Pfalz

Burg Forchheim stands on a nearly square site in the centre of Forchheim, a town in Upper Franconia. The castle was built in the late 14th century by the bishops of Bamberg as their most important residence outside Bamberg Cathedral. It replaced an earlier Frankish royal court and palace that stood nearby from the 9th to the early 11th centuries. Archaeologists have found no trace of the early medieval settlement, though the name Kaiserpfalz has long been attached to the site. The bishops’ castle became part of the town’s defences, linked to the medieval wall and moats. Two large bastions from the 16th-century Italian-style fortification still survive north and west of the castle.

The castle’s oldest part is the west wing, where the Schultheiß’s cabinet of 1339 survives. The centrepiece is the Great Cabinet, built in 1391 as the bishop’s residence, with a rare stone chamber heating system and Gothic murals. Some murals are attributed to Bohemian masters, showing the castle’s art-historical importance. The east wing contains two halls on the ground floor with sandstone columns and 14th-century barrel-vaulted cellars. Fresco-secco fragments on the walls depict King David and other figures, among the finest Gothic murals in southern Germany. The chapel on the first floor preserves murals of the Adoration of the Magi, Annunciation and Last Judgement.

Visitors enter across a sandstone bridge built in 1768–69, replacing an earlier drawbridge. The south front shows timber framing above the gateway and a frieze of small curved St Andrew’s crosses. Inside the east wing, the second floor displays murals by Jakob Ziegler from 1559–60, including Saints Henry II and Cunigunde with a model of Bamberg Cathedral. The west wing now houses offices for the Archaeological Museum of Upper Franconia, which occupies the castle. Outside, the Saltor Tower is the only surviving medieval town gate, standing north of the moat.