Hubertusburg

Hubertusburg is a Baroque palace in Saxony, Germany. It was built from 1721 onwards at the behest of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and after his death served as a residence of his son Augustus III. The 'Saxon Versailles' is chiefly known for the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Hubertusburg that ended the Seven Years' War. The palace is located in the municipality of Wermsdorf near Oschatz.

The extended Wermsdorf Forest had already been a hunting ground for the Wettin elector Augustus in the 16th century. A first Renaissance hunting lodge (Jagdschloss) in Wermsdorf was erected in 1609–10. From 1699 Augustus the Strong and his governor Prince Anton Egon of Fürstenberg held festive parforce hunts here, while their large entourage and the royal guests had to be accommodated in the village and at nearby Mutzschen Castle.

During the feast of Saint Hubertus on 3 November 1721, Augustus the Strong commissioned a new palace that should serve as a hunting lodge but also reflect the royal claims of the Saxon elector, who since 1697 ruled as King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in personal union. The palace, then one of the largest Baroque castles in Europe, was erected according to plans drawn up by the court architect Johann Christoph von Naumann. It was completed after only three years of construction in 1724. Naumann had designed a plain triple-wing complex with a cour d'honneur centered around an avant-corps and crowned by a mansard roof. Integrated in the building was a castle chapel – as expression of Augustus' conversion to the Catholic faith, to be eligible for the Polish throne. New roads were laid out from the palace to Meissen and the Dresden residence, as well as to the city of Leipzig in the northwest.

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