Church of Peace

The Protestant Peace Church in the Marlygarten at the entrance of Sanssouci Park was built between 1845 and 1854 to plans guided by King Frederick William IV. The king sketched designs himself and chose the Rundbogenstil – a revival of early Christian and Italian Romanesque churches. San Clemente in Rome was the model. Inside dominates an original 12th-century Byzantine apse mosaic that Frederick William bought from the Venetian island church of San Cipriano and had shipped to Potsdam. The king and Queen Elisabeth are buried in a crypt below; the adjoining Kaiser Friedrich Mausoleum of 1888 holds Emperor Frederick III and his wife Victoria. The church sits in an Italianate ensemble of campanile, atrium and parsonage – a piece of Roman longing transplanted into Brandenburg, embedded in the UNESCO World Heritage palaces and parks of Potsdam.