Fürstbischöfe 'Palace

The Palace of the Princes-Bishops of Liège or the Episcopal Palace of Liège, is located on the Place Saint-Lambert in the centre of Liège. The present Palace, now the Palace of Justice of Liège, was rebuilt in the 16th century at the initiative of Cardinal Érard de La Marck, on the site of an old building destroyed during the sack by Charles the Bold. A new neo-Gothic wing is the Provincial Palace.

Introduction

Two buildings preceded the present Palace of the Princes-Bishops which dominates the Place Saint-Lambert, the centre of the commercial life of Liège where once stood the Cathedral of Saint-Lambert. A first palace, built into the fortifications, was erected around the year 1000 by the Prince-Bishop Notger. It disappeared in a fire in 1185. The palace was rebuilt under Raoul de Zähringen. This second building, badly damaged after the bag of 1468 by the Burgundians, suffered the same fate in 1505.

On accessing the Episcopal throne of Liège in 1505, the Prince-bishop Érard de La Marck, found a palace in ruins. He entrusted the construction of a brand new palace to the master builder Arnold van Mulken in 1526. The site was completed at the end of the sixteenth century.

The main façade on the south side was completely redone after its fire in 1734 in the Louis XIV-Régence style under the direction of the architect Jean-André Anneessens, son of François Anneessens.

In 1849, a new western wing was built in neo-Gothic style by the architect Jean-Charles Delsaux to accommodate the services of the Provincial Government. The palace will be used as a Kommandantur by the German occupant during the First and Second World Wars.

In the 21st century, the building is occupied by both the provincial services and the Palace of Justice. The large courtyard is surrounded by galleries with raised arches and 60 curved columns, massive and elegant, surmounted by capitals richly ornamented. The variety of decoration of the columns is extraordinary. The second courtyard accessed from inside the palace is more intimate. It is also closed to the public, except on rare occasions such as heritage days. It is also used for the passage of the defendants, escorted by police officers, between the cells and certain services.

As the judicial institutions of Liège are dispersed on a dozen sites in the city, a vast project of extension of the Palace was adopted. It concerns several buildings facing the west side of the Palace in order to maintain justice in the centre of the city.

History

From Rome to Roman times

The birth of the bishopric of Tongeren

As soon as from the 3rd century, Augusta Treverorum -Trèves, then Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium - Cologne were sieges of bishoprics, modelled on the division of the administrative districts of the Romans. The civitates will give birth to the dioceses. Some missionary bishops came as early as the 4th century to evangelize the regions of the Meuse. It is a certain Servatius, or Servais of Tongres, coming from the distant Syria, who made contact with the region in the last quarter of the fourth century. In Lower Germany, the Civitas Tungrorum extended its jurisdiction over the territory corresponding to the greater part of present-day Belgium, but extending over the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Brabant and Dutch Limburg, as well as part of The Rhineland. It was on the road from Tongres to Beda that the Romans had set up their administrative centre and Servatius built a Christian basilica on the site of the present collegiate church. The great Germanic invasions of the fifth century took everything away and a long period of uncertainty was to take place until the end of the 6th century. Bishops Falcon (circa 530) Domitian (535-538) and Monulphe (558-597) are known.

The role of Maastricht

It is probably around this time that the bishops of Tongeren adopted, as a second residence, the agglomeration of Trajectum ad Mosam (today Maastricht), very close by, a forced passage on the Meuse where the Romans had thrown a wooden bridge over the river . Bishop Monulphe had a basilica erected at the place of death of Servatius in the Latin Quarter of Maastricht. The name of bishops of Tongres remained nevertheless.

The prophecy of Monulphe

Legend will have it that Monulphe, while visiting his diocese, and discovering the site of the heights of Sainte-Walburge, where Liege will rise, showing the wandering arms of the Meuse in the hollow of the valley, prophesized the future of the future city. Here is the place that God has chosen for the salvation of many faithful and who, thanks to the merit of his servants will later equal the most renowned cities. One of the successors of Servais and Monulph, will situate this privileged place, for long centuries in history: Bishop Lambert succeeded Theodard (662-70), thanks to the protection of the king of Austrasia, Childeric II, assassinated in 675. Removed from Stavelot for seven years, he returned to establish the regime of immunity of the Tongres-Maastricht diocese, which precipitated his assassination probably by a member of the royal power, Dodon, who exercised the charge of domesticus of Pepin de Herstal or of his concubine Alpaïde.

The House of Saint Lambert

The murder of Saint Lambert takes place in a place sources call vicus leudicus. The site descended to the river, which afforded easy communication with Maastricht, about five hours' distant. Lambert had built a series of buildings there. On the island, Monulphe had erected a small oratory devoted to Saints Cosmo and Damian. It was only a complex of a few modest buildings, which did not pretend to be called palaces. In 718, the immediate successor of Saint Lambert, Bishop Hubert encouraged the current of devotion by bringing back from Maastricht the remains of his predecessor. The basilica dedicated to the memory of Saint Lambert soon became the first church in the diocese: the cathedral. This transfer is necessary to avoid the difficulties of maintaining the residence of the bishops in Tongeren and Maastricht where they had to endure the power of the agents of the king. From now on, the name of Liège will appear in the texts. In 770, Charlemagne settled apud sanctum lambertum, in vico Leudico to celebrate the feast of Easter. It is also in vico Leudico and apud sanctum Lambertum that will designate the meeting place of the three sons of Louis the Pious in 854.

The Carolingian Episcopal Palace of Bishop Hartgar

In the course of the ninth century, an Irish poet, Sedulius, describes an Episcopal palace whose splendour offers an astonishing contrast with the precariousness of the first Saint-Lambert installations. His description of the palace of Hartgar specifies that it is equipped with a tower of nearly 45 meters. The palace was richly decorated with lively paintings, and in a superior room were depicted 16 scenes from the New Testament, from the appearance of the angel to Zechariah to the vocation of St. Peter. It was then damaged by a fire during the Normandy incursions of 881 in the valley of the Meuse. From 884 to 915, many royal donations will complete the patrimony of the bishops.

Transfer of the Palace under Bishop Eracle

Nevertheless, during the turbulent times of the kingdom of Lotharingia, which became a duchy, in which the diocese of Liège was inscribed, there was a dispute between powerful local dynasties, the last Carolingians Renier au Long-Col and his son Gislebert de Lotharingie, with the kings of over Rhine of the Saxon dynasty: Henry Ist the fowler and Otto Ist who had annexed Lotharingia since 925 and 936. Otto Ist entrusted Lotharingia to his brother Bruno and a provost of Bonn: the Saxon Eracle was promoted to the Episcopal see Of Liège in 959. The latter, unsure of the people of Liège, built from 968, on the heights of Liège, a new fortress on the Publémont and a new collegiate where he would be buried, Saint Martin, which will overhang the curve of the inner arm of the river . He later built Saint-Laurent with a crypt dedicated to Saint Sixtus, a pope who died in 258. There he set up his Episcopal palace following the advice of Bruno of Cologne in 965. This Episcopal palace would have been, according to Anselme, opposite the Collegiate Church of St. Martin, on the site of the Hotel Orban and the Hotel Macar.

The Palace of Notger and of Henri de Leez

The work of Notger

The fidelity of Notger to the Germanic sovereigns will enable him to obtain from them the means of his policy which will coincide with the great ordering effort of the Ottoman dynasty. Invested by the emperor, the bishop is not only the head of a vast ecclesiastical constituency. Imperial liberalities, which were rare under Otto Ist, but which multiplied afterwards, were to endow the church of Liège with accumulated territories in which the bishop possessed the royal rights granted by the sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire. Moreover, Notger is careful to obtain the privilege of immunity, thus becoming the lord life in all his temporal domains but also in his Episcopal city. Notger will subtly take advantage of these two prerogatives because the strengthening of the imperial power is identified with the strengthening of its personal power over the city, the diocese and the principality. It is therefore he who will decide on the development of the urban area of ​​Liège, still visible today. Aware of the emotional effect that surrounds the place where Saint Lambert had fallen under the blows of his murderers, Notger will bring back the centre of the city, formerly on the Publémont, in the valley, at the exact place where his predecessors had installed the cathedral and its annexes. This cathedral, he will rebuild from top to bottom, much larger and much more beautiful. It was not finished on his death ... Notger is also aware that the Carolingians aspire to recover the domains of their ancestors. In order to respond to their various offensives, he developed a castral policy of which the fortification of Liège was the strong point. He will first fortify the Publémont, will build the Collegiate Church of Santa Croce to prevent the seizure of estate landlords and will extend its walls to the palace and the neighbourhood of the island.

Notger's Palace

The Vita Notgeri specifies the place occupied by the Bishop's residence: its lists ist numerous restorations and reconstructions works, such as that of Notre-Dame-aux-Fonts. The palatium domus episcopalis will raise from the ground at the same time as the cathedral. The palace will be integrated in the urban enclosure and completely encompassed in the defensive system of the City. Thus, in the area of ​​the fortified convent surrounding the city, the Episcopal palace occupied a central position and fulfilled a fundamental defensive function. The palace was to be of sandstone stones, the archives of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century specifying that a vies perire of the evesque  was exploited in Pierreuse.

Jean d'Outremeuse, who died in 1400, reports that only the lower level of the Notgerian palace was built of stone, the floors would have been made up of strong frameworks blocking masonry. Some partition walls, which date from the seventeenth or eighteenth century still have this aspect. It had to contain also a pomarium, a boardroom upstairs, an hospitium - a dormitory - and a courtroom where the high seat of the bishop, the solium, is located. It should also house the Court of Justice and a feudal court, presided over by the bishop when he is in Liège. It is in the pomarium surrounded by high walls that on Sunday the Prince-Bishop presides over the Court of the Ring or Ring of the Palace, which was composed of the Prince-Bishop and his vassals. The Ring of the Palace was named after the ring of brass that the complainant stroke against the leaf when he wanted to bring a case before the tribunal if it came under its jurisdiction.

Henry II of Leez and the renovation of the Palais

Notger's palace was already some 150 years old when Henry II of Leez, one of the most brilliant successors at the head of the diocese and the Principality, undertook to renovate the Episcopal residence. The chronicle of the bishops of Liège by Gilles d'Orval - a compilation completed in 1250 - gives an idea of the large number of constructions or restorations undertaken during his reign. Gilles d'Orval points out that it was in 1155, after restoring the Episcopal palace of Aix-la-Chapelle, that he completely recovered from his ruins, that Henry II of Leez will restore, enlarge and build another palace building Of Liège.

From Roman times to the Renaissance

The fire of 1185 and the construction of the new Palace of Raoul de Zähringen

On April 28, 1185, the day of the translation of Saint Lambert, the church and the people of Liège had celebrated, as usual, the transfer of the patron saint's relics from Maastricht to Liege. As soon as night fell, the cathedral of Notger caught fire. The fire had taken place in the neighbouring houses of the cloister, and had reached the dispensaries. The flames reached the Romanesque cathedral and ignited its two west towers. They invaded the old palace, its Episcopal church and finally burned the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre and its parish church, Saint-Clement and Saint-Trond. For several weeks the fire brooded in the rubble. The king of the Romans Henry VI., arrived in autumn time, ordered the destruction of the ruins.

Gislebert de Mons, Chancellor of the powerful Count of Hainaut, and well informed chronicler, mentions the presence of Henry VI in the city of Mansane, but does not specify that he went down with his suite in palatio episcopi, as it would have been normal if the state of the palace had permitted it. Two years later, in March 1188, Gislebert accompanied Cardinal Henri, bishop of Albano, legate of the pope, who came to preach the crusade, in France and in the empire, Jerusalem having fallen in October 1187 in the hands of the Infidels. The diocesan synod, summoned, welcomed him with the Comte de Hainaut and his suite, the only lay person to attend this synod. It is the Count, according to Gislebert, who will reconcile the Roman Church with the Church of Liege, accused of the sin of simony. Gislebert then says that the synod does not take place as usual in the cathedral in full reconstruction - it will be completed on September 7, 1189 - but in palatio episcopi where a large crowd of clerics rushes, about 2,000 according to the same source. When he later cites Raoul de Zähringen among the sons of Count Conrad of Zähringen, he recalls only one fact illustrating his reign of a quarter of a century: Hic Rodolphus magnum et decorum in Leodio construxit palatium.

This great and beautiful palace, which he built at Liege, was soon to be abandoned and not to be seen again by Raoul de Zähringen, following his suzerain, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who died in 1190 during the Third Crusade, and coming back exhausted to die in his native Swabia. The palace had thus been rebuilt in nearly two years. Nevertheless, it was an important construction. Lothaire de Hochstaden met there Emperor Henry VI in 1192, and in 1212 Henri Ist, Duke of Brabant, lodged his armed suite there, and in the morning he heard Mass in the Episcopal Chapel.

The Romanesque palace and its Gothic additions

The engraving of Johan Blaeu will show the southern Romanesque façade, which will be destroyed by the fire of 1734. Despite some Gothic additions, one is at first sight struck by the whole unit of Romanesque style. Arcatures reign under the roofs and under each level, as well as at the high ridge that encloses the third courtyard. The buildings are of unequal height and rhythmic by Lombard stripes which contain arcades - such as the narthex of Saint-Barthelemy and Saint-Jacques - and small rectangular windows cut halfway up. The front building shows fine pilasters with bases and capitals. In the second courtyard, two recessed buildings succeed each other: the Lombard band and pilasters disappear. The first is entirely occupied by the royal chapel of the palace, dedicated to St. Ursula. The private chapel of the bishop was to be near. To the right of the Sainte-Ursula chapel, a building had to be built in place of the ancient céarie where the prince was storing his harvest.

The Towers

Of the four rectangular towers at the corners of the first courtyard, three still survive in 1649. The south-east tower which dominates the chapel of St. Ursula had collapsed and was not lifted. The two western towers disappeared during the fire of 1734. The last one, on the Northeast, was dismantled in 1766. The remains of a tower are still in the granary of the present palace.

The dungeons

Two sturdy dungeons stood beyond the towers. The first, which used to serve as a gateway to the Notgérian enclosure, dominated his eminence's kitchen garden, which stretched to the west of the palace till the degree of Saint-Pierre. In this dungeon, the officials held their prisoners in jails. The other stood at the northeast corner of the third courtyard of the palace, entirely enclosed by high walls. This was the pleasure garden of the Prince-Bishop. It was also there that the people assembled in palace to the sound of a big bell. This large round tower was crowned with a high conical bell tower, topped by a spike adorned with a golden globe. The painter van Eyck had accurately noted these details in his description of the centre of the city in the second decade of the fifteenth century.

The gate

A new portal on this façade was erected by Jean de Heinsberg in 1449.

Function and evolution of the Episcopal palace

Urban as it was, this Episcopal residence only slowly broke with its country past. Like all the castles of the time, the palace of Liège retained a strong smell of manure, stables and kennel. Fish swam in its pool, its cellars contained barrels of wine and dried meats, its granaries, grain. In the charter of 1196, Albert de Cuyck had reserved the monopoly of selling his dried meats before Lent, and at Easter his wine and finally at Saint-Jean on June 24 his grain.

The mills

These grains were crushed in two nearby mills, working thanks to  the Legia river. The mill au cheneau was behind Saint-Pierre, behind the garden of his eminence, and the other the mill au bra stood not far from the granary, at the bottom and on the left of an alley overlooking the market opposite he little church of Saint-Michel in foro (or On-The-Market). From one mill to another, an arm of the Legia crossed the two courtyards of the Palace, serving as a watering place, to the washerwomen, grooms and cooks, before continuing its course through the Market and beyond. These banal mills will be ceded to the Chapter of Saint-Lambert, which will rent them to various operators.

Business Development

This role of domanial centre will be attenuated whereas in the city, the craft industry, the trade, the circulation of money will take more and more importance. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the céarie was divided into two superimposed halls, the scohiers or pelletiers occupied the ground floor, the drapers were on the upper floor. Also, shops will crowd up in front of the facades of the palace, Rue des Mineurs, rue Sainte-Ursule, on the old Market between the Palace and the cathedral where the judicial duels took place. Adolphe de La Marck, in 1343, built a high gallery between the palace and the cathedral. It was in 1449 that John de Heinsberg had the Gothic portal built, which can be seen on the map of Johan Blaeu, and built large stables.

The end of the palace of Heinsberg

The wars of independence against the Dukes of Burgundy from 1465 to 1468, the Burgundian occupation from 1467 to 1477, the civil war from 1482 to 1492 strongly degraded the palace, and the last bishop of the Middle-Ages, Jean de Hornes, stopped residing there. In November 1505, a fire started  in the stables, and the new bishop Érard de La Marck from November 1505 took twenty years to rebuild almost entirely the main residence of the bishops of Liège.

The Palace of Érard de la Marck

Érard de la Marck, prince-bishop, patron and great traveller

In 1508, Érard de La Marck, 55th bishop of Liège, laid the foundations of the present palace, which was completed only after 32 years. When the bishop of Liège began to build this palace, he was at an age when large enterprises are conceived, and where there is the energy necessary to put them into execution; He was only 36 years old. Erard de la Marck was an intelligent man; he was generous and passionate about science and the arts and those who cultivated them. In this he followed the example of his contemporaries Leo X and Francis Ist. He called the famous Erasmus to Liege, and gave to Lambert Sutermann (Lambert Lombard), the great painter of Liège, the means to travel to Italy, to study the masterpieces of the masters and develop his talent. It was quite natural that a man like Erard de La Marck should also pay attention to architecture; he raised the walls of the city, and provided them with bastions to protect Liege from the incursions of foreigners. Then he added a portal to the Cathedral of St. Paul, in which one notices a sculpture representing the conversion of St. Peter. It was logical that such an important prelate should think of erecting a palace worthy of his office and city; the part which remains of it can make us presume its grandeur and its sumptuousness. In the year 1577, Queen Marguerite de Valois, wife of Henri IV, during a journey she made to the Netherlands, also visited Liège; here is her description of the palace:

The bishop having received me, coming out of my boat, led me to his finest palace, from which he had dislodged to lodge me, which is, for a town-house, the most beautiful and comfortable that can be Seeing, having several beautiful fountains, and several gardens and galleries, all so painted, so gilded, and furnished with so much marble, that there is nothing more magnificent and more delicious.

To have struck to this point a French princess, accustomed to the riches of the palaces of Fontainebleau, Blois, Amboise, and Rambouillet, the palace of the bishop of Liège must have really become magnificent; but it is vain to seek this magnificence to-day. The gardens are destroyed, the fountains no longer exist, the galleries no longer offer paintings, and the marbles have disappeared: the beautiful galleries were encumbered as early as the eighteenth century by shops and merchants; in the apartments of the prince-bishop were installed the different tribunals, the archives, and even a prison for women, and so on. The facade will disappeared; the one situated on the Place Saint-Lambert was erected in 1734, following a great fire which destroyed the primitive facade. Cardinal Édard de La Marck died on March 18, 1538, two years before the completion of the palace he had begun.

Patron

Érard de La Marck also granted Lambert Lombard (1505 - 1566), his painter in title as early as 1532, a special protection. He entrusted him with the task of acquiring in Italy works of art designed to decorate the palace, which was to be completed before 1536. He was also very interested in tapestry. He had in Liège, since 1533 twelve series distributed in seventy tapestries. Among the subjects treated, besides the scenes of the Old and the New Testament, were ancient subjects and modern subjects related to the voyages and discoveries of the time. He was also passionate about stained glass and furniture.

Great Traveller

• The itineraries of this great traveller will certainly have an influence on the arrangement and decoration of the palace. Here are its main itineraries, the very frequent small trips to Brussels, Malines, Antwerp, Lille, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Maastricht, Sedan, not being noted:
  • 1485: Cologne
  • 1503: Rome
  • 1505: Paris
  • 1506: Blois with King Louis XII
  • 1507: long time in France
  • 1509: Bourges, Lyon, Agnadel, Peschiera, Cremona, Milan, Cologne
  • 1510: Metz, Vigny at Georges d'Amboise's, Tours
  • 1511: Blois, Grenoble, Lyon
  • 1514: Saint-Germain, Paris, Beauvais, Saint-Denis
  • 1515: Paris, Reims with François Ier
  • 1517: last trip to France
  • 1519: Mainz, Frankfurt
  • 1520: Cologne, Aachen, Worms
  • 1521: Worms, Mainz - Augsburg, Essling, Cologne

Building the palace

Similarity and originality

Despite many transformations, the palace will keep its disposition. The whole structure is centred on the two courtyards which follow one another in a longitudinal axis and which, today, still represent a vast quadrilateral. One must probably refer to the châteaux of France and the Italian and German palaces that Erard de La Marck was allowed to visit or inhabit.

General affiliation

All the monuments of the Renaissance bear, with few exceptions, a mark of similarity which easily indicates their common origin, the study of ancient monuments, and the application of their principles to new edifices. This is proved by the architecture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy, that of the sixteenth in France and Germany, as well as the Spanish renaissance. England stands aside here; the Romans had little practiced the art of building public monuments, and at the time when all the other peoples of Europe were returning to the ancient traditions of art, England created a particular renaissance, called Tudor style by the English antique dealers, and which began in the reign of Henry VIII, about 1509, to last until the middle of the sixteenth century, when the style of Elizabeth was finally to replace it and push back forever the rib and its system.

Among the monuments which are an exception to this general rule, one must include the Episcopal palace of Liège. He is remarkable for the originality of his style and the strangeness of many of his details. It is the only one of its kind, and combines reminiscences of the architecture of the fifteenth century of France and some details of the Tudor architecture. Placed in a country which touches France, whose coasts look, so to say, over those of England, and, borders Germany to the East, the Episcopal palace of Liège seems to unite in part the contemporary style of these three countries. One sees in it the French elegance, the English sadness and monotony, and the slightly overloaded taste of ornamentation of Germany.

The map of Leonardo da Vinci

The plan of the Liège palace corresponds quite exactly to that drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci for a construction that it called the palazzo of the principle known to be compared project of castle of Romorantin of François I. It is not impossible that Érard de La Marck was aware of this work. The plan and the drawings show the presence of two courtyards, the second of which is slightly oblong and placed in the same longitudinal axis, the existence in the second courtyard of two galleries of columns and a circular basin. Finally the drawing of an overview shows the location of the square towers that can be found on the engraving of Johannes Blaeu.

The plan of Leonardo da Vinci

The plan of the Liège palace corresponds quite exactly to that drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci for a construction that he called il palazzo del principe known to be compared to the project of the castle of Romorantin of François I. It is not impossible that Érard de La Marck was aware of this work. The plan and the drawings show the presence of two courtyards, the second of which is slightly oblong and placed in the same longitudinal axis, the existence in the second courtyard of two galleries of columns and a circular basin. Finally the drawing of an overview shows the location of the square towers that can be found on the engraving of Johannes Blaeu.

The wing Louis XII of the castle of Blois

Other similarities must be sought between the Liège palace and the wing Louis XII of the castle of Blois where essentially Italianism is still very limited in this castle in Gothic style. They are found in thhe general order and the proportions of the three main elements: a ground floor forming a gallery, a floor with mullioned windows, and a high roof with dormers emerging to become an essential element of the decoration.

A strange architect

The unknown architect of this edifice had great fecundity of imagination, fantastic ideas, which he has perhaps nourished by reading the accounts of the voyages and descriptions of the Chevalier Jean de Mandeville, who, after having traversed the three parts of the world then known, returned to write his travels’ impressions to Liège, where he died in 1372. As for the taste of our architect, we cannot say that he was the best or the noblest. His work is heavy, massive, lame, and disagreeable to the eye who loves harmony and nobility. Moreover, apart from these reminiscences, one notices in the courtyard of the palace of the bishop of Liège, isolated columns of the most bizarre and fantastic conception. These columns, so eccentric in style, do not have the least analogy with any of those known in Europe. They resemble a few columns used in Mexican or Indian monuments, which is almost inexplicable. Towards the time of the construction of the monument, the Asiatic goods offered to the northern nations of Europe were brought to Antwerp on Portuguese vessels arriving from India. Trade came in exchange for the productions of the great manufactures of the Netherlands. Liège was then famous for its sheets, its irons, its making of edge-tools and its boiler making. The architect of the Episcopal palace would have found himself in contact with Portuguese navigators, art lovers, who would have told him or showed drawings of what they had seen in India or in Mexico, and who would have told him how were made certain columns of monuments they would have seen in that country.

The contractor Art van Mulkim

The work began in 1526 and progressed rapidly since a part of the buildings was made available to the prince and his entourage as early as 1533. At that time the chimneys were already installed. The pavement of the main courtyard over its entire extent between the four galleries is completed the following year. This contract of the year of grace 1534 cites the name of the builder of the palace: Art van Mulkim. This type of work is carried out only when the important cartages are completed. The work of completion was thus carried out until 1536. Érard de La Marck probably did not have at his disposal architects or artists brought from over the mountains and likely to make the constructive principles of the Renaissance progress in Liège. No other source cites the prime contractor Art van Mulkim on whom the dignitary must certainly had to count on. Coming from Tongeren to Liege, between 1520 and 1525 he had completed the choir of the collegiate church of Saint-Martin in severe Gothic style, and since 1513 he had continued the rebuilding of the Saint-Jacques abbey church in the style of the Gothic flamboyant. It is probable that Art van Mulkim would have persevered in this direction if Erard de La Marck had not given his instructions. The palace had to fulfil conditions which only the prince-bishop could fix. He had to respond to his aspirations for architecture, astonishing his contemporaries. The Liégeois thus saw appearing on the palace, constructive elements and ornamental forms hitherto unknown.

The Court of Honor

It is especially the courtyard of the Episcopal palace of Liège that attracts attention. It is rectangular, 59 m. long on 42 m. wide, and surrounded by an open gallery, formed of 68 columns and 4 corner pillars, composed of a bundle of pilasters and columns, supporting 60 arcades. The gallery of the perimeter is 5.60 m. with an elevation of 6.50 m. The drawings formed by the ribs of the vaults of this gallery appear on the plan. Three different corner compartments offer a wide variety. The transverse ribs of the vault of the gallery do not form, as in the Antwerp stock exchange, the lowered arch. In the Liège palace it is the rib that is used, but the centre point of the two arcs of which it is composed is much lower than the beginning of these arcs, which gives an odd effect. To the left of the plan, the nests of the vault, rising above a canopy or a sort of console, crown the capital inside.

To the right of the plan is an escutcheon. It reproduces the coat of arms of the founding bishop, placed above and in the axis of the arcades, outside. These escutcheons were painted. Above the staircase of the columns on the ground floor outside, a fine column stands, crowned with a capital with foliage and surmounted by a small statuette. Among the elegant windows on the first floor, some are crowned with the lowered bow, and others terminate in the Tudor arch or lowered arch. Below these windows, and above the arcades, reigns a solid part decorated with a blind gallery, against which are supported the backs of the vaults.

The peristyle

According to early art historians, the detail of the columns would lead, if one wanted to make it complete, to a small volume, work that would not make them known in a perfect way without adding their photograph. They are all varied and of various forms. The majority resemble balusters, others are surmounted by a cippe, and adorned with acanthus, aquatic leaves, and grotesque heads and figures. They have some resemblances, in some of their details, with the pedestals of the northern gate of the Cathedral of Chartres. These pedestals are the only ones of their form that we knew in the architecture of the Middle-Ages. They have something of the architecture of India, which cannot be explained.

The influence of Erasmus

If on the whole the peristyle suggests an impression of perfect unity. How not to be struck by the strange disparity of the ornaments covering the columns and the unusual character of the carved decoration which nevertheless gives an impression of great balance? Corresponding with Erasmus, Érard de La Marck probably wanted to symbolize his major work...

The sculptors, who conceived these powerful elements of the first court in a robust, sometimes rough and naive art, seem to have cared to attach them strongly to the ground, even to give them a certain heaviness of appearance. This bulbous form that tightens up the columns, in a very characteristic way, is unique in the Pays de Liège and absolutely new for the time. The shafts consist of a superimposition of elements, absolutely distinct and almost independent of one another. In other words, they are not homogeneous, giving them an unusual and clearly anticlassical silhouette. Philippe de Hurges believed them to be monolithic: juxtaposed with incredible precision, the joints being little or not at all visible. At the eastern end of the northern gallery, nine pedestals of the sixty make an exception to the rule; they are of quadrangular forms, akin to the pedestals of Tuscan order of classical antiquity. This exception being made, the result is that the capitals of the Palace of Liège have nothing in common with Antiquity, as taken up in the art of the classical Renaissance in Italy. It seems, however, that this influence is Italian.

If, on the whole, the peristyle suggests an impression of perfect unity, how not to be struck by the strange disparity of ornaments covering the columns and the unusual character of the carved decoration? But if this effect is perfectly valid for the magnificent games of perspective of the galleries, fantasy alone will take over as soon as one details the capricious compromises of these sixty columns. If the decoration uses flowers and fruits, we quickly find smiling figures, a ferocious mule, monstrous masks that seem to sneer and at first seem heteroclite. Yet they are human figures, essential figures of the decoration of all the capitals, since each of them has at least four, one on each side. But many pedestals are also ornate with them. If the vegetal element of the capitals can be directly linked to the Gothic period by its acclaimed relief of cabbage leaf, typical of the medieval tradition, these human faces reveal rather a reference to the Renaissance.

The nave of the fools

If these grimacing faces already appeared in the fifteenth century, their multiplicity, presented in whimsical and caricatured features, must have a more pointed or particular explanation. There are no less than 250 masks for the capitals of the main courtyard. And why in the dwelling of a dignitary of the church would we find a program so rich and so prolix with masks of astounded, grave, foolish or hilarious wide-eyed under a horned forehead or looking like fauns, never presented anywhere in the Renaissance, and little in keeping with the humanistic tradition. One might imagine that the Cardinal's travels beyond the Alps could have influenced this choice, but in the peninsula the mask of the Renaissance remains attractive and does not want to be caricatural or monstrous. But if these masks are curiously surrounded by cabbage leaves, they wear a hood, symbol of their condition. At the foot of the columns, exploited by the sculptors, claws seem to realize the transition between the base proper of the column and its square plinth: without being hidden by the plant elements of the capitals, these faces reveal their long pointed ears detaching themselves from the hood which encloses their faces. This is crazy crazy, a crazy ship, as described by Sébastien Brant in La nef des fous, a major work of the end of the Middle Ages and which will serve as a basis for the major work of one of the greatest humanists of the Renaissance: the praise of the madness of Erasmus, which Erard de la Marck met at Blois, and with whom the prelate will entertain a long correspondence.

 

La Porta della Rana

Les premiers historiens d'art ont imaginé voir cette influence dans la chartreuse de Pavie, mais il est difficile de rattacher cette source à la région mosane et comment elle aurait rayonné d'au delà des Alpes vers la région liégeoise. Un autre édifice italien présente d'autres similitudes : la cathédrale Santa Maria Assunta de Côme et plus particulièrement le portail septentrional : la Porta della Rana présente les formes bulbeuses des colonnes du palais de Liège et qui juxtapose les pierres sans se soucier de leurs relations réciproques, comme si l'essentiel était décoratif et que le regard va immédiatement dissocier. Les Rodari, sculpteurs réputés, ont comme à Liège, eurent recours à des pièces en forme d'anneaux, bombés ou planes, pour séparer les éléments les uns des autres. Il semble également que les piédestaux de forme quadrangulaire soit reproduits à Liège. Les monuments commémoratifs sur la façade de la cathédrale dédiés à Pline l'Ancien et Pline le Jeune présentent les mêmes similitudes avec les sculptures de Liège sans toutefois déployer la dextérité des maîtres italiens.

From the Renaissance to the end of the Ancien Régime

Gérard de Groesbeek will be the first successor of Érard de La Marck to carry out works whose traces are preserved. It was during his reign that the vaults of the first court were repaired. The eastern gallery carries coats of arms and a chronogram confirming this rehabilitation: ExeM pLo a groIsbeke tIbI praeVnte gerarDo (1568).

Foreign visitors, such as the Florentine Guichardin in 1567 and Marguerite de Valois ten years later, described the opulence of the palace, which soon became the residence of the princes of the powerful house of Bavaria, which for 136 years monopolized the The episcopal seat of Liège.

Ernest of Bavaria

Ernest of Bavaria had received a careful education in Bavaria and Italy. Intelligent, courteous, curious, he liked to surround himself with musicians, scholars and savants. True Prince of the Renaissance, he was passionate about astrology and sciences in general, possessing even some instruments. The accumulation of his dignities, archbishop of Cologne, bishop of Freising and of Hildesheim, did not prevent him from attending to the affairs of Liège. In 1584 he had acquired a large and discreet property in Outremeuse, the Hotel Porquin, where he liked to retire. In 1603, he made a gift of this house to the Company of Mercy, to establish there a hospital which for four centuries will bear their name: the Hospital of Bavaria. At the Palace, he merely restored the vaults. The north wing displays its coat of arms and his chronogram: o DVX reXqE e erneste LabantIa baVare fIrmas (1587).

Ferdinand of Bavaria

Ferdinand of Bavaria, nephew and successor of Ernest, was equally well-off with many profits. He was at the same time devout, mediocre and authoritarian. He had the misfortune to reign during the Thirty Years' War (1618 - 1648), which complicated the affairs of Liège, and was incessantly in conflict with the trades of the City. Peace, re-established by the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, enabled him to turn his arms against his subjects, to abrogate the old corporate regime, and to share power with some great noble or bourgeois families. To keep the people of Liege obedient, he had a citadel built on the heights of Sainte-Walburge. Ferdinand of Bavaria did not reside practically in his Liège palace and retained the aspect which Erard de la Marck had given it. The description of 1615 by Philippe de Hurges is a sharp testimony that will record the shops housed under the gallery of the first court, the mathematical instrument of Ernest of Bavaria who had just passed away, and he is surprised that the floors are devoid of running water, but he goes into raptures before the fountains of the second court, and the opulence of the princely apartments.

The palace

Here is the description given by Victor Hugo of the court of the palace of the ecclesiastical princes of Liège in 1840:

"This grave edifice is today the palace of justice. Boutiques of booksellers and dealers in fancy goods have been installed under all its arches. A vegetable market is held in the courtyard. We see the black robes of busy practitioners passing among the large baskets full of red and purple cabbages. Groups of merry Flemish merchants jargon and quarrel before each pillar; angry pleadings emerge from all these windows; and in this dark courtyard, formerly gathered and silent like a cloister of which it has the form, crosses and perpetually mixes today the double and inexhaustible word of the lawyer and the gossip, chatter and babbling. "

Prefecture

Meeting of the Palais de Justice and the Palais Provincial

Located on Notger Square, the neo-Gothic palace leaning against the Palace of the Princes-Bishops is built by Jean-Charles Delsaux to house the administration of the Province of Liège without building since the fire of the Convent of the Bons-Enfants in 1845. Leopold I laid the first stone of the palace in 1849, it was finished in 1853.

The decoration of the west facade of the palace is envisaged from the beginning but it was realized only about 30 years later for financial reasons.

The facade contains no less than 42 statues, 19 bas-reliefs depicting figures and highlights of the history of Liege, 29 coats of arms representing the cities of the Principality of Liège and the 32 coats of arms of the corporations of Liège. These works are produced by 12 sculptors under the direction of Lambert Noppius. Among the sculptors are Jules Halkin, Léon Mignon, Mathieu and Alphonse de Tombay...