Electoral Palace

The Archbishops of Mainz originally resided directly at the cathedral. After the election of Diether von Isenburg in 1475, he committed to building a castle in Mainz. Thus, from 1478, the Martinsburg was erected on the banks of the Rhine, completed in 1480, serving as the new residence for the archbishops. Following destruction in the Margrave War of 1552, the castle was rebuilt in Renaissance style and expanded with a chancellery building and the palace church of St. Gangolf. During the Thirty Years' War, construction of the current Electoral Palace began in 1627 under Archbishop Georg Friedrich von Greiffenklau. This construction, whose Rhine wing was only completed in 1687, was delayed due to wartime events and the War of the Palatine Succession.