Temple of Friendship
Encyclopedia
Sanssouci Park
Sanssouci Park is a large park surrounding Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany. Following the terracing of the vineyard and the completion of the palace, the surroundings were included in the structure. A baroque flower garden with lawns, flower beds, hedges and trees was created. In the hedge...
in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
. It was built by the Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n king Frederick II
Frederick II of Prussia
Frederick II was a King in Prussia and a King of Prussia from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel...
in memory of his favorite sister, Markgravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, who died in 1758. The temple was built south of the park's main boulevard between 1768 and 1770 by architect Carl von Gontard
Carl von Gontard
Carl von Gontard was a German architect; he worked primarily in Berlin, Potsdam, and Bayreuth....
, complementing the Temple of Antiquities
Antique Temple
The Antique Temple is a small round temple in the west part of Sanssouci Park in Potsdam. Frederick the Great had the building constructed to house his collection of antique artifacts, coins and antique gems. Carl von Gontard created the building in 1768/69 near the New Palace north of the...
, which lies due north of the boulevard on an axis with the Temple of Friendship.
The First Pavilion in Neuruppin
A notable precursor of the Temple of Friendship was the even smaller Temple of ApolloApollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
in the Amalthea
Amalthea (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Amalthea or Amaltheia is the most-frequently mentioned foster-mother of Zeus. Her name in Greek is clearly an epithet, signifying the presence of an earlier nurturing goddess, whom the Hellenes, whose myths we know, knew to be located in Crete, where Minoans may have called...
Garden. The first work of architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was a painter and architect in Prussia.Knobelsdorff was born in Kuckädel, now in Krosno Odrzańskie County. A soldier in the service of Prussia, he resigned his commission in 1729 as captain so that he could pursue his interest in architecture...
, the Temple of Apollo was built in 1735 in the flower and vegetable garden created by Crown Prince Frederick (later Frederick II) in the town Neuruppin
Neuruppin
Neuruppin is a town in Brandenburg, Germany. Located on the shore of Ruppiner See , it is the capital of the district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin. Population: 32,800 .-Overview:...
in Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, where he resided from 1732 to 1735 as the commander of a regiment stationed there.
The Temple of Apollo was an open, round temple, although in 1791 it was enclosed by brick walls between its columns. In August 1735, Fredrick wrote to his sister Wilhelmine, who at that time was already married and living in Bayreuth: ..."The garden house is a temple of eight doric columns holding up a domed roof. On it stands a statue of Apollo. As soon as it is finished, we shall offer sacrifices in it - naturally to you, dear sister, protectress of the fine arts."
The Pavilion in Sanssouci Park
Monopteros
A monopteros is a circular colonnade supporting a roof but without any walls. Unlike a tholos , it does not have a cella. In Greek and especially Roman antiquity the term could also be used for a tholos...
type, has its origins in ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, where such buildings were erected over cult statues and tombstones.
In a shallow alcove at the back wall of the temple is a life-sized statue of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, holding a book in her hand. The marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
figure is from the workshop of the sculptor brothers Johann David and Johann Lorenz Whilhem Räntz and is based on a portrait by the court painter Antoine Pesne
Antoine Pesne
Antoine Pesne was the court painter of Prussia. Starting in the manner of baroque, he became one of the fathers of rococo in painting....
. The medallions on the columns depicting pairs of friends in classical antiquity as well as the book in Wilhelmine's hand point to her fascination with that era. Moreover, the homoerotic dimension of the classical couples may have made them especially appealing to the temple's builder, Frederick II, whose possible homosexual proclivities were the subject of much speculation and rumor.
Pairs of friends: