Levoča

Levoča was a fortified town of Spiš, set on a trading route through the Carpathian lands. Its spacious rectangular square is lined with merchants' houses and dominated by the church of St James and the town hall. The prosperity of its burghers supported an exceptional flowering of religious art and urban architecture.

In the early sixteenth century the workshop of Master Paul made the great carved wooden altarpiece in St James's Church. Rising more than eighteen metres, it is among the most remarkable works of late Gothic sculpture in the region. Fire struck the town hall in 1550 and again in 1599; in 1615 it was enlarged with arcades and a new southern wing. Its painted figures represented civic virtues, giving visible form to the ideals of the town's government.