Sanspareil rock garden (French “sans pareil” [sɑ̃paˈʀɛj] meaning 'unparalleled' or 'incomparable') is an English landscape garden created between 1744 and 1748 in the village also now called Sanspareil, pronounced locally in German, or the Ostfränkisch dialect as "Samberell". It is in the municipality of Wonsees in the district of Kulmbach, Bavaria.
The 13-hectare garden incorporates natural rock outcrops of the Franconian Jura and the medieval castle of Zwernitz. Work on it began under Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth and was completed by his wife Margravine Wilhelmine. On first seeing the grove with its strange rock formations, one of Frederick's guests is said to have exclaimed 'C'est sans pareil!' – 'It has no equal!'.
The entire ensemble is a protected monument. The garden has been designated Geotope 477R008 by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment.
Natural setting
The village now known as Sanspareil was called Zwernitz until 1746, after the castle that stands there. The first mention of the landscape around it was in documents from 1434, which refer to a beech grove below the castle as the “Han zu Zwernitz”. The grove is distinctive because it stands amid numerous formations of limestone rocks, and it is unusual for beech trees to thrive on northern slopes in the arid Franconian Jura. The humanist :de:Friedrich Taubmann, born in Wonsees, praised the grove for its beauty and described it in detail in his 1604 work Schediasmata poetica.
Thirty-nine limestone outcrops of different heights and disparate groupings are located in the garden area that is about 800 metres in length, connected by a total of 17.5 kilometers of footpaths. Some of the rocks contain natural grottos or smaller caves, while others are so close together that they only allow crevice-like passages. Most of the rocks served as natural features when the landscape garden was designed in 1744. Some were carved or trimmed and others formed bases for artificial structures, which had all disappeared by the beginning of the twentieth century
The consistent description of the place as a “hain” (“grove”) since the Middle Ages indicates that it has remained largely unchanged for centuries. On the northern edge of the grove there is also a spruce population that appears in old descriptions from the 18th century: "The strongest spruces stood slender and noble in this spruce hall and hardly let the midday sun in." Near the parterre at the entrance grew rowan, chestnut, linden and fruit trees; At Mentor's grotto stood different varieties of willow; the ballroom was surrounded by a double ring of linden and wild chestnut trees, while Calypso's grotto had silver birch, maple, and spruce. Buckthorn bushes crowned the rocky peaks. All of these species occurred naturally in the original landscape, although in some places trees were cleared to afford a distant view of the ornamental buildings, as is seen in engravings of 1748 and 1793.
Construction
In the spring of 1744, on the orders of Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth, work began in the castle grounds based on plans by the garden architect Joseph Saint-Pierre. In April of the same year, Margravine Wilhelmine moved into Zwernitz Castle. Wilhelmine supervised the further execution of the construction work. She made numerous suggestions, largely to shape the garden around incidents recounted in Fénelon's novel Les Aventures de Télémaque. A German translation had been published in 1733 under the title Die seltsamen Begebenheiten des Telemach and was very popular in court circles at the time.
By the end of 1744, the Speaker's House, (Referentenhaus), the log cabin (Holzstoßhäuschen) and the Belvedere were complete. Construction began the following year on the oriental building, burgrave house, margrave house and kitchen building, with the significant involvement from the court plasterer :de:Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi. In 1746 work followed on the ruined theatre, modeled on the ruined theatre at the Eremitage in Bayreuth.
In 1746 the village and the grove at Zwernitz were given the name Sanspareil. Two years later, all work on the garden and on the permanent buildings was completed with the finishing of the stucco work in the hall of the oriental building. Attempts to incorporate water features, considered essential in garden design, were not successful.