SCHILLER's GARDEN HOUSE of the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Opening Hours
- 01. April through 31. October: Tuesday through Sunday  11am -5pm
- 01. November through 31. March: Tuesday through Saturday  11am -5pm
- closed on public holidays

Entrance Fee: : 2,50 Euro (reduced rate  1,30 Euro)
Guided Tours:   up to  20 people (about 30 min) lump sum: 15,00 Euro
Events:  6,00 € (reduced rate: 3,00 €)

Address:  
Schillers Gartenhaus
07745 Jena
Schillergäßchen 2

Telefon: (03641) 931188
Fax:        (03641) 931187

Friedrich Schiller, who lived in Jena since 1789, bought the garden house, located behind the city walls, in March of 1797 for 1050 thaler.   Together with his wife Charlotte, their two little sons, and three servants they spent the summer months of 1797 through 1799 at this site.   During this time Schiller wrote many of his ballads, major parts of the "Wallenstein" drama, as well as the beginning of "Maria Stuart".  After his move to Weimar Schiller again tarried a few weeks, in April of  1801, in his Jena garden house, where he wrote Parts of  "Joan of Arc". 

The ground floor of the house displays a exhibition on Schiller's years in Jena and his life in the house.  The first floor houses Charlotte's salon and her bedroom.  On the second floor the visitor can explore Schiller's office, his bedroom, and the little room of his servant Gottlieb Rudolf. 

1798 Schiller had a little tower built in the southwest corner of the garden.  Goethe called it "Schiller's garden pinnacle", cause it stood like a pinnacle on the garden wall.  The lower part contained a bathroom, upstairs was a little office where the poet had the quietness for his work and a grand view of the Jena countryside.   

The kitchen had to be moved to the northwest corner of the garden since Schiller didn't like to smell kitchen odors throughout the house.  In the garden grew a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs,and flowers.    

According to a historic plan, which Schiller once received from a student of Mathematics, the plot has been reconstructed in the second half of the 20th century. 

In his garden Schiller hosted many a celebrity: the poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta, the philosophers Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, the romanticists Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Caroline von Humboldt, Friedrich Hölderlin's concubine Susette Gontard, and the sister of  Bettina Brentano, Sophie. 

When Schiller moved to Weimar in December of 1799, he rented out his plot with the house.  In 1802 he sold it to the lawyer Thibaut, since he then owned a grand mansion in Weimar, which now hosts the Schiller Museum.   

There are parking lots in front of the Theater and west of  Schiller's Garden.