The Garden Grounds of Wörlitz in the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm

Developed in the second half of the eighteenth century as the earliest landscaped garden in Central Europe, the garden grounds of Wörlitz are the heart of the Dessau-Wörlitz garden realm. When Prince Leopold Friedrich Franz (1740–1817) became regent in Anhalt-Dessau in 1758, he introduced multifaceted reforms, with youthful energy and daring, to advance his country’s economy, wealth, and education. His embrace of new architectural and landscape garden-design principles reflected his enlightened-humanistic sensibility. In a way, the garden grounds of Wörlitz were an antithesis to the stringent and artificial Baroque style that was then customary.