Schwetzingen Palace is first mentioned in 1350 as a medieval water castle. Elector John William had it rebuilt from 1697 as a hunting lodge, under Count Matteo Alberti and the Heidelberg architect Johann Adam Breunig. Charles IV Theodore later made it a summer residence. The article names no palace style.
The garden mixes a strict French garden with an English landscape garden. Nicolas de Pigage expanded it to 70 hectares (173 acres) in 1752. Its features include the Minerva temple of 1769, a mosque built from 1779 to 1791, the Arion fountain and a rococo theater. The article gives the theater's opening as 1752 in one place and 1753 in another.
The palace was destroyed toward the end of the Thirty Years' War and again in the War of the Palatine Succession. A major restoration of the electoral and ducal apartments ran from 1975 to 1991. The garden is publicly accessible, and guided tours cover the palace and theater.
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