Experience historyExhibitions
Experience royal staterooms and living quarters at Meersburg New Palace. A museum exhibition also explores unusual topics related to the history of the palace and its inhabitants.
Meersburg New Palace
Episcopalian Baroque residence at Lake Constance
Today, the bel étage serves as the palace museum.
The bel étage
Today, the heart of the Meersburg New Palace, the bel étage, is a palace museum. The prince-bishops’ living quarters and staterooms depict life and rule within the palace. Other rooms include exhibits on the Baroque hunt, music, wine and viticulture, as well as relations between town and the court. The rooms containing valuable tapestries and the former natural history cabinet are highlights.
The prince-bishop loved good music.
Music and wine at court
The room decorated with stucco and religious motifs, such as cherubs with crook and sword, was once the “chapel room.” Details in the stucco illustrate the special importance of music at the prince bishops’ court. Today's “music and wine room” stringed instrument are on display, complete with audio samples. But the wine produced on Meersburg's vineyard slopes also played an important role. The exhibit makes reference to this role, for example in a still life of fruits and a valuable ivory lidded goblet.
This natural history collection was famous and popular.
The prince bishops’ “natural history cabinet”
The prince-bishops of Constance were avid collectors who were particularly interested in shells, snails, minerals and fossils. This is demonstrated in the “natural history cabinet” exhibit, where a multitude of shells, snails and fossils are on display. Even during Maximilian Christoph von Rodt’s lifetime, his collection was so famous that people traveled to Meersburg just to see it. The Öhningen fossils, in particular, were “by far the most famous thing to be found in and around Constance….”
A lakeshore residence
The exhibit illuminates the Lake Constance region, which consists of the lake and the surrounding landscape: A three-dimensional model and panoramic images depicts Meersburg and surrounding area. Lake Constance was already important in the 18th century because it allowed the bishop to travel quickly by water from his Meersburg residence to the episcopal church in Constance.
The Lake Constance region is exhibited in the Lake Constance room.