Is there hardly a person in the world who has not seen this fairy-tale castle at least once, even without knowing its name - on calendars, postcards, posters, puzzles, in the outline of the world-famous logo of the Walt Disney studio? Neuschwanstein is the abode of the last romantic, the embodiment of chivalric legends about the Swan Knight Lohengrin and Parzival, the keeper of the Holy Grail... The man who built this castle lived a short but tragic life, and after his death he was completely slandered and ridiculed. Ludwig II of Bavaria... Hero or anti-hero of his time? In most historical works, he is directly called the “mad king”, without even exploring the causes of his mental illness, if there really was one. What pushed the king into this abyss: hereditary predisposition, a severe mental breakdown that he never managed to overcome? Or maybe someone else’s evil will, slander, which turned out to be so tenacious that even 125 years after the tragic death of Ludwig II, his “case” has not yet been put to rest?