Retirement home of a charitable countess

Created: 01/20/2022, 08:00

Protected monument: The magnificent Rivera Palais was the retirement home of the Countess and gave its name to the street that branches off from Münchener Straße opposite the Erding District Court.

© Peter Gebel

Erding - She was a self-confident and socially committed woman: Countess of Rivera.

Her name is still well known in the town of Erding.

Rivera Strasse connects Münchener Strasse with Gießereistrasse. It was not named after the similar-sounding Mediterranean coast with fashionable bathing resorts, but after Countess Adelheid von Rivera (1648-1725), who had a retirement home built here with the Rivera Palace in 1712. Although the Countess lived in Munich, she knew the Erdinger district well, as she was born a Countess of Preysing, a family with their headquarters in the Langenpreising area.

Maria Adelheid Theresa Countess of Preysing was born in 1648 at Hohenaschau Castle.

In her second marriage she was married to Johann Baptist Simeon de Balbi Count Rivera, commander of Elector Max Emmanuel's bodyguards.

The Countess managed the lands in Ottenhofen, Oberneuching and Kirchötting as the landlady.

Their only daughter Maria Antonia Josepha was born at Ottenhofen Castle.

Count Rivera had a magnificent city palace built for the family at Munich's Theatinerstraße 45 - by the electoral court architect Giovanni Antonio Viscardi.

The Count himself was no longer able to move into the palace because he died in battle shortly before it was completed.

The widowed countess moved in with her daughter and later left it to her.

She herself chose tranquil Erding as her new domicile and settled there on Münchener Strasse.

Viscardi was again commissioned with the construction of the representative Rivera Palace.

Countess von Rivera was able to receive illustrious guests here, such as the prince bishops of Freising, members of the electoral court and the Freising cathedral chapter.

The countess also had the welfare of the nearby Capuchin monastery at heart.

The monastery was dissolved after secularization in 1802, only the former monastery garden remained state property.

Since 1901 the district court with prison has been located there.

The Countess' appearance remains a mystery, as the poster for the "Erdinger Alphabet" exhibition in 2015 in the Museum Erding shows.

© Museum Erding

In 1722, the Countess also founded Erding's first orphanage next to the Heilig Blut pilgrimage church and even ran it herself at first. 15 girls and boys were cared for there.

The Countess later handed over the reins to a Bartholomew priest.

The Rivera Palace, which today is considered one of the most important secular baroque buildings in Bavaria, changed hands several times after the death of the Countess.

The city of Erding bought it in 2015.

It is leased to a tax and logistics company.

The previous owner, Walter Jaensch, had the building extensively renovated in the 1970s, including the statues on the facade depicting the Mother of God with the Child Jesus and Saints John of Nepomuk and Franz von Paula.

In a special exhibition in the Museum Erding in 2015, in which Erdinger personalities from "Ardeo to Zehetmair" were honored, Countess Adelheid von Rivera appeared under the letter R.

What she looked like, however, remains a mystery.

"Unfortunately, despite intensive research, the museum has not been able to track down an image of the Countess," it read at the time.

This report must therefore also do without a picture of the Countess.

GERDA AND PETER GEBEL