selenak: (City - KathyH)
selenak ([personal profile] selenak) wrote2021-10-18 10:11 am
Entry tags:

Bavarian Baroque II: Landshut

The other spectacularly pretty city I came through in recent weeks was Landshut. Actually only about an hour's drive away from Munich, but somehow I'd never been there before. Hosts one of the country's most famous ren fairs, the "Landshut Wedding", every four years, a restaging of the spectacular wedding of a Bavarian duke with a Polish Princess, and certainly hardly needs any backstage decoarations for it, for:

Landshut Panorama




Let's have some city silhouette profile pics featuring the castle, Burg Trausnitz:

Stadtsilhouette seitlich

Neustadt mit Burg

As you can see by the facades of the houses, this is one colorful city, well preserved:

Neustadt mit Statue

Landshut citizens didn't believe in living small, no:

Pink Palace


The green building with the Covid test station in front is the city hall:

Altstadt mit Rathaus


Trausnitz Castle from several sides:


Trausnitz frontal


Trausnitz Seitlich


This grass ground, named "Swedes' grass ground" as a reminder of the Swedish occupation during the 30 Years War, hosts an old pear tree. When I say "old" I mean only a measly 150 years, so not reaching back to the 30 Years War, but it's planted to where one stood then, too:

Birnbaum auf Schwedenwiese


The keep:

Trausnitz Palas


The courtyard inside the keep:

Innenhof Trausnitz



Alas there was a terrible fire in the 1970s destroying many of the castle's interiors, but some have been restored, like this room:

Trausnitz Herzogssaal

Also, stoves everywhere. Lady Mary Wortley Montague had a lot of critical things to say when passing through Germany en route to Turkey, but one thing she loved and admired were all the stoves, which apparantly were way more modern than anything Britain had to offer in the 18th century.

Ofen Trausnitz


The wooden panels are post restoration, but that's how the room used to look, too:


Ofen mit Gemach

The lady on the portrait is the bride from the Landsut Wedding they keep restaging:

Gemach mit Braut


And then you have restored rokoko ceilings like this:

Stuckdecke


Or with baroque frescoes:

Vorraum Narren

The blue and white insignia the putti are holding are the Bavarian colors:

Bavarian Putti


The "fools' stairs" aren't thus named for being used by court jesters but because the then Duke ran short of cash, had to dismiss his Italian Comedian ensemble, but evidently still had enough money to commission an artist to paint Comedia dell' Arte scenes on the walls of one of his stairways. These are according to the castle guide the first depictions of Comedia dell'Arte types in paintings, from the 17th century.

Narrentreppe 1

Narrentreppe 2

Narrentreppe 3


Narrentreppe 4

Said stairways leads to the castle chapel, dedicated to St. George, and a wild mixture between the Gothic and the Baroque.

Kapelle von unten


Kapelle von oben

This apostle is an eager reader:

Leser in Kapelle


What slays me is that the dukes had their very own warm, stove-heated box to sit in within the chapel. Behold:

Georgskapelle mit Loge

Kapellenloge

Let's go outside again. This is the Friday morning farmers' market:


Markttag

Landshut says farewell with first an overview from the castle:

Blick über Landshut 1


and then from its lovely waterfront (the river in question is the Isar, which also runs through Munich):

Landshut und Isar

Landshut Wasserfront
felis: (House renfair)

[personal profile] felis 2021-10-18 12:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I have to admit, I wouldn't have known more than a sentence about Landshut. The architecture of the church tower struck me as rather peculiar, so I googled and apparently it's the highest brick tower in the world!? Huh. Otherwise, love all the interior shots of the castle, particularly the attempted 3D perspectives in the Fools' Staircase. And also the fact that a staircase of that name and with pictures like this - including a guy with an enema syringe I think? - led towards the chapel of all places, ha. Almost Fritzian humour - IF he hadn't gotten rid of chapels in his palaces anyway. Certainly reminds me of FW's discussions about the theatre and how you'd totally end up getting distracted and thinking about the wrong things during prayer if you went there, though.