Relief over the portal to the courtyard
Echter had himself immortalised in a relief, set over the Renaissance portal to the courtyard. It shows the "Descent of the holy spirit on Maria and the apostles"; The Prince-Bishop is kneeling in the foreground of the representation. Three sculptors worked on the relief successively: Firstly, there was Erhard Barg from the town of Schwäbisch Hall, who inserted "Science" and "Diligence" as allegorical figures in the relief. Johann von Beundum created the apostles and Paulus Michel depicted the Prince-Bishop.Philosophy, theology, law and medicine: These were the academic disciplines at the time of the university's founding by Julius Echter. The Prince-Bishop did not initiate today's Faculty of Medicine right from the start. It wasn't until 1593 that he appointed two Dutchmen, Adrian van Roomen and Gottfried Steegh, doubling as his personal physicians, as Professors of Medicine. At that time, the medical faculty was integrated into the Juliusspital (Julius Hospital), which had been built in 1585 at Echter's request.