Gotha

Gotha prospered at the meeting of the Via Regia and a road across the Thuringian Forest. Already a town in 1180, it passed from the Ludowingian landgraves to the Wettins in 1247. Clothmaking and the trade in woad sustained its merchants. Since the town lacked a river, Landgrave Balthasar ordered the Leinakanal built in 1369 to bring water from the forest.

Gotha became a ducal residence in 1640 under Ernest the Pious. Even amid the Thirty Years' War, he reorganized his small state and introduced compulsory schooling for children up to twelve. His great palace of Friedenstein rose between 1643 and 1654, with a library founded in 1650. The ducal court encouraged learning and the arts: the Almanach de Gotha first appeared in 1763, and a porcelain manufactory followed in 1767. Around 1800 the publishers Justus Perthes and Joseph Meyer helped make Gotha a centre of German publishing.