Naumburg Cathedral (Naumburger Dom) is one of the great works of medieval German art, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018. The structure itself spans several centuries and styles — Romanesque, transitional, and Gothic — but the west choir, completed around 1250, is the reason people travel here from across Europe. Inside stand twelve life-size stone figures of the cathedral's founding donors, carved with a psychological realism extraordinary for the thirteenth century.
The most famous figures are Uta and Ekkehard: she with her collar raised against an imagined cold, he looking restlessly sideways. The unknown sculptor responsible — the Master of Naumburg — worked with a human immediacy that would not be matched in stone until the Renaissance. Across the choir, Hermann and Reglindis exchange what looks like a private joke. The cathedral treasury holds an important collection of Romanesque and Gothic sacred objects. Guided tours in English are available and worth taking for the west choir alone.