Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Erdmannsdorff (18 May 1736 – 9 March 1800) was a German architect and architectural theoretician, and one of the most significant representatives of early German Neoclassicism during the Age of Enlightenment. His work included Wörlitz Palace in the present-day Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm, one of the earliest Palladian buildings on the European continent. His most well-known student was Friedrich Gilly, the teacher of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Life Erdmannsdorff was born in Dresden to the Saxon courtier, Baron Ernst Ferdinand von Erdmannsdorff, and his wife Henriette Margarethe, née von Heßler. After early stages of education with Jakob Mauvillon in Leipzig and at the Dresden knight academy from 1750 to 1754, Erdmannsdorff attended the University of Wittenberg in 1754–1758, where he encountered Prince Franz von Anhalt-Dessau, whose service he entered in 1758. His later fame is due his works for the prince in his Wörlitz pleasureground near the Dessau residence. At the age of twenty three Erdmannsdorff become a Freemason and was initiated at the illustrious Minerva Zu Den Drei Palmen (Minerva to the three palm trees) lodge on 23 August 1759. In accordance with the educational ideals of the Enlightenment, the prince had the aim of reorganising his surrounding lands into a cohesive 'Garden Realm' (Gartenreich) in the style of an English landscape garden. In addition to the beautification of the landscape, cottages of various architectural styles, antique temples, bridges and memorials were to be erected and to be made accessible to everyone. Franz employed his friend and architect Erdmannsdorff to design the architectural arrangement of the grounds. Between 1761 and 1775 on several grand tours to Italy, Holland, England, France and Switzerland, Erdmannsdorff gathered ideas for the architectural arrangement of the Wörlitz grounds. Accompanying the Prince, he got to know the style of the Scottish architects Robert and James Adam (the Adams Style). At the same time he was impressed by the architect William Chambers. In Rome Erdmannsdorff made the acquaintance of the archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann and the painter Charles Louis Clérisseau, and contacted the master builder Giovanni Battista Piranesi and painter Jakob Philipp Hackert. The contemporary art and culture of England made a particular impression on Erdmannsdorff as well as Prince Franz. The Palladian architecture in England, inspired by the Palladian Villas of the 16th century, can be seen replicated in Erdmannsdorff's later creations and was the strongest influence on his work next to the