Schönborn drew on family connections to recruit building staff and experts in the Baroque style, most notably Balthasar Neumann.

On 1 March 1945, only two months before the end of the Second World War, much of the palace was destroyed in an American air raid directed against nearby railway installations.

[4] Prince-Bishop Philipp Christoph von Sötern renamed that residence to the Philippsburg and began fortifying it in 1617 following the formation of the Protestant Union.

Rollingen's coadjutor bishop and successor in 1719, Damian Hugo Philipp von Schönborn, desired to rebuild the Episcopal Palace in Speyer.

[2] Rohrer was a master mason from Rastatt,[11] employed at the court of Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden, who was not only in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer, but also a personal friend.

[2] The final plan for the corps de logis was only drawn up in 1725 by Rohrer and Welsch, with some input by the latter's young student, Anselm Franz von Ritter zu Groenesteyn.

[11][14] He was soon followed by Rohrer, who had fallen ill and out of Damian Hugo's favor in 1727, and Antonio Gresta, charged with painting the Hofkirche's frescoes, who also grew sick in 1727 and died soon thereafter.

Construction of the rest of the palace continued according to Rohrer's plans, but under the direction of an architect named Johann Georg Stahl, previously a master carpenter.

[17] In July 1732, Damian Hugo hired Giovanni Francesco Marchini [de] to paint the exteriors of the other buildings of the palace complex with faux masonry.

Leopold wrote of the palace on 19 July, "The Residence of Bruchsal is worth seeing, its rooms being in the very best taste, not numerous, but so noble, indescribably charming and precious.

"[18][21] As a result of the Coalition Wars, the Prince-Bishopric of Speyer and the neighboring Margraviate of Baden had been forced to cede their territory on the left bank of the Rhine to France.

[26] Baden's ruler, Charles Frederick, summarily occupied Bruchsal and forced the departure of the last Prince-Bishop, Philipp Franz von Walderdorf.

[29] The early 19th century traveler Charles Edward Dodd, who visited the palace around 1818, described its "deserted splendour" wherein "the gay ladies of [Princess Amalie's] court complain bitterly of its magnificent dreariness.

"[30] Two other contemporary visitors, Frederick William III of Prussia and the Russian empress Elizabeth Alexeievna, also noted the droll state of Bruchsal Palace.

A decade later in 1880, the court jeweler of the Landgrave of Hesse wrote to the Badener government on behalf of the Vicomte de Montfort, a Parisian aristocrat.

Reconstruction, aided by the pictures taken in the late 19th century, began the next year with some of the minor buildings put back together to provide administrative offices and temporary housing.

[34] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Franco-German friendship, French President François Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl met at Bruchsal Palace on 12 November 1987.

Damian Hugo built the palace with careful financing and a reliance on local industry, which allowed him to maintain a positive annual income despite the cost of construction.

[12] The facades of the two wings off the corps de logis are defined by risalite, made up of a balcony atop a door, and are discriminated by pilasters that also form the buildings' corners.

[10] Despite Damian Hugo's love of the Viennese Baroque aesthetic and the work of Balthasar Neumann, Bruchsal Palace bears Westphalian and Dutch influence, thanks to Johann Conrad Schlaun.

[18] Damian Hugo personally knew virtually none of the artisans that worked at Bruchsal Palace and relied on recommendations from family and friends like Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden, the Margravine of Baden.

[43] The German art historian Cornelius Gurlitt extensively praised the artifice of Bruchsal Palace in his 1889 work History of the Baroque and Rococo Styles in Germany.

[44] Enclosed by Balthasar Neumann's grand staircase is the Grotto, dimly lit in imitation of a cave and decorated by Marchini with murals of plantlife, shells, and river deities beneath a ceiling fresco of a bird-filled sky.

In 1731, Balthasar Neumann set to work to fill the gap,[14] drawing up a design for a spiral staircase – a feature that had not been common in German architecture since the Middle Ages.

[...] Bruchsal with its perfect unity of space and decorations was the high-water mark of the Baroque style.Above the staircase is a massive fresco, covering the entire dome, painted by Johannes Zick in 1752.

Zick's ceiling fresco depicts the history of the Bishops of Speyer, beginning with Jesse in the 4th century and ending with Damian Hugo and Hutten, who are portrayed as patrons of the arts and architecture.

[51] The stucco and fireplace and mirrors of the Prince's Hall are French in nature, resembling the interior of the Hôtel de Soubise, but also Austria's St. Florian Monastery.

[20] The southern state apartment opens with an antechamber containing some surviving examples of original Rococo stucco, furniture by Abraham Roentgen, and some of the oldest tapestries in the palace's collection.

[62] The Schlossraum is lined with statuary produced in the 1750s by the workshop of Joachim Günther depicting the classical elements and the four seasons, while an additional four "guardians" stand in the lower garden, near the pools.

The Deutsches Musikautomaten-Museum, founded in 1984,[65] exhibits some 500 examples of German-made "automatic musical machines,"[66] such as a self-playing replica of the RMS Titanic's organ,[67] from the 17th to the 21st centuries on three floors of the palace.