Heidelberg

Calvinism made the city's name. Ottheinrich brought in the Reformation in 1556, his successor Frederick III turned the Palatinate to Calvin's teaching, the Heidelberg Catechism appeared in 1563, and students and scholars came from all over western Europe to what was counted a third Geneva after Leiden. Late in the century the castle grew from a medieval stronghold into a Renaissance residence, and Frederick V laid out the Hortus Palatinus there for his English bride, Elizabeth Stuart. His acceptance of the Bohemian crown in 1619 brought the ruin. After his defeat at White Mountain, Tilly took Heidelberg in September 1622, and Maximilian I of Bavaria gave the Palatine Library, kept in the Church of the Holy Spirit, to the pope.

Worse followed when the electoral line died out in 1685 and Louis XIV pressed a claim to the inheritance. French troops took Heidelberg and laid it waste in 1688 and again in 1693, destroying almost every Renaissance house and leaving the castle uninhabitable. The town was rebuilt in Baroque style on its medieval street plan, but when the burghers resisted a new palace on the plain, Elector Charles III Philip moved his court to Mannheim in 1720, and Heidelberg lost both its rank and much of its living. Repairs to the castle stopped after lightning set it ablaze in 1764, and the abandoned ruin was quarried for stone to build the elector's summer palace at Schwetzingen.