St Martin’s Cathedral – Spišská Kapitula

Location: Prešovský kraj, okres Levoča, Spišské Podhradie

GPS: N49°0'2'' E20°44'26''

The most important building of Spišská Kapitula, which was along with other monuments in environs of the Spiš Castle inscribed in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage, is the Late-Romanesque St Martins Cathedral.

It acquired its massive form of a three-nave building with two towers in the years between 1245-1275. In 1382 a Corpus Christi chapel was added to it, though the contemporary one in the years 1488-1493 replaced it. This chapel of the Zápoľský family imitates the French chapel of Saint Chapelle. Baroque traits were erased by reconstruction in the years 1873-1889 in an attempt to give it a medieval character in line with the taste of the period of Romanticism.

Its main altar is from the years 1470-1478. It was adapted in the Gothic style. The unaltered three lateral altars: Adoration of the Three Magi from 1490, the altar of St Michael from 1470 and that of the Virgin Mary from the years 1477-1478 are valuable. The stone sculpture of  Leo Albus from the second third of the 13th century is one of the oldest of its kind in Slovakia.

The unconventionally secular is the wall painting from 1317, which depicts coronation of King Charles Robert. In front of the Cathedral stands the statue of St Ján Nepomucký built erected in 1732.

Source: Vydavateľstvo Dajama