Dresden Residenzschloss (Royal Palace)

The Residenzschloss served as the primary seat of the Wettin electors and later kings of Saxony from the late medieval period through the monarchy's end in 1918, accumulating extensions in Renaissance, Baroque, and 19th-century Historicist styles as successive rulers, most notably Augustus the Strong, expanded and redecorated the complex. The palace was gutted by the February 1945 bombing that destroyed most of Dresden's historic center, and its reconstruction proceeded slowly, beginning in earnest only from 1985 and continuing in phases for decades after reunification. Today the palace houses several museums, most famously the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault), one of Europe's oldest surviving museum collections, assembled by Augustus the Strong from 1723 to display an extraordinary trove of jewels, gold, ivory, and amber work; the collection is split between a reconstructed Historic Green Vault, presented as Augustus arranged it, and a modern New Green Vault with individually lit display cases. A 2019 theft of 18th-century jewel sets from the Historic Green Vault, later recovered in part, drew international attention to the collection's continuing significance.