PORCELAIN of NYMPHENBURG

 

Monaco of Bavaria, the city of  porcelain : the PORCELAIN of NYMPHENBURG


Monaco of Bavaria, in addition to being known as the city of beer for Oktoberfest street, is also renowned home of the famous porcelain factory Nymphenburg. There are numerous collections dedicated to the treasures of porcelain, such as those hosted at the Residenz, in Nymphenburg, and the castle of Oberschleissheim. The treasures porcelain set out therein can be considered true masterpieces of European and Asian cuisine.

In 1747 Max III. Joseph, the last prince-elector of the Wittelsbach family, founded the first porcelain manufactory. Originally housed in the castle at Neudeck, manufacturing was moved to the Nymphenburg Palace in 1761 in a purpose built within the complex. Since that date, without interruption, are products of the artifacts of high artistic value. The Nymphenburg porcelain saw its heyday at the time of Sigmund Graf von Haimhausen. In 1753-54 he took advantage of the valuable collaboration of Jakob Ringler and Franz Anton Bustelli. Ringler mastered the techniques of porcelain production, and had a great knowledge of the kilns. Bustelli, was one of the most famous and celebrated artists of the Rococo and in less than a decade, he produced more than 150 models of porcelain.

Even today, as in the eighteenth century Nymphenburg porcelain is molded and painted by hand. The special colors are produced in laboratories according to traditional rules. According to ancient recipes and methods of production, the production of porcelain Nymphenburg requires high artistic skills and crafts

The Manufacture of porcelain today belongs to the Bavarian State and is managed by the Foundation of the House of Wittelsbach. Every Wednesday we organize guided tours, both individual and in groups, to manufacture, by reservation.

from the site: http://blog.zingarate.com/monaco/la-city-of-porcellana.html

In questa immagine possiamo vedere ben quattro generazioni della famiglia reale bavarese : Wittelsbach .
1: Il principe reggente : Luitpold;
2: il principe Ludwig ;
3 : il Principe Rupprecht,
4 : Il principe Luitpold.

The family of King Ludwig III
The Prince Ludwig was born January 7, 1845 in Monaco of Bavaria, died October 18, 1921 Nádasdy Castle in Sarvar, Hungary. It was Prince Regent, and the last king of Bavaria. In his deposition in 1918 have closed 738-year long rule of the Wittelsbach dynasty.
Ludwig III. of Bavaria was born in Monaco of Bavaria, eldest son of the prince regent Luitpold and Princess Auguste Ferdinand of Habsburg-Tuscany. His brothers were Leopold (1846-1930), Teresa (1850-1925) and Arnulf (1852-1907). He studied in Monaco of Bavaria at the University of philosophy, law, history and economics. On 23 June 1863 he was a member of the Chamber of the Imperial Council. He took part in the war against Prussia and was wounded in the city of Helm 25 July 1866, Prince Ludwig married February 20, 1868 in Vienna, Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria-Este and Princess of Modena (the latter was the daughter of younger brother of the Hapsburg Este Duke of Modena Francesco V who became the guardian when Teresa's father died). On December 12, 1912, Ludwig III was proclaimed as the new Prince Regent in a time when Otto I of Bavaria, brother of Ludwig II of Bavaria was called crazy and it was still nominally king. After a constitutional amendment was proclaimed King Ludwig III of Bavaria 5 November 1913 through the proclamation of the state of Bavaria, November 7, 1918, Ludwig III was deposed as king.

King Ludwig III the last king of Bavaria

 

King Ludwig III of Bavaria.............the last King of Bavaria


The last King of Bavaria was born Ludwig Luitpold Josef Maria Aloys Alfried on January 7, 1845 in Munich the firstborn son of the long-serving Prince Regent Luitpold and Archduchess Augusta of Austria. He came from pretty solid roots as the regency of his father was known for being conservative, traditional and opposed to the “culture war” that Bismarck waged against the Catholic Church but all of that was still to come. His mother was the daughter of Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany (link to profile), came from Florence and always spoke to her children in Italian. As a boy Ludwig loved the outdoors and in 1861, when he was sixteen, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the 6th Jägerbattalion by his uncle King Maximilian II, the start of what would be a long military career. The following year he started attending classes at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich to study law and economics, fine fields for a future monarch, but he would have preferred agriculture. That same year, upon turning eighteen, he was appointed to the Senate in the Bavarian Legislature as was custom for all princes to gain some practical experience in government.

In 1866 Prince Leopold served in the Seven Weeks War between Prussia and her allies and Austria and her allies, which included Bavaria. By then a First Lieutenant he was shot in the thigh at the battle of Helmstedt and for his service in the conflict was awarded the Knight’s Cross 1st Class of the Bavarian Military Merit Order. However, Austria was defeated and by the conflict was displaced by Prussia as the dominant German-speaking country. The following year, while in Vienna for the funeral of one of his cousins Ludwig met Archduchess Maria Theresia of Austria-Este, a step-cousin of his and a beauty at eighteen years old. On February 20 the following year the two were married in Vienna. It was a real coup for Ludwig who obtained a good wife and vast estates in Bohemia and Hungary. This allowed him to further his interest in farming and agriculture and brought in sufficient funds for him to purchase and build his model estate in Bavaria which was very successful. His wife also had quite an illustrious lineage of her own and in time was recognized as heiress to the British throne by the handful of Jacobites still lingering around (the Jacobite succession having passed from the House of Stuart, to the House of Savoy and then to the House of Modena and Austria-Este). She would also give Ludwig thirteen children, doing more than her duty to secure the succession.


Ludwig and Maria Theresa were a happy couple, very devoted to each other and their children and Ludwig would have liked nothing better than to have spent all of his time with his family and dabbling in his favorite pastimes such as farming, livestock and harnessing water power for energy production. However, royal duty came first and often interfered with his pastoral interests. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War broke out and the Prince-Regent led the Bavarian forces in alliance with the Prussians and afterwards joined in the formation of the German Empire under Prussian leadership in 1871. In 1912 his father died and Ludwig succeeded him as Prince-Regent still ruling on behalf of the nominal King Otto who had been supposedly suffering from insanity and kept locked away since 1875. Because the regency has been a fact of life for so long there were soon calls to made Ludwig the King of Bavaria. This made sense to everyone and when the legislature reconvened in 1913 a new law was passed which made the regent King Ludwig III of Bavaria, though Otto continued to be titled King and treated as such for his few remaining years as well, meaning that from 1913-1916 there were actually two Kings of Bavaria.

King Ludwig III was very close to his people, quite concerned with their welfare and always looking for ways to improve his kingdom. However, he was not without his critics. The Prussians tended to view the Bavarians as difficult and somewhat pretentious for so minor a power, no matter how cooperative they were, but there were also some in Bavaria who criticized King Ludwig, as they had his father before him, for being too subservient to the Prussians. This was, however, quite unfair. Just as the Prince-Regent Luitpold has clashed with Bismarck over his anti-Catholic policies, so too did King Ludwig III take great care to preserve the unique culture of Bavaria, especially her Catholic character, and to limit Prussian influence. He saw Bavaria as the southern counter-weight to Prussia and was always concerned with Prussia becoming too powerful at the expense of his own kingdom within the German Empire. This was seen particularly after the outbreak of World War I only a year after Ludwig III became King.

Some accounts like to portray Ludwig III and to an extent Bavaria as a whole as unwilling participants in what was a Prussian conflict. This, however, is not entirely true. As with most countries the German public as a whole was very enthusiastic about the war and anxious for a final showdown with the nations which had, they felt, denied them their “place in the sun”. Where King Ludwig III was concerned was in preventing Prussia from becoming inordinately powerful as a result of the conflict. Again, as he viewed Bavaria as the only major counter-weight to Prussian dominance within the German Empire, Ludwig III felt it essential that Bavaria have her own share of the spoils. These included, most famously, a plan for the Bavarian annexation of Alsace (Alsace-Lorraine having previously been imperial lands not associated with any particular member state) and the Belgian city of Antwerp to provide Bavaria with an outlet on the North Sea as the King had long been interested in maritime developments.


Yet, despite these actions, as the war situation worsened for Germany, the King was again accused by many opposed to the monarchy of being a puppet for the Prussians, which was certainly untrue. However, the losses Bavaria incurred were major given her status as the second most powerful state within the German Empire. At the outset of the war Bavaria contributed three Army Corps, the largest contingent after Prussia among the German states and Munich was headquarters to a separate Bavarian General Staff, War Ministry and her Army Corps were almost totally autonomous with their own commanders, their own uniforms and military establishment. In 1917 Georg von Hertling of the Catholic Center Party (the dominant power in Bavaria) left his post of Prime Minister in Munich which he had held since 1912 when appointed by the King’s father to become Imperial Chancellor in Berlin. However, the government remained dominated by Field Marshal Hindenburg and General Ludendorff and the course Germany was on remained unchanged.

Separatist attitudes increased along with opposition to the war and Bavaria was especially hard hit by the infiltration of Marxist and other left-wing revolutionaries. At the very end in 1918 there was even an effort by Bavaria to come to a separate peace with the Allies but this failed. Revolution broke out in the streets and King Ludwig III was forced to leave Munich with his family in fear of their lives. The revolutionaries declared the King deposed (the first German monarch to suffer such an indignity) and seeing no other option Ludwig III released all soldiers and government officials from their oath of loyalty. He did not, however, abdicate even though the republican leaders announced as much to the crowds. However, legal formalities aside, the monarchy had fallen and Ludwig III was forced to leave the country, moving from Hungary to Liechtenstein to Switzerland. However, in time, after more conservative forces put down the Marxists and restored order, the Royal Family was able to return in 1920 and they continued to enjoy a sizeable minority of monarchist support. There remained for quite some time a cautious optimism that a restoration would be possible but only the following year, while visiting Hungary, King Ludwig III died on October 18, 1921. Because there continued to be such a strong monarchist presence in Bavaria the republican government gave him a state funeral. He never abdicated and his son, Crown Prince Rupprecht, who succeeded to his rights likewise refused to accept the republic until the people of Bavaria were given the choice in a free referendum to decide between a republic or a monarchy. To date, such a vote has never been held.

from site : http://madmonarchist.blogspot.it/2011/08/monarch-profile-king-ludwig-iii-of.html

Bavaria and Wittelsbach

 

Bayernhymne

The Bayernhymne (Hymn of Bavaria) is the official anthem of the Free State of Bavaria.

The melody of the song was written by Max Kunz in 1835. The text for the original first three stanzas was written by Michael Öchsner. Both men were members of the Bürger-Sänger-Zunft München (Citizen-Singers-Guild Munich), that first performed the song on December 15, 1860.

In 1946, the poet Joseph Maria Lutz wrote a new third stanza as a replacement for the Königsstrophe (King’s Stanza), since after the abdication of King Ludwig III in 1918, Bavaria has been without a king. He also replaced the Deutsche Erde (German soil) in the first stanza with Heimaterde (native soil).

In 1946, it was also officially recognised as the national anthem of Bavaria, and on July 29, 1966, the then prime minister of Bavaria, Alfons Goppel, chose the version written by Joseph Maria Lutz to be the official version.

In 1980, the Bavarian minister-president Franz Josef Strauß changed the official version to contain just the first two stanzas and switched Heimaterde back to Deutsche Erde, though the Heimaterde version is still widely used (for example, it was sung during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to his native Bavaria in 2006, who also joined in singing this version )

The song, like most national anthems, contains many symbolic representations, including repeated allusions to the colours white and blue, Bavaria’s national colours, especially describing Bavaria's Himmel, which can refer to both sky and heaven.

Current Version

(According to the bulletin of the Bavarian prime minister on July 18, 1980.)
The Bayernhymne

German

1. Gott mit dir, du Land der Bayern,
deutsche Erde, Vaterland!
Über deinen weiten Gauen
ruhe seine Segenshand!
Er behüte deine Fluren,
schirme deiner Städte Bau
und erhalte dir die Farben
seines Himmels, weiß und blau!

Gott mit dir, dem Bayernvolke,
dass wir, unsrer Väter wert,
fest in Eintracht und in Frieden
bauen unsres Glückes Herd
|: Dass mit Deutschlands Bruderstämmen
einig uns ein jeder schau
und den alten Ruhm bewähre
unser Banner, weiß und blau! :

 

English

1. God be with thee, land of the Bavarians,
German soil, fatherland!
Over thy wide area
rest His merciful hand!
He shall protect thy meadows,
shield the buildings of thy towns
and preserve thee the colours
of His sky, white and blue!


2. God be with you, people of Bavaria,
that we, to our fathers’ worth,
fixed in harmony and peace
build our own fortunes!
That with bonds of German brotherhood
Everyone may see us united
And the old splendour stands the test
our Banner, white and blue!

 

From site : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayernhymne

 

 

The Wittelsbach House

 

The surname of Sissi : WITTELSBACH


Disregarding the fact that the great dynasties have no real need to codify their reality registry forcing it into a real name, at least understood in the modern sense, we might ask what it was that of Elizabeth. On the principle that we could say that it was called Elizabeth Amalia Eugenia von Wittelsbach-Zweibrücken-Brikenfeld-conjugated Gelnhausen in Habsburg-Lotharingen. To be concerned, however, is the paternal family, collateral branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Let us therefore, as far as possible, to clarify districandoci among the twisted branches of a tree over a thousand years old. It should be noted that the Wittelsbach dynasty are one of the longest in Europe.Always linked to the Bavarian territories, the rise of Otto of Wittelsbach Scheyern whose third son, Otto, too, inherited the title of Count of Dachau acquired the castle as a personal residence of the Wittelsbach. He became the father of the dynasty which took its name from the turreted mansion which today, unfortunately there are only a few ruins. There are numerous events that can be told about the members of this dynasty, some were even emperors, but we are interested above all remember that the family is divided into two main branches: the reigning dukes of Bavaria with the title (extinct in 1777) and the reigning in the Palatinate region with the title of Counts Palatine (later taken over from Bavaria and still existing today). The family of Sissi is descended from a collateral branch of the latter.To trace the formation of this branch we have to go back until 1569, when Duke Wolfgang of Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1526-1569) died dividing their lands among their children: the Major, John (1550-1604), it fell the most important title elector palatine (a position that allowed to sit in the council which elected the emperor) and Duke of Zweibrücken, while at the lower, Charles (1560-1600), that of Count Palatine of Birkenfeld. The latter in turn divided among his titles sons to George William (1591-1669) gave the county of Birkenfeld and Christian (1598-1654) to Bischweiler. George in turn allowed the County Palatine of Birkenfeld to his son Christian II (1637-1717) and the smallest of Gelnhausen, to John Charles (1638-1704).The latter had a son, John (1698-1780), whose son, William (1752-1837) in 1799 was forced to relinquish direct administration of Gelnhausen, which was incorporated in other states, having to settle for purely honorary Duke "in" Bavaria on account of an old license that assigned to all members of the family the right to claim the title of Duke. The question was tricky because the title of "Duke of Bavaria", it was also the main branch: the then head of the family, the Bavarian King Maximilian I Joseph, the distant cousin solved by granting the title of Duke "in" and not " "Bavaria plus the right to use the title" Royal Highness ". Despite the loss of the Administration and dynastic rights on the territory of Gelnhausen, the family continued to bear the name. The son of William, Duke Pius, had only one son, the Duke Massimiliano (Max), meaning father of Sissi. It should be noted however, that when you read that Elizabeth's parents were second cousins â¿¿â¿¿is not by virtue of this distant common ancestry, but because of the fact that William, grandfather of Max, he married Maria Anna of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld-Wittelsbach, sister King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, meaning father of Ludovica (Sissi's mother). To summarize: Massimiliano's grandmother was the aunt of Ludovica.Today the descendants of this branch is still present. Since Louis, the eldest brother of the Duke of Sissi and Max had to formally renounce the title to marry Henriette Mendel, the title of Duke of Bavaria passed to his brother Charles Theodore, who had two sons: William Ludwig (1884-1968 ) and Francis Joseph (1888-1912 died childless). William Ludwig (last to bear the title of Duke of Bavaria) adopted Max Emanuel (1937) in turn the son of Albert of Bavaria of the main branch of the Wittelsbach and then formally heir to the throne, the two branches split 500 years ago are so formally meeting. The title is now led informally by the male descendants of Maximilian Emanuel, brother of Charles and Theodore Sissi.From site :http://www.elisabeth-sissi.org/biografia.php?link=1