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Residenz Museum

Päpstliche Zimmer (Papal Rooms)

Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the wives of four generations of Bavarian rulers had their apartments in this area of the Residenz. The apartments are now called the Papal Rooms, after a visit to the Residenz by Pope Pius VI in 1782.

 

 

In 1666-67 Electress Henriette Adelaide, a princess of the House of Savoy, had her mother-in-law's apartments remodelled in the ornate late Baroque style associated with the Italian city of Turin. Richly carved, gilt ceilings and a few ceiling paintings are all that remain of this decoration. The last person to live in the apartments was Electress Maria Amalia, the wife of Elector Karl Albrecht, who later became Emperor Karl VII. She occupied them from 1730 to 1756 and, although she hardly altered the seventeenth-century decoration, she did install furniture in the latest Rococo style.

Remodelling in the nineteenth century and bomb damage in the Second World War have largely destroyed the grandeur and splendour of the apartments. The Herzkabinett (Cabinet of Hearts), for example, named after the cult of the heart celebrated in its ceiling painting, was damaged so severely in the war that only a partial reconstruction was possible.

 

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