Stadtschloss Klingenberg

The Stadtschloss Klingenberg stands in the heart of Klingenberg am Main’s old town, a 16th-century palace built in the Renaissance style. It occupies a central position east of the Main, surrounded by a nearly square estate with a gatehouse to the south and further buildings to the east. The palace shapes the town’s skyline and can be clearly seen from the nearby Clingenburg ruins high above the town. The palace was commissioned by Johann Leonhard Kottwitz von Aulenbach, a Mainz official, and completed between 1560 and 1563. His epitaph of 1575 remains in the parish church. Later owners included the von Mairhofen family, who lived there until 1892. The complex survived unchanged because its owners belonged to the Franconian Imperial Knights rather than to Mainz itself. Visitors find a three-storey main building grouped with a two-storey gatehouse, a chapel in an oriel on toskan columns, and single-storey service wings around a large courtyard. A round sandstone fountain stands at the centre. The former French-style garden once held 56 rococo statues and a teahouse, but today only a public rose garden remains. The palace still serves as a private home and hosts concerts and festivals on its grounds.