page_title: Hortus Palatinus
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Hortus Palatinus / Construction
context_page_description: The Hortus Palatinus, or Garden of the Palatinate, was a Baroque garden attached to Heidelberg Castle, Germany. The garden was commissioned by Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1614 for his new wife, Elizabeth Stuart, and became famous across Europe during the 17th century for the landscaping and horticultural techniques involved in its design. At the time it was known as the 'Eighth Wonder of the World', and has since been termed 'Germany's greatest Renaissance garden.'
context_section_description: The Hortus Palatinus was commissioned by Frederick V, the ruler of the Palatinate, a leading member of the Holy Roman Empire and the head of the Protestant Union, with a martial family tradition stretching back several centuries. Frederick had spent the winter of 1612 in England, where he married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I. Although the match had a political purpose – effectively uniting the Protestant lines of England, the Palatinate, the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Denmark – the two were genuinely in love, and remained a romantic couple throughout the course of their marriage. Frederick returned to Heidelberg, his capital, ahead of his bride and set about transforming his castle, creating an 'English wing' for her, a monkey-house, a menagerie – and the beginnings of a new garden in the Italian Renaissance style popular in England at the time.
  Frederick had met the English designer Inigo Jones and the French engineer Salomon de Caus at King James' court. De Caus had been involved in constructing a Baroque garden for the Prince of Wales, Prince Henry at Richmond Palace, but this project had been halted following the Prince's death in 1612. De Caus was also a favourite of Elizabeth Stuart's, having been her tutor before her marriage. From July 1614 onwards de Caus began work in Heidelberg on a new set of gardens. Some writers suspect that de Caus transferred many of his potential ideas from the Richmond project to Heidelberg, applying them on a larger scale.
  One major challenge that the engineers faced was the uneven ground – the steep, mountainous terrain around the castle had to be flattened and levelled up into a huge multi-leveled terrace. The result – a large 'L' shape around the castle – was then furnished between 1614 and 1619 with statues, grottos, plants, flowers and tall trees, surrounded in turn by the Heidelberg forest. The lay-out of the various exotic plants, many from the then recently discovered tropics, reflects their geographical origins and religious connotations. De Caus was also particularly proud of the orange tree grove he created, populated with thirty sixty-year-old orange trees specially transferred using his own methods, a significant horticultural accomplishment during the period. Other dramatic features included a water organ in imitation of the Roman writer Vitruvius' design, clockwork-driven musical automata birds who sang as nightingales and cuckoos, mazes and a recreation of the legendary animated statue of Memnon. The result was a hugely impressive Baroque garden in the Italian Renaissance style, dubbed by contemporaries the 'Eighth Wonder of the World'.
caption: Detail of the multi-level terracing of the Hortus Palatinus, which required the 'toppling the peaks of the mountains' by Salomon de Caus.
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