Niguliste Church (St Nicholas) and Museum

Niguliste Church (St Nicholas' Church) at Niguliste 3 was founded in the 13th century as the church of the German merchants of Reval and dedicated to St Nicholas, the patron saint of seafarers and merchants. It developed from a fortified hall church into a Gothic basilica and was rebuilt several times, with its steeple modernised in the 17th century. In March 1944 a Soviet air raid set the church on fire and destroyed much of its roof and the Baroque interior; the surviving art collection had been evacuated. After the war it was restored over several decades in the 1950s to 1980s and converted into a museum, and in the 1980s an organ was installed so that the building could also serve as a concert hall. Today it is a branch of the Art Museum of Estonia and holds the country's largest collection of medieval and Baroque church art. Among the highlights is a surviving fragment of Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre, a painted frieze from the late 15th century showing Death leading figures from every social rank, and the large winged altarpiece by Hermen Rode from 1481, the main altar of the Holy Spirit. Other works include carved altar shrines, silver church treasures, brass chandeliers, guild heraldry and memorial epitaphs of leading merchant families. The museum approach is a mixture of chronological display and use of the church architecture itself, with a long gallery for sculpture and a high nave for larger altarpieces. The museum is notable for its good interpretive labels in English, and its audio-guide service. Organ concerts take place on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, making the church a living performance space as well. Visitors usually allow around one hour, and the site is a short walk from the Town Hall and the Dome Church.