High above the Lahn River is Weilburg Palace, one of Germany’s most wholly-preserved small residences from the age of Absolutism. Built in the 16th century, the four-winged, Renaissance complex houses two parlors, formerly a backdrop for official state activities, such as tributes to newly-invested counts or court proceedings. Beginning in 1702, the palace was expanded by J.L. Rothweil into a Baroque residence. In order to achieve an appropriate space for Baroque functions and courtly ceremonies, he had built a grand stairwell, a magnificent guest wing, as well as the new residential and drawing rooms for the count’s family. The structural sequence and sumptuous decoration were inspired by the large courts of Europe. The guardhouse, royal stables, farmyard, and administrative buildings were rebuilt. The palace church, constructed according to plans by J.L. Rothweil from 1707–1713, is considered Hesse’s most significant Protestant church building of the Baroque era. The 16th-century Renaissance garden was designed in the style of French garden architecture by the court gardener F. Lemaire. Two orangeries, water features, grottoes, sculptures, as well as the typically Baroque division into symmetrical compartments with the palace as a reference point, adorn the split-level garden spaces. Surrounded by supporting walls and connected by a linden bosquet, these extend over two plateaus of the hill. The upper, more elaborately-decorated orangery unites a greenhouse with a banquet hall and at the same time, permits direct access from the count’s residence to the oratorium in the palace church. At the steep hill beneath the garden terrace is the “Gebück” – an expression referring to the intertwined, multiple rows of planted hornbeams.  An impenetrable natural defensive wall used from the Middle Ages well into the 18th century, it marked boundaries and protected from military invasion. Since then, this forested area has been creatively incorporated into the garden’s design.