Maria Sophia of Thurn and Taxis. Paul Wilhelm, a natural scientist and explorer, displayed ethnological, zoological, and botanical specimens and curios collected in his travels in twenty of the palace's rooms. Baron Carl Joseph von Adelsheim managed the Duke's collection, and his own collection of antiquities would later form the basis of the Mergentheim Palace Museum. Public property As a result of the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic, Staatliche Schlosser und Garten announced on 17 March 2020 the closure of all its monuments and cancellation of all events until 3 May. Monuments began reopening in early May, from 1 May to 17 May. Palace and grounds The palace comprises two ringed complexes, the inner residential and the outer administrative, that together cover an area of . The palace began as a pentagonal castle that was first enlarged in 1169. As of 2020, the oldest surviving portion of the complex are the remains of a 13th-century keep to the southeast. Beginning in 1568, the castle was expanded and rebuilt in the prevailing Renaissance style. The palace was again expanded, and remodeled in the Baroque style, by Grand Masters Francis Louis of Palatinate-Neuburg and Clemens August of Bavaria. An outer ring of buildings, farm buildings and what are now the archive building and the Trapponei, was built from the 16th to 18th centuries and, over several phases, joined into one contiguous wing. The palace is entered through a gatehouse, which is followed in the outer ring by the archive building, then the Trapponei, an administrative building. This is followed by the carriage house, the Bandhaus, the seminary, the rear gate, the Flughaus, riding hall, a barn, and finally the orangery. Inner ring The palace church was designed and built from 1730 to 1736 by , a stuccoist from Mergentheim who received the counsel of renowned architects Balthasar Neumann and François de Cuvilliés. The ceiling fresco, Glorification of the Cross in Heaven and on Earth, was painted by Munich court painter Johann Nikolaus Stuber. The structure has a nave flanked by a choir on the east of the nave and two galleries on its west, and a royal box accessed from the second floor of the residential building. The church was consecrated on 30 September 1736 and dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Elisabeth of Thuringia, and George of Lydda. It was secularized by decree of the King of Württemberg in 1817. A crypt for the