Fasanerie

Originally built as a modest hunting lodge in the countryside for the Prince-Abbots of Fulda around 1710, it was significantly expanded and transformed into a grand residence in the mid-18th century.

Fasanerie palace is located about seven kilometres outside the city of Fulda, on a small hill surrounded by woods.

Encompassing an area of about 100 hectares, the palace is surrounded by an English Landscape garden, itself enclosed by a natural stone wall up to six meters high.

[1] The hunting lodge was named Fasanerie, German for Pheasantry, meaning an enclosed area for pheasants and other game.

Another few years later, Dalberg's successor, the first Prince-Bishop of Fulda, Amand von Buseck, engaged court architect Andreas Gallasini to further magnify and extended the palace.

[2] With help of the architect Johann Conrad Bromeis, the palace was reconstructed and refurbished the interior in a neoclassical style between 1825 and 1827 (although the main staircase still remained its old baroque splendour).

[3] The prince was member of a cadet branch of the House of Hesse-Kassel and was the presumptive heir to the last Elector as his sons were excluded from succession, because of his morganatic marriage.

The art collections includes an extensive array of ceramics and small artworks, large sculptures, and portrait busts.

They originally hung in the Government Palace in Maastricht until 1798, after which the last governor, prince Frederick of Hesse-Kassel, had them transferred to Schloss Rumpenheim in Offenbach am Main, Hesse.

The original structure is the old country manor (known as the little palace (German: Schlösschen) built by Fulda’s cathedral architect Johann Dientzenhofer), centrally located within the complex and flanked by two towers to the north and south.

[2] The estate includes a large park with a wide variety of tree species, designed in part with the involvement of the naturalist Carl Linnaeus.