Despite this untoward happening, Ludwig remained an ardent Phil-Hellene; and, as such, conceived the idea of converting his capital into a mixture of Athens and Florence and a metropolis of all the arts. Under his fostering care, Munich was brought to bed of a succession of temples and columns, and sprouted pillars and porticoes in every direction. The slums and alleys and huddle of houses in the old enceinte were swept away, and replaced by broad boulevards, fringed with museums and churches and picture galleries. For many of the principal public buildings he went to good models. Thus, one of them, the Königsbau, was copied from the Pitti Palace; a second from the Loggia de' Lanzi; and a third from St. Paul's at Rome. He also built a Walhalla, at Ratisbon, in which to preserve the effigies of his more distinguished countrymen. Yet, although it ran to size, there was no niche in it for Luther.
In his patronage of the fine arts, Ludwig followed in the footsteps of the Medici. During his regime, he did much to raise the standard of taste among his subjects. Martin Wagner and von Hallerstein were commissioned by him to travel in Greece and Italy and secure choice sculpture and pictures for his galleries and museums. The best of them found a home in the Glyptothek and the Pinakothek, two enormous buildings in the Doric style, the cost of which he met from his privy purse. Another of his hobbies was to play the Maecenas; and any budding author or artist who came to him with a manuscript in his pocket or a canvas under his arm was certain of a welcome.
We all have our little weaknesses. That of Ludwig of Bavaria was that he was a poet. He was so sure of this that he not only produced yards of turgid verse, defying every law of construction and metre, but he even had some of it printed. A volume of selections from his Muse, entitled Walhalla's Genossen, was published for him by Baron Cotta, and, like the Indian shawls of Queen Victoria, did regular duty as a wedding-gift. One effort was dedicated "To Myself as King," and another "To my Sister, the Empress of Austria"; and a number of choice extracts were translated and appeared in an English guide-book.
Ignoring the divinity that should have hedged their author, Heine was very caustic about this royal assault upon Parnassus. Ludwig riposted by banishing him from the capital. Still, if he disapproved of this one, he added to his library the output of other bards, not necessarily German. But, while Browning was there, Tennyson had no place on his shelves. One, however, was found for Martin Tupper.