Hohenheim Castle

Burg Hohenheim once stood in the village of Hohenheim, now a district of Stuttgart. The Bombast von Hohenheim family made it their ancestral seat, and Paracelsus, the famous physician and philosopher, was born here. By the 15th century the family had sold the castle, and it passed through several owners before being destroyed in the Thirty Years’ War. The ruins were levelled in the 18th century to clear ground for the present Schloss Hohenheim. Excavations in the 1970s uncovered the old foundations and a surrounding moat. The site lies beneath the baroque gardens of the university campus. Visitors walk across the lawn where the castle once stood. Information boards mark the excavated walls and the outline of the moat. From the terrace of the nearby palace, the former position of the fortress is clearly visible. The university’s botanical garden stretches beyond, linking the medieval past with modern science.