I read the previous reviews, and it looks like the rules of visiting have changed radically. Firstly, you can visit the residence not only with a group tour, I arrived late and missed the last English-language tour, but it turned out that you can visit individually, at your own pace. Another important change is that the ban on photography has been removed, now you can take pictures everywhere. The admission is 9 euro (ICOM members for free), the admission to the Court Church and the Court Garden is free.

The residence was built during the strengthening of the local prince-bishops, who actually ruled eastern Franconia. But the bishops achieved special power when this position was monopolized by representatives of the Schönborn family, the most famous of whom was  Friedrich Carl von Schönborn, who was the imperial vice-chancellor for a long time (1705-34), fought against the growing expansion of Prussia, supported the emperor in the fight against the papacy (such a bishop!). The manifestation of his political ambitions was the construction of a new luxurious episcopal residence, the architect Balthasar Neumann worked on its creation in 1709-44, and the most outstanding artist of the Rococo era, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, was engaged in decoration. It is interesting that the residence has many allusions to the support of the Habsburgs, so the lobby is programmatically decorated with a depiction of the feats of Hercules, and one of the richest rooms is the imperial bedroom, where the Habsburgs were supposed to stay (of which only Maria Theresa stayed here).
True, the prosperity of the Schönborn family did not last long, and the bishopric did not survive the era of the Napoleonic conquests (Napoleon also stopped here), after which the palace and Franconia were taken over by the Bavarian kings.
The most terrible blow to the palace was inflicted by British aviation in March 1945, although it is not clear what strategic defensive value the palace could represent. Most of the palace was destroyed, but by some miracle the monumental staircase with Tiepolo frescoes survived and was preserved, a real masterpiece of the Rococo era. The restoration of the palace after the destruction of the war is also an epic story, which contributed to the World Heritage status of the residence in Würzburg very early, in 1981.