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In Renaissance and Early Modern German architecture, a Lustschloss (French: maison de plaisance, both meaning "pleasure palace") is a country house, château, or palace which served the private pleasure of its owner, and was seasonally inhabited as a respite from court ceremonies and state duties.[1][2] In France, the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, easily reached from Paris, arguably set an example, and Louis XIV similarly holidayed annually from the Palace of Versailles to his nearby Château de Marly, and more frequently used his Grand Trianon, to which the Petit Trianon was added in the following century.
There is no common term for such houses in English, and the phenomenon developed especially in the smaller states of Germany, where the ruler was firmly based in one or two main palaces, as opposed to the much larger number available to the monarchies of England, France, and Spain (after Henry VIII's prolific building, Elizabeth I of England had some 40 palaces, most now demolished). But Woodstock Palace seems to have had something of this role; the last monarch to use it was James I of England, in 1603, escaping the plague, which was another useful role these houses played. In France, it was mainly after the monarchy settled at Versailles that the need for them developed. In Italy the term villa covered them.
Lustschloss is often loosely used interchangeably with Jagdschloss, for both served as non-formal residences, but a Jagdschloss was a hunting retreat and was usually used to host a ruler and his hunting party.