Sighișoara

Sighișoara rises above the Târnava Mare, its walled citadel crowning a hill above the lower town. Founded by German settlers and known as Schäßburg, it became one of the towns of the Transylvanian Saxons. Guilds of craftsmen built and maintained sections of the wall and towers, while the Clock Tower guarded the principal entrance and the town's civic life. Shoemakers, tailors, furriers and other trades gave their names to the defensive towers for which they were responsible.

The fortifications grew from the fourteenth century onward. Walls were raised and openings adapted for firearms as warfare changed. The seventeenth century brought repeated war, plague and fire. On 30 April 1676 a great blaze destroyed most of the wooden houses in the citadel and lower town, along with many defensive towers and the monastery church within the walls. The Church on the Hill and several towers survived.

The citizens rebuilt their town in stone and brick, giving the Clock Tower a new ornate roof and altering the streets of the citadel. During Francis II Rákóczi's uprising, Sighișoara sided with the Habsburgs and was besieged several times between 1704 and 1706. The siege also damaged the fortifications, but its defences and rebuilt houses preserved the character of a fortified Saxon town amid the changing politics of Transylvania.