Castle Hartenfels Torgau

Schloss Hartenfels stands in Torgau, a town in Saxony beside the Elbe. Built in the 15th and 16th centuries, it is the largest fully preserved early Renaissance palace in Germany and a leading example of Saxon Renaissance style. The palace was begun by Konrad Pflüger, a pupil of Arnold von Westfalen, and completed by Konrad Krebs. Its most striking feature is the Wendelstein, a nearly 20-metre freestanding stone staircase on the east wing, praised by Dehio as one of the principal achievements of early Renaissance architecture in Germany. The palace holds special importance in Reformation history. In 1543–44 Nikolaus Gromann built the first purpose-built Protestant chapel in the world for Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous. Martin Luther himself dedicated the chapel in 1544. Its design—without a separate chancel, with a central altar and organ—set a pattern for Protestant church buildings. The chapel’s double galleries and sandstone furnishings reflect the elector’s role as head of the church. Visitors walk through the Johann-Friedrich wing to reach the Wendelstein and the chapel. The chapel’s interior shows the two-storey galleries carried on flat arches and the 1602 altar by sculptors from the Walther circle. Nearby, the Lapidarium displays original stone carvings from the palace workshops. The palace grounds also include the Flaschenenturm with its spiral stair and the old castle moat, where bears have been kept since the 15th century.