This article was published in Bratislava City Guide. With this detailed, pocket-sized guide, it is impossible to get lost in the Slovak capital.
St Martin’s Cathedral is the biggest and most noteworthy church in Bratislava, which reached the height of its importance between 1563-1830 as the location for the coronation of 18 monarchs of the Hungarian Kingdom.
Before that, the cathedral started life as a tiny 13th-century Romanesque church, originally on the top of what is now Bratislava Castle Hill. In 1221, Pope Honorius III gave permission for the church to be moved to the area beneath the hill, but congregations soon outgrew it as the city flourished. Construction of a gothic building started in the early 14th century and was eventually consecrated in 1452. Further reconstructions continued, including the addition of a bigger, late-gothic presbytery between 1461-87, until the cathedral assumed more or less its present form.