Grand Masters’ Palace
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Transcript
The Grand Master was not a hereditary king. He was elected within a religious order, yet from here he governed a territorial state. That unusual combination explains the palace: it had to support a monastic office, diplomatic court and executive government at the same time.
The architecture therefore became more refined than the austere image people often associate with military orders. Audiences, councils and visiting envoys required spaces designed for ceremony. The palace shows the tension at the heart of Teutonic Prussia: an institution founded for religious warfare had developed the routines and visual language of a European state.