Jüngerer Dalberger Hof

Jüngerer Dalberger Hof stands in Mainz as a Baroque manor house completed in 1718 for the Dalberg barons. Its three-storey complex surrounds an inner courtyard, while a central risalit faces Klarastraße. Johann Kaspar Herwarthel designed the building between 1715 and 1718.

Four Dalberg brothers commissioned the estate, marking their contribution with the inscription “Harmony among brothers built it”. A sandstone cartouche preserves the earlier Brendel von Homburg family’s coat of arms. Behind the corps de logis, three wings once enclosed a garden possibly designed by Johann Baptist Ferolski. Rich furnishings and ceiling paintings by Giovanni Francesco Marchini largely disappeared during the siege of Mainz in 1793.

The entrances once carried carved wild boar heads, giving the manor its former nickname. Their keystones lost those sculptures when the building became a palace of justice in 1828. Police offices, a court and a prison later occupied the complex, including a National Socialist-era prison for political prisoners, Jews, Sinti, Roma and forced labourers. A 1945 air raid damaged the building, while a memorial plaque and the courtyard’s place on the Street of Democracy preserve its difficult history.