The later Prince Bishop of Speyer and builder of the Bruchsal Residence Palace came from an influential family that held numerous ecclesiastical and secular offices and maintained a lively exchange of technical and artistic knowledge through close relations. His family was one of the most active building dynasties of the age. Schönborn's achievements include the establishment of a modern administration, a flourishing economy and educational system, and he is thought of very highly for building the Bruchsal Residence Palace as his life's work. He has "built up the walls and the virtues" ("muros et mores aedificavit"). His portrait is immortalized in the dome of the Bruchsal staircase.
This cardinal was also born into an important family and became Schönborn's brilliant successor as bishop of Speyer. He completed the interior appointments and attachments to the facade of Bruchsal Palace in the style of the merry Rococo. For this work he selected famous artists such as Feuchtmayer, Günther and Zick.
The popular baroque architect was principle architect in Würzburg from 1720 and from 1723 seldom and then only briefly in Bruchsal on the request of Damian Hugo von Schönborn. He brought about the turn of events with regard to the building problems in Bruchsal when he planned the main palace building there in 1731. His solution of the famous staircase with two stairways in the palace is considered the pinnacle of baroque interior design. Neumann carried on extensive exchange of letters with von Schönborn, and this correspondence is still provides an excellent insight into the building history of the residence today.
Markgravine Amalie von Baden used the northern half of Bruchsal Palace as her widow's seat, where she lived from 1810. The born princess of Hessen-Darmstadt had married her cousin, Margrave Karl Ludwig von Baden (1755-1801), in 1774. She had six daughters and one son. Amalie wed her daughters to the great princely courts, which earned her the name "Europe's mother-in-law". The mother of Prince Elector Karl (1786-1818) did not consent to the marriage of her son with Stephanie Beauharnais, Napoleon's niece and adopted daughter, to whom she then had a less than loving relationship. With the death of Margravine Amalie, the royal life at Bruchsal Palace came to an end.