The Court Chapel was originally supposed to be placed where the Prince’s Hall is located now, but the plan was changed. Neumann kept the four-story façade and altered the chapel to fit into this (Treffler). The chapel is has many decorations that were added from 1735 to 1743, and was worked on by Hildebrandt. The decorations came from local artists and two outstanding paintings “The Fall of the Angels” and “The Assumption” were painted by Tiepolo.
Behind the palace are the Hofgarten, or Court Gardens. The patron of the gardens was Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim who commissioned Johann Prokop Mayer to design the gardens. Mayer was born in Bohemia and was a gardener apprentice in Prague for three years before moving onto Germany, Austria, France and then back to Germany for in 1770 he was commissioned for Würzburg (Treffler). Mayer remained the court gardener until his death in 1804. The garden itself was broken up into three different parts; East Garden, South Garden, and Nursery. Sculptures were also placed in the garden and those were commissioned from a Franconian sculptor named Johann Peter Wagner. Once commissioned in 1770 he made almost all of the sculptures for the palace gardens seen today.
Unfortunately during World War II the palace was hit during an air raid over southern Germany. The attic caught fire during the night and followed down the walls to burn almost the entire palace. The only rooms that were saved were the Vestibule, Garden Hall, White Hall, Staircase, and Imperial Hall. More damage was soon done thereafter because of the fact that the roof was destroyed by the fire and it was during a time of dampness in that area (Treffler). The rebuilding took many years and in fact did not end until the reopening of the Mirror Cabinet in 1987.
The Würzburg Residenz shows the combination of German and Austrian Baroque with French chateau architecture. The Baroque style can be clearly seen throughout the palace, but more so in the Court Chapel. The palace is the result of Balthasar Neumann who showed that in architectural terms is on the same level as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
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