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Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig's first plan for a hall of honour of Germans distinguished by fame - the later Valhalla - presumably dated from 1806. In 1807 he called on Schadow in Berlin to discuss the project. At the meetings, he commissioned a range of portraits, 15 of the 50 busts originally planned, which were to be allocated to three separate historical departments. The Middle Ages were to be represented by German emperors such as Otto the Great and Conrad II, and kings such as henry I and Henry the Lion. Only physicist Otto von Guericke and astronomer Copernicus (Nikolai Kopernik, considered German by Ludwig) represented the modern era, whereas the immediate past and present were the most strongly represented: statesmen and military leaders, poets and philosophers were immortalized in portrait busts.
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