Schönbrunnle “Austrian Versailles”

In its sumptuous rooms and the paths of its magnificent park dominated by the Gloriette, we believe we can still hear the carefree laughter of the young Archduchess Marie-Antoinette, destined to leave it for Versailles and become Queen of France... Schönbrunn, the “ Austrian Versailles", symbol of the power of the House of Habsburg, is one of the most beautiful jewels of Vienna and an essential stopover for anyone who wants to discover the thousand-year-old history of the Austrian monarchy.

by Natalia Griffon de Pleineville, historian

Located today in the greater Vienna area, southwest of the city center, Schönbrunn was once a second home of the Habsburgs, their favorite vacation spot. Less sumptuous than Versailles, the castle bears the mark of the many sovereigns who resided there. Its name means “beautiful fountain”; It is attributed to Emperor Matthias (1557-1619) who discovered a spring on this site during a hunting trip.

Smaller than Versailles

Like Versailles, Schönbrunn was born from the passion of crowned heads for this noble occupation, the land (initially called the "Katterburg") having been purchased in 1569 by Maximilian II from the monks of Klosterneuburg Abbey to create a hunting reserve there. The emperor had ponds built for fish farming and poultry and game breeding; he planted rare species in the garden.

The first real summer residence of the Habsburgs, built in the 17th century by the Dowager Empress Éléonore de Gonzague, widow of Ferdinand II, was ruined by the Turks during the siege of 1683: buildings burned, trees cut down, game exterminated... After the Ottoman defeat under the walls of Vienna, Leopold I (1640-1705) ordered its complete reconstruction, to emphasize Austria's important place in Europe. The first project of the great architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, designed in 1693 on the model of Versailles and resulting from the desire to compete with the French castle, or even surpass it, was not accepted by the emperor because of its cost too high. It is also possible that Leopold I, the antipode of Louis XIV, did not want to associate imperial dignity with the cult of his person; consequently, he would have asked the architect to reduce his project to more reasonable proportions. The construction of a Baroque-style building began in 1696, around twenty years after that of Versailles, at the foot of the hill and not at its summit where the Gloriette is located today, as planned in the first project.

Subsequently, each monarch made his contribution, so that very few elements of the initial project remained. The biggest changes came on the orders of Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780), who asked the Italian architect Nikolaus Pacassi to redesign the castle in the Rococo style, enlarge it and redevelop its interior. He notably built the Petite Galerie, reserved for children's parties and small musical banquets. Schönbrunn became at this time the center of court life and the place where political decisions were made, a residence both public and private – a small rococo theater, which dates from this period and where the sovereign's numerous children played, including the bubbly and mischievous Marie-Antoinette, is still used for performances. It is also to Maria Theresa and her husband that we owe the founding of the Schönbrunn Zoo, the oldest in the world still in operation, originally designed to be the menagerie of the imperial family before being open to visitors. Under the reign of their son Joseph II, who did not like Schönbrunn very much, receptions took place mainly in the orangery; it is also where musical works and plays are performed.

In his little-known novel Captain Richard, set in 1809, Alexandre Dumas describes the place: “Minus the brick walls and the pointed roofs, Schönbrunn is built roughly on the plan of Fontainebleau: it is a large main building with two wings, a double staircase forming a porch, crowning the peristyle and opening onto the first floor. Parallel to the main building, low constructions, which serve as stables and outbuildings, are connected at the end of each of the wings and, leaving only in the axis of the steps an opening of around ten meters, on each next to which stands an obelisk, complete the design and enclosure of the courtyard. We arrive at this entrance by a bridge under which flows one of those thousand streams which flow into the Danube without having acquired enough importance for geography to take the trouble to give them a name. Behind the castle extends the garden, arranged in an amphitheater and topped by a belvedere placed at the top of an immense lawn, which is flanked on each side by a charming copse full of shade and freshness. »

Napoleon I settled there as a victor for the first time in 1805, the year of Austerlitz, in the former bedroom of the imperial couple formed by Marie-Thérèse and François-Étienne de Lorraine. He returned in 1809, the year of Wagram, and almost fell under the knife of a student, Friedrich Staps, who managed to sneak up on him during a military review in the castle courtyard. Arrested at the last moment, Staps refuses pardon and courageously dies under the bullets of a firing squad. It was also in Schönbrunn that, on October 14, 1809, the Emperor signed a new peace treaty with Austria. Napoleon's marriage to Archduchess Marie-Louise, daughter of Emperor Francis I, was a direct consequence of this.

After the fall of the Empire, his son, now known as the Duke of Reichstadt, was brought to Vienna. He stays at the castle of his mother's ancestors in the room formerly occupied by his father, which has become a gilded cage for him. He died there in 1832, at the age of twenty-one. We still see there, a moving memory of this prince with a broken destiny, a little stuffed bird, a faithful companion of his solitude. In the carriage museum adjoining the castle, a curious phaeton is kept, offered to the little King of Rome by his aunt Caroline Murat; under the Empire, Parisians came to admire in the Tuileries garden this vehicle pulled by two white sheep, trained at the Franconi circus. The tragedy of Napoleon's son serves as the framework for L'Aiglon, a play by Edmond Rostand, the action of which takes place largely in Schönbrunn. At the beginning of the second act, the poet offers his readers a guided tour of the park: “Between the two walls of cut foliage where statues are embedded, the flowery designs of the French garden are spread out; and far, at the very end of the flowerbeds, further than the marble group of the pond, at the top of a grassy eminence, silhouetted against the blue its white arcades, the Gloriette rises into the sky. »

Schönbrunn Palace has worn its current color, called “Maria Theresa yellow,” since the mid-19th century. It's very sober facade is the result of a neoclassical renovation carried out around 1820 under the direction of the architect Johann Aman, who removed the rococo adornment created by Picasso. Author of a traveler's guide published in 1860, Adolphe Joanne describes its architecture as "mediocre", and writes: "Today it is the favorite residence of the court during the summer: it has 1,441 rooms and 139 kitchens; there is nothing curious about the imperial apartments; the gardens, an imitation of those of Versailles, are always open to the public: they are decorated with 32 statues by Beyer. » These statues, larger than life, always visible, represent mythological characters (different Greek gods, Aeneas, Jason, etc.) or historical characters such as Artemisia II, wife of King Mausolus. They were created by Johann Wilhelm Beyer and his team between 1773 and 1780, just like the twenty-three others scattered throughout the park which has retained its 18th-century appearance.

A beautiful private house

According to a tourist guide published in 1863, “Schönbrunn is less a palace than a large and beautiful private house.” It embodies the family spirit of the Habsburgs, in contrast to the flashy luxury of Versailles and the restrictive etiquette of the Sun King. Francis Joseph I (1830-1916) and his wife Elisabeth (Sissi) resided there regularly, each in their apartments composed of several rooms according to the label: two antechambers, a living room, an audience room, a living room, and a bedroom to sleep. For this sovereign, this castle had a particular importance: born in its eastern wing, he spent every summer there since childhood. Despite Sissi's immeasurable love of travel, her furtive shadow still looms over the Habsburg Viennese residences of the Hofburg and Schönbrunn. Unconditional admirers of the beautiful empress are delighted to find her objects there, tangible testimonies of her presence. A darker memory is the black hearse used at her funeral in 1898, as well as those of Franz Joseph I in 1916 and, more recently, of Empress Zita in 1989. A special exhibition parallels empress Sissi and Princess Diana, two women very popular with the people but unhappy in their private lives, who both died brutally, one at the hands of an assassin, the other in a car accident.

A suite of sumptuous rooms

Today, around forty rooms of the castle, the most emblematic, are open to visitors. After taking a monumental staircase, you access the majestic Grande Galerie. Decorated with stucco, in the purest Baroque style, it served as a setting for balls and banquets under the monarchy, before being used for receptions by the Republic of Austria. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy met Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev there. The high windows alternate with pilasters with Corinthian capitals. The ceiling frescoes, by the Italian painter Gregorio Guglielmi, celebrate the Habsburgs. This glorification continues in the ceremonial hall, used for baptisms, birthdays, and weddings of members of the court; it is decorated with monumental paintings representing the marriage ceremony of the future Joseph II in 1760 with the granddaughter of Louis XV.

Marie-Thérèse's taste for Chinoiserie, very fashionable at her time in all European countries, is reflected in the decor of several rooms such as the Porcelain bedroom or the Vieux-Laque living room, with walls decorated with panels of lacquer. Marie-Thérèse transformed this former office of her husband into a memorial room after his death. Edmond Rostand places a scene from L'Aiglon there, the decor of which he sets: "All the walls are covered with old lacquer, including shiny black panels illustrated with small landscapes, kiosks, birds and small gold characters, s 'framed in carved and gilded wood, in a heavy and sumptuous German rococo. The ceiling cornice is made of small pieces of lacquer. The doors are in lacquer, – and the trumeaux are made of a more precious piece of lacquer. At the back, between two lacquer panels, a high window with a deep lacquer embrasure. Open, it reveals its balcony which silhouettes, against the light of the park, the two-headed black eagle, in wrought iron. » In another Chinese-inspired salon, the last emperor of Austria, Charles I, signed his renunciation of the throne on November 11, 1918, before going into exile.

We find a European decor in the so-called “Napoleon’s” room, which houses some magnificent Brussels tapestries from the 18th century. The rooms that open to the left of the entrance are called Bergl Rooms, named after the Bohemian painter Johann Bergl, who between 1769 and 1778 decorated them with exotic frescoes depicting animals and plants partly inspired by those of the imperial greenhouses and the Schönbrunn menagerie. The aging Empress Marie-Thérèse had this suite overlooking the garden built to shelter from the heat in summer. The Hall of Mirrors, where his ministers took the oath, keeps the memory of little Mozart who came to play there in front of the imperial family. An allusion to the Sun King is found in a fresco by Sebastiano Ricci depicting Joseph I, son of Leopold I, who is offered a laurel wreath radiant like the sun. This is one of the rare signs of a cult of the person of the monarch in Schönbrunn.

Furthermore, another fundamental difference with Versailles was that the Austrian aristocracy had no obligation to live there. This is explained by this particularity of the Habsburg monarchy: the Germanic emperor did not exercise absolute power over the mosaic of states that constituted the Holy Roman Empire, and his court was not composed of subjects but of delegates from the territories of Germans. The sovereign of the House of Habsburg only really ruled over his hereditary possessions.

Visitors accustomed to the gold and splendor of Versailles can only be surprised by the relative modesty of the imperial apartments at Schönbrunn. This simplicity is particularly striking in the mortuary chamber of Francis Joseph I, with its austere furniture. It should be noted that members of the Habsburg family, especially the children of Maria Theresa, actively participated in the layout and decoration of the castle's interiors. Their drawings are still visible in many rooms.

The Gloriette

To get an overview of the castle, a pleasant walk takes visitors to the famous Gloriette, built on top of a hill in 1775 by Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg on the orders of Joseph II who then reigned jointly with his mother. According to a Prussian traveler, Mr. Bramsen, who visited there at the beginning of the 19th century, “One has from the summit one of the most beautiful and extensive perspectives that it is possible to imagine.”

The 1863 tourist guide already cited speaks of “a pretty pavilion placed at the top of the gardens, the Gloriette, each wing of which is a portico through which the air, the sun, and the view pass freely, and from where the 'one has a beautiful perspective of Vienna and the heights stretching behind it'. At the foot of the Gloriette, a monumental fountain crowns the Grand Parterre. Dedicated to Neptune, god of the Sea, it was commissioned by Maria Theresa from Franz Anton von Zauner in 1776.

The gardens

Schönbrunn Park presents a classic example of French gardens of which Versailles is the apogee; they were drawn by Jean Tréhet, a student of Le Nôtre. Extensively remodeled during the second half of the 18th century, they have some “natural” elements and up-to-date artificial ruins. Let us quote again from the 1863 guide: “Schönbrunn is the Versailles of Vienna. Nature there is not as the good Lord made it, but as Le Nôtre cut it, aligned it, and tormented it at Versailles: very straight paths, very tall bowers cut with a line; poor big trees which are so beautiful when we allow them to stretch their arms at ease, and so ugly when we reduce them to being nothing more than a green wall where not a leaf has the right to exceed the other: a garden, in a word, graceful and alive like a geometric figure. » These criticisms do not seem to reach the tourists who walk the paths and terraces of this magnificent green lung of Vienna, listed, like the castle, as a UNESCO world heritage site since 1996. Walkers set out in search of the “ beautiful fountain” of Emperor Matthias, which sits in the middle of a grove, or Egyptian-inspired waterfall where faux hieroglyphics tell the story of the dynasty. They are attracted by the “Roman ruins”, the work of Hohenberg, which did not fail to amaze the romantic poet that Rostand was: “These ruins are, naturally, as false as possible; but built by a pleasant archaeologist, backed most happily against a wooded hill, covered with abundant moss, caressed with admirable foliage, they are beautiful in the night, which enlarges and poetizes them. »

The scientific vocation of Schönbrunn is fully expressed in the botanical garden, the object of special care of sovereigns for two centuries. Schönbrunn's palm greenhouse, the largest in Europe, commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1882, houses numerous tropical and subtropical, Asian, American, Australian, African, and Mediterranean plants, in three pavilions each representing an area climatic. Among its curiosities, the largest water lily in the world is visible in spring and summer, with its leaves with a diameter that can exceed one meter.

A visit to Schönbrunn would be incomplete without its Imperial Coach Museum, where carriages from the Viennese court are exhibited: prams, sports, leisure, and travel vehicles, large and small, alongside clothing worn by their users. Among the ceremonial carriages, the one made during the first half of the 18th century for Charles VI stands out, not far from the only court carriage dating from 1914. The most recent object is the racing car of Ferdinand de Habsburg-Lorraine, a racing driver, who brings a touch of modernity to this valuable historical ensemble.

Schönbrunn was seen by the author of a tourist guide from 1863

“In the apartments, a lot of gilding and nothing remarkable, except for the embroidery of Maria Theresa (a great king!) which decorates an entire small living room; in the woodwork of a window, the hole made by Staps' bullet when in 1809 he shot Napoleon (A); and, in one room, a movable ceiling to lower the dishes, so that the emperor could dine with his ministers, without the servants hearing the state secrets, or perhaps seeing nothing, when they were not the ministers who were in conference with the prince. Everything was perfectly deserted. In the gardens, I only met a solitary walker, his feet in the mud and sheltering himself with a modest umbrella against the falling drizzle. He greeted us more quietly, I believe than I had done myself: he was the father of the emperor (B)” (extract from Tour du Monde: Nouveau Journal des Voyages, published under the direction of M. Édouard Charton, Paris, Hachette, 1863).