Ehrenburg Palace was built by Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, in 1543-47. It replaced the Veste Coburg as the Dukes' city Residenz. The new city palace was built around a dissolved Franciscan monastery.
According to tradition, the palace was named Ehrenburg ('Palace of Honour') by Emperor Charles V for having been constructed without the use of forced labour.
In 1690, a fire destroyed the northern part of the palace. This was an opportunity for Albert V, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who had a new Baroque style palace built in 1699.
In the 19th century, Ernst I had the palace redesigned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Gothic Revival style, beginning in 1810. Between 1816 and 1840 the state apartments were redesigned in the French Empire style.
The palace is used as a museum today. Among other exhibits, it features art galleries with works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Dutch and Flemish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries as well as romantic landscape paintings.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.