Caroline and Schelling’s Munich residence at Karlsthor 7 [*]
Upon moving to Munich from Würzburg in the spring of 1806, Caroline and Schelling resided at Vor dem Karlsthor no. 7, on the right, [1] located in the curved ensemble (Rondell) in Munich at the western edge of the original city walls, just outside (Germ. vorm, vor dem) the Karl’s Gate. [2] The ensemble was begun in 1796 and finished in 1802, the separate, numbered buildings in each Rondell then being auctioned to the highest bidder. [3] Here the basic location in 1803, shortly after the ensemble was completed: [4]
Here an illustration of the interior view of the Karlsthor ensemble, that is, the gate complex inside town; the curve of the Rondell is visible in the buildings to the right. Caroline and Schelling lived outside the gate and to the left (facing out of town), though the rear (town-side) of their building looked approximately like those to the right in this illustration: [4a]
Some confusion obtains concerning the exact building in which Caroline and Schelling lived. Brigitte Rossbeck maintains that building no. 7 (she does not address the stipulation “to/on the right”) was the northernmost building in the ensemble to the left (north) of the Karl’s Gate. [5] But in 1809, house numbers in the ensemble read from the interior-most building in each ensemble (i.e., the building contiguous with the entryway to the Karl’s Gate itself) outward , i.e., from right to left in the ensemble “to/on the left” and from left to right in the ensemble “to/on the right” when viewed facing the ensemble (i.e., from west to east), as seen on the following map from 1809 (interior numbering reads 1, 2½, 2, 3½ 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, left to right and right to left). That is, the Schellings lived building no. 7 in the wing “to/on the right” viewed from the front: [6]
Concerning the orientation of the ensemble: Caroline remarks in a letter to Luise Gotter on 28 November 1806 (letter 418) that “we have a logis where the façe of the houses looks out onto an open area just outside the city, and I can see the Tyrolean Alps from my window.” What she actually saw in front of the Tyrolean Alps were the Bavarian Alps (see note 9 there), here in a contemporary illustration looking approximately in the same direction as that of Caroline’s windows, i.e., with essentially the view she herself had to the south and southwest, to the left in the illustration ([Johann Michael von] Söltl, München mit seinen Umgebungen historisch, topographisch, statistisch, 2nd ed. [Munich 1838], frontispiece):
Here the ensemble from outside the gate in 1826; the Schellings’ building is the next-to-last on the right (each building has a carriage entry portal at street level): [7]
Here two views of the partial ensemble in 1805, just before Caroline and Schelling’s arrival in the late spring of 1806, during the French army’s entrance into Munich from the west during the military operations associated with the Third Coalition during August–December 1805, and in 1814; Karlsthor “to the right” no. 7 (not visible) is situated off screen to the right in both illustrations: [8]
Letters to Schelling from Franz von Baader confirm and complicate the Schellings’ residency in this complex of buildings.
One of those letters is securely dated by Baader himself to 21 August 1806, i.e., shortly after Schelling’s letter to Carl Joseph Windischmann on 1 August 1806 mentioned above (letter 417b). Baader addresses this letter (incorrectly, but see footnote) to “Herr Professor and Hofrath Schelling, no. 7 before/in front of/”at” the new edifice [correct: Carlsthor, Karl’s Gate] in the Carlsthor [correct: edifice] on the right,” which concurs with Schelling’s own description of the address. [9]
Baader’s next letter to Schelling on 22 August 1807 is addressed (correctly) to Schelling at no. 7 in the new building before the Carlsthor (Karlsthor) to/on the right, third floor. [10] That is, assuming the information above is correct concerning the location of building no. 7, one can also locate the Schellings’ apartment on the third floor of that building: [11]
On the other hand, Baader also addresses a brief missive to Schelling on “Thursday, the 27th” without providing a year, [12] but now with the address “Dr. Schelling, at no. 6, to/on the left before the Carlsthor,” which does not concur with the address Schelling and Baader himself provide above. In his footnote to this passage, Fuhrmans explains the possible dating of this missive: [13]
The missive specifies neither the year nor the month. Possible dates include “Thursday, 27 August 1807” and “Thursday, 27 November 1806” (which Eugène Susini, “Nouvelles lettres inédites de Franz von Baader,” Études germaniques [1969], 62–82, here 64 [first publication of this missive], is inclined to accept). If Baader’s brief letter dates to 27 November 1806, then the address is simply incorrect, since at the time Schelling was residing at Karlsthor, to/on the right, no. 7. If the letter dates to 27 August 1807, however, it may be that Schelling, who with certainty had to vacate his apartment by the end of 1807, had gone ahead and moved beforehand for several months.
In that case, after August 1807 Caroline and Schelling would have resided in building no. 6 in the ensemble “to/on the left,” a building one can similarly easily locate on the 1809 map above.
Johann Wilhelm Ritter initially lived at “before the Karlsthor, to/on the right, no. 3,” presumably the corner building (with the pavillion roof) in the Schellings’ ensemble. [14]
In September 1814, after residing in several different apartments in Munich, after Caroline’s death in 1809, and after his marriage to Pauline Gotter on 11 June 1812, Schelling seems to have moved back into these buildings “before the Karlsthor,” though this time “before the Karlsthor to/on the left in the last house, on the third floor,” presumably no. 9, also clearly visible on the map above.
Notes
[*] Initial two illustrations (in order):
• (1) Karlsthor from the outside, from Georg Kaspar Nagler, Acht Tage in München: eine kurzgefaßte Beschreibung der in dieser Hauptstadt befindlichen Sehenswürdigkeiten, als unentbehrliches Handbuch für jeden Fremden; mit vielen xylographischen Vignetten und einem Plane der Stadt (München, 1845), 16;
• (2) Karlsthor from the inside, from the Münchner Polizey-Uebersicht (1805) III (Saturday, 23 February 1805), no pagination, plate 3. Back.
[1] See Schelling’s letter to Carl Joseph Windischmann on 1 August 1806 (letter 417b). Back.
[2] Brigitte Rossbeck, Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst [Munich 2008], 329fn3, based on material from the Schelling-Nachlass BBAdW/429 (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), maintains that Meta Liebeskind helped the Schellings secure this apartment, “now residing for some time in Munich herself.”
Although Meta Liebeskind may have assisted the Schellings, she was not residing in Munich at the time; she and her husband, Johann Heinrich Liebeskind, moved to Bamberg from Ansbach after he received a promotion to the “highest position of legal Rath” there on 4 April 1807 (Monika Siegel, “Ich hatte einen Hang zur Schwärmerey . . .: Das Leben der Schriftstellerin und Übersetzerin Meta Forkel-Liebeskind im Spiegel ihrer Zeit,” diss. Darmstadt [2001], 157). Back.
[3] Buildings 7 and 8 on the right were owned by a certain prince-electoral Rath and ecclesiastical-financial secretary Mair (Maier); Verzeichniss der sämmtlichen Hausbesitzer der Stadt [München] und ihres Burgfriedens (Munich 1803), 110, who may, perhaps not by coincidence, have lived on one of the floors of the house at Im Rosenthal 144, Caroline’s final residence (Münchner Polizey-Uebersicht [1805] xxv and xxvi [Saturday, 29 June 1805], n.p.). Back.
[4] Johann Michael Schramm, Grundriss der Churbaierischen Haupt- und Residenzstadt München (München 1803). Back.
[4a] Ludwig Lange and Ernst Rauch, Original-Ansichten der vornehmsten Städte in Deutschland, ihrer wichtigsten Dome, Kirchen und sonstigen Baudenkmäler alter und neuer Zeit (Darmstadt 1832), n.p., unnumbered plate 47 in the section on Munich. Back.
[5] Brigitte Rossbeck locates building no. 7 at the opposite (north, left) end of the complex, i.e., in what here is building no. 1 (Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst, 245). Back.
[6] Königlich Baiersche Haupt und Residenzstadt München am 1. Januar 1809 (Munich 1809); Bayerisches Landesvermessungsamt München, Nr. 558/03. Back.
[7] Illustration by Franz Thurn (1826); Münchener Stadtmuseum. Back.
[8] Nicolas Antoine Taunay, Entrée de l’armée française à Munich, 24 octobre 1805 (1808); Joseph von Eisenmann, Beschreibung der Haupt- und Residenzstadt München und ihrer Umgebungen in topographischer, geschichtlicher und statistischer Hinsicht (Munich 1814), 18. Back.
[9] Fuhrmans 1:367. As noted above, the reference is to the ensemble of buildings on the right. Brigitte Rossbeck, Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst, 329fn3, cites this letter as being from Schelling to Baader rather than from Baader to Schelling, and cites the letter as having been published in Fuhrmans 3:353, though the letter is merely referenced there, having been published in reality earlier in Fuhrmans 1:367.
In any event, Eugène Susini, “Nouvelles lettres inédites de Franz von Baader,” Études germaniques [1969], 62–82, here 74, clarifies Baader’s confusing specification of the address (viz., “N. 7 vorm Neubau am Carlsthor rechts”):
In the address, the rather peculiar expression vorm Neubau am Carlsthor, which seems nonsensical, is erroneous. It can be explained by the fact that Baader had started to write Carlsthor in the place of Neubau [“new edifice”; i.e., he began to write vorm Carlsthor, “before/in front of the Karl’s Gate”]; he caught himself and changed the C to an N but then forgot to reposition the preposition vorm [“before/in front of the”] — which was positioned before Neubau [“new edifice”] — to precede Carlsthor instead [i.e., he inadvertently left it reading “before/in front of the new edifice”] . The correct wording is found in the address of the following letter [from Baader to Schelling on 22 August 1806; see below] as well as in Schelling’s letter to Windischmann on 1 August 1806, where Schelling adds as a postscript “Please address your letters to vor dem [=vorm, before/in front of/here: “at” the] Karlsthor no. 7, on the right” [letter 417b]. Back.
[10] Fuhrmans 3:353. Brigitte Rossbeck, Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst [Munich 2008], 329fn3, confuses this letter with Baader’s letter of 21 August 1806, Fuhrmans 1:367 (see above). Back.
[11] Illustration by Franz Thurn (1826). This location also explains how Caroline could have views not only of the square in front of the Karlsthor, but also of the Bavarian Alps to the south, which would have been possible only in the corner building (no. 3) in the ensemble “to the left.” See her letter to Luise Gotter on 28 November 1806 (letter 418). Back.
[13] Ibid., fn 1. N.B., Baader here refers to building no. 6 in the ensemble “to/on the left.” Back.
[14] See his letter to Hans Christian Örsted on 19 January 1807 (letter 420c). Brigitte Rossbeck, Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst, 251, relates that he lived at no. 5 rather than no. 3, albeit with citing a source. Back.
[15] Illustrations in order: Königlich Baiersche Haupt und Residenzstadt München am 1. Januar 1809; Franz Thurn (1826). Source for address: letter to Johann Friedrich Cotta on 12 September 1814 (Schelling und Cotta Briefwechsel 1803–1849, ed. Horst Fuhrmans and Liselotte Lohrer [Stuttgart 1965], 90).
Oddly, this building (no. 9 on the left) is precisely the building Brigitte Rossbeck (Zum Trotz glücklich: Caroline Schlegel-Schelling und die romantische Lebenskunst, 247) identifies on the same illustration by Franz Thurn as no. 7, the Schellings’ initial residence in Munich. Back.
Translation © 2018 Doug Stott