page_title: Würzburg Residence
section_title: Staircase
hierarchical_section_title: Würzburg Residence / Description / Interior / Staircase
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Juni 1988 Würzburg Führung einer Besuchergruppe durch die Residenz
context_page_description: The Würzburg Residence is a palace in Würzburg, Germany. Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt and Maximilian von Welsch, representatives of the Austrian/South German Baroque style, were involved in the construction, as well as Robert de Cotte and Germain Boffrand, who were followers of the French Style. Balthasar Neumann, court architect of the Bishop of Würzburg, was the principal architect of the Residence, which was commissioned by the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn and his brother Friedrich Carl von Schönborn in 1720, and completed in 1744. The Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, assisted by his son, Domenico, painted frescoes in the building.
  Interiors considered masterworks of Baroque/Rococo or Neoclassical architecture and art include the grand staircase, the chapel, and the Imperial Hall. The building was reportedly called the "largest parsonage in Europe" by Napoleon. It was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during World War II, and restoration has been in progress since 1945. Since 1981, the Residence has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
context_section_description: In Baroque style, the staircase gained importance as part of a formal reception room. The staircase of the Würzburg Residence spans its vault, an area of 18 × 32 meters, without pillars. Beneath an unsupported trough vault, a masterpiece of construction with a maximum height of 23 meters.
  The lowest part of the stair leads away from the reception hall, towards a blank wall and then splits into two stairs which double back. Thus, the host on the upper landing was able to see his visitors first who initially walked away from him. When the guests turned and approached, the vast ceiling fresco above was increasingly revealed to them.
  This fresco, the largest in the world, created from 1750-3 by Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo shows paintings of the four continents: Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Each continent is represented by a typical landscape and animals (or the painter's vision of these animals) and a female allegorical figure. Europe holds a sceptre, is symbolized by a bull, and has a boy playing with a cannon. America has natives with feathers, who practice cannibalism of prisoners, and a crocodile. Asia has a tiger and elephant, the crosses of Golgotha are visible in the background. Africans have a camel, and a caravan of turbanned Magi. Tiepolo was helped in his labors by his son Giandomenico and the stuccoist Antonio Bossi. There is also a picture of the Prince-Bishop with Mercury approaching from Olympus while Apollo launches the sun horses, surrounded by incarnations of the stars. The fresco also shows Tiepolo himself (in the southwest corner) and Neumann, in the center of the southern front, leaning on a cannon.
  In preparation for his rendering of the large fresco, Tiepolo sketched a scaled-down version of the work; this sketch is on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  Court architect Balthasar Neumann had to fight concerns about the dangers of such an enormous vault. Contrary to the vault with its colors, the stairs and the walls have hardly any decoration at all. While the vault is decorated in the Baroque style, the rest of the staircase is already decorated in the following Neoclassical style.
  Neumann originally wanted to add a second staircase on the other side of the White Hall, but this was vetoed by the Prince-Bishop's advisers due to the costs involved.
  The staircase was depicted on the back of the final version of 50 Deutsche Mark banknotes, which featured Neumann on the front.
caption: Main staircase
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