame the large central dome. The domes are widely opened towards each other, with arcuate outlines, so that the apex of the two wide girdle arches touch. The spandrel spaces between the oval rotundas are enclosed by concavely curving wall surfaces, each of which surrounds a window bay, as well as by triangular vaulting caps.
Diagrammatic ground plan with the galleries and three oval domes marked with dashed lines
The elevation of the chapel is defined by a marked division by the broad horizontal band of an entablature zone executed in stucco marble, which is borne by a total of 22 unfluted stucco marble columns with gilded composite capitals. Sixteen of the columns stand directly in front of the wall columns or are fused with them into three-quarter columns. Above the main cornice, short pilasters, which continue the columns upwards, bear the pedestals for the dome vaulting. The pilasters, which are richly decorated with gilt embellishments, are in turn divided into two and only fluted in their lower halves. The remaining columns, standing freely in space, support the music gallery in the entrance bay and the altar gallery in the choir bay. The front of the two galleries is detached from the wall along with the outline of the large entablature and floats in space. While the convex–concave–convex shape of the altar gallery fuses with the smaller radius of the choir oval, the entirely concave curve of the music gallery supplements the curvature of the adjoining spandrel bays to form a semi-oval and thus establishes a secondary shape contrasting with the ground plan and vaulting shape. The two oratories immediately adjoining the altar gallery have a contrapuntal effect. Although they are set in concave spandrel bays, they bulge into the space along with part of the supporting entablature in full convexity. The outstandingly good carvings in these wooden oratories are by Johann Adam Guthmann.
The girdle arches of the west and central dome meet in front of the music gallery
The original designs for the side altars can be traced back to Lucas von Hildebrandt, the Viennese court architect, whom Prince-Bishop Friedrich Carl greatly admired; Neumann had to incorporate parts of his plans and suggestions. Simply due to their size, as well as their architectural shape, the two altars as executed scarcely appear to be merely additional decorative elements and instead give the effect of being integral components of the architecture. With their black and yellow marbling, twisted agate-coloured marble columns and rich sculptural decoration, they draw attention to themselves, and the two large altar paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo are undoubtedly the highest-ranking works of art in the Chapel.
The skilled arrangement of the walls completely conceals the fact that the area below the main cornice receives light from what are normally the windows on the ground floor and mezzanine, while the area above is lit from the normal upper-storey windows in the Residence façade. The lunette caps in the upper-storey windows cut deeply into the arches of the vaulting, so that the windows of the storey lying above that are not visible in the interior; they are already located at the attic level laterally outside of the domes. From the straight lintels of the windows (only the mezzanine windows are enclosed by segmental arches), small intrados vaultings lead to each of the round-arched openings in the inner enclosing walls. In addition, the extremely deep window splays often show curiously oblique distortion in order to make the regular row of windows on the exterior consistent with the arched openings of the three oval rotundas. This, along with the skilful use of the light, has the effect that the way in which the room receives direct light only from the entrance side on the west and the south side on the right is – surprisingly – barely noticeable. Due to the way in which the Chapel is incorporated into the Residence building, the windows, door windows and fanlights along the left long wall and choir wall lead either to projecting galleries or are closed with mirror-glass (later altered in some cases).
Function
The two-storey quality that is so strongly emphasized by the architecture of the ecclesiastical hall is the result of its function as a court chapel: separated from the court retinue, the prince-bishops took part in the mass while seated in the west gallery, which is decorated with the large coat of arms of the building’s commissioning patron, Prince-Bishop Carl von Schönborn; or in the glazed northern oratory, which could be heated when necessary – both were comfortable and accessible directly from the prince-bishop’s residential chambers adjoining the chapel on the main floor of the Residence, without the need to use stairs. As the Court Chapel was not a parish church, there was also initially no pulpit, and even today there are no confessional boxes. When the Bishop himself was celebrating mass, he could do so at the gallery altar or at the main altar on the ground floor, where a raised chair was also available for him on the one-stepped pedestal under the north oratory.
Altars
Most of the Chapel’s decorations, which are intimately linked with its architecture, were produced in joint efforts by the Würzburg court artists. The altar table in front of the colonnade of choir columns is flanked by marble sculptures of the Apostle of Franconia, St. Kilian, and the first Bishop of Würzburg, Burkhard. Like the four auxiliary figures on the side altars, these sculptures, designed by Johann Wolfgang van der Auwera, were made by Italian sculptors in Carrara and delivered in 1743. The stucco artist Antonio Bossi produced the crucified figure of Christ with St. Mary Magdalene and putti at his feet as fully sculptural stucco figures, which occupy the front wall of the choir between the central columns, against a blue background. Above the gallery, another altar continues this scene. The sculpture of St. Mary Immaculate there, also set in a blue niche, and the gilded baldachin halo above it with the depiction of the Trinity and assisting angels and putti are also stucco works by Antonio Bossi. He and his workshop also used the same material to produce the allegories of the Virtues on the crests of the side altars, as well as the unbelievably rich stucco embellishment of the entire chapel.
Left: A. Bossi, St. Mary Magdalene; right: A. Bossi, gallery altar
The original paintings on the side altars were produced by Federico Bencovich around 1736 and are now thought to have been lost. As early as 1752, they were replaced by altar leaves painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo during the winter pause in January and February of that year, when it was too cold to carry out fresco painting in the Kaisersaal or apply the plaster ground for it. The ‘Fall of the Angels’ and ‘Assumption of the Blessed Virgin’, each 5.70 m tall and 2.50 m wide, are extremely powerful compositions that display all of the Venetian artist’s colouristic and dramatic genius. The two side altars are framed by marble sculptures from Carrara based on designs by Auwera – the left one showing the Archangel Gabriel with a lily and Raphael with Tobias, while the right one has the Emperor Henry II, the founder of the Bishopric of Bamberg who was canonized as a saint, and his consort, St. Kunigunde.
Left: G.B. Tiepolo, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin; right: Archangel Raphael with Tobias
Ceiling painting
The ceiling painting – which is not genuine fresco work, but rather secco painting – was produced by the already 75-year-old court artist Rudolph Byss in 1735–36 along with his pupils, Anton Joseph Högler and Johann Thalhofer. The painting above the main altar shows the ‘Martyrdom of the Apostles of the Franks, Kilian, Kolonat and Totnan’; the painting in the central dome shows the ‘Coronation of Mary’, with the adjoining spandrel vaulting showing the four evangelists; and the one above the music gallery shows the ‘Triumph of the Archangel Michael in the Fall of the Angels’. Although the chapel’s vaulting survived during the bombing of Würzburg in 1945 in the Second World War, the roof above it was destroyed by fire, with damp subsequently penetrating and causing severe damage to the already blackened ceiling paintings. Repair work was carried out up to 1963, during which the artist Karl Körner largely reconstructed the ceiling paintings or reconstructively overpainted them.
Other furnishings
The church pews were produced by Ferdinand Hund between 1744 and 1751. The carved embellishments on the wings of the oak door are by Paul Egell, and the ornate fittings and locks are by the court locksmith Johann Georg Oegg. As mentioned earlier, the pulpit was only installed later, in 1774–75, under Prince-Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim. However, with its relief and putto decorations, this work by Materno Bossi – a nephew of Antonio Bossi who otherwise preferred early classicist forms – is adapted quite unobtrusively to the chapel, which is more than 30 years older.
M. Bossi: Putti on the pulpit ceiling
Appreciation
Due to the high artistic quality of its interior architecture and decoration, the Court Chapel of the Würzburg Residence is among the most accomplished ecclesiastical buildings of the eighteenth century in Germany. With the curved ground plan formed from three oval rotundas and the unusual vaulting, Balthasar Neumann succeeded in making the articulation and interconnection of the various compartments of the hall into a harmonious and extremely varied overall space. In the process, he was also advancing a trend towards the fusion of architectural bodies that had started in the Italian High Baroque period with the architects Guarino Guarini and Francesco Borromini and had been brought to Franconia and Bohemia by the Dientzenhofer family of architects. In the Würzburg Court Chapel and in his famous late works in Vierzehnheiligen and Neresheim, Neumann entered the ranks of the great ecclesiastical architects of the Baroque period.
Apart from the side altars by Lucas von Hildebrandt, with the outstanding paintings by Tiepolo, it was mainly Würzburg court artists – namely the sculptor Johann Wolfgang van der Auwera, the painter Rudolph Byss and the stucco artist Antonio Bossi – who produced the high-quality decoration under Neumann’s coordination, planning and management. The contribution made by Bossi in particular to the overwhelming effect of the Chapel can hardly be overestimated. Together with his workshop, he not only produced all of the countless gilt stucco ornaments and reliefs that decorate all of the white ground areas, but also all of the fully sculptural figures and busts of white stucco lustro, as well as the gilt stucco capitals and the highly colourful stucco marbling that covers the columns, beams, and architectural divisions.
Text: Werner Helmberger
A. Bossi: Stucco figures on the crest of the left side altar
Further reading: Jarl Kremeier, Die Hofkirche der Würzburger Residenz (Worms, 1999).