Naumburg Cathedral
Naumburger Dom
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The statue of Uta is often said to have inspired the Evil Queen in Disney's 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Asked which woman in European art he would most like to spend an evening with, Umberto Eco named Uta of Naumburg first of all.
- The plants carved on the capitals of the west rood screen are so precise that botanists can identify the individual species.
- The Naumburg Master is thought to have trained on the cathedral sites of Noyon, Reims and Amiens before working in Strasbourg and Mainz.
- The east rood screen, built around 1230, is the oldest surviving example of a hall-type rood screen.
- The founder figures are carved from Grillenburg sandstone; ten are bonded into the walls and two stand free, and their visible paint dates from later restorations.
- In the 20th century Uta's image was turned into a national icon, and the Nazi regime used it in propaganda as an Aryan ideal.
- Cranach's altarpiece of 1519 lost its centre to iconoclasts in 1541; Michael Triegel's new panel of 2022 sparked a heritage dispute over blocking the founders.
- Neo Rauch's three windows of 2007, made for Saint Elizabeth's 800th birthday, show her farewell to her husband, giving clothes to the poor and nursing the sick.
- The town takes its name from neweburg, the new castle that Margrave Ekkehard I of Meissen built on a rock about 25 metres above the Saale.
Why it is worth it
The twelve stone figures standing high in the west choir of Naumburg Cathedral are among the most famous sculptures of the German Middle Ages, and one reason is that they are not saints. They portray noble founders of the church, eight men and four women, carved life-size in the mid-13th century by an anonymous sculptor known as the Naumburg Master, with an individuality that has little parallel in European art of the time. The best known is Uta, shown as a couple with her husband, Margrave Ekkehard II; nearby stands Reglindis, daughter of the Polish king Bolesław I, with her husband Hermann.
The cathedral exists because the bishops of Zeitz moved their seat in 1028 to Naumburg, a new castle town on the Saale, which offered better protection. A first Romanesque cathedral was consecrated in 1044; its crypt, added around 1160 to 1170, survives almost unchanged beneath the present church. Rebuilding began around 1210 under Bishop Engelhard, and the late Romanesque church soon gained an early Gothic west choir, probably finished by 1260, and a High Gothic east choir around 1330. The result is a double-choir basilica with towers at both ends, so the building is entered from the side, through the cloister.
The Naumburg Master also made the west rood screen, whose Passion scenes are carved with the same direct, human intensity as the founders, and the screen and figures together are counted among the most important works of early Gothic art in Germany. The Elisabeth Chapel holds the oldest known stone figure of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, made soon after her canonisation in 1235, and new windows by the painter Neo Rauch. Medieval glass survives in the east choir. At the Reformation Naumburg received the first Protestant bishop in Germany, Nicolaus von Amsdorf, in 1542, and the cathedral remains a Protestant parish church.
UNESCO added the cathedral to the World Heritage list in 2018. It lies on the Romanesque Road, a heritage route through Saxony-Anhalt.
Getting there
The cathedral stands in Naumburg, about 15 to 20 minutes on foot from Naumburg Hauptbahnhof. The town's historic tram runs from the station towards the centre, though construction work in 2026 has shortened its route, so check the timetable. The nearest airport is Leipzig/Halle (LEJ), about 42 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Goseck circle 6.5 km · open-air-museum
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Naumburg Cathedral, located in Naumburg, Germany, is the former cathedral of the Bishopric of Naumburg-Zeitz. The church building, most of which dates back to the 13th century, is a renowned landmark of the German late Romanesque and was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018. The west choir with the famous donor portrait statues of the twelve cathedral founders (Stifterfiguren) and the Lettner, works of the Naumburg Master, is one of the most significant early Gothic monuments.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
51.15472, 11.80389per Wikidata