Niguliste Museum

St Nicholas's church was begun in the thirteenth century for the German merchant community of Tallinn and survived the Reformation with its altars intact because the congregation is said to have poured lead into the locks to keep the iconoclasts out. It was destroyed in March 1944 and rebuilt over decades as a museum of medieval church art, part of the Art Museum of Estonia. Its principal work is the fragment of Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre, painted in Lübeck in the late fifteenth century, showing Death leading the pope, emperor, cardinal and others in a line; it is the only medieval Dance of Death painted on canvas that survives anywhere. The Rode altarpiece and the silver chamber are also here.

What you'll find

• The Danse Macabre - Notke's surviving fragment of the death dance.
• The Rode altarpiece - the fifteenth-century high altar retable.
• The silver chamber - the guild and church silver collection.
• The church interior - the rebuilt medieval space itself.

When to go

Year round; the museum is indoors. It closes on Mondays and some other days. Organ concerts are held in the church on weekend afternoons. It is part of the Tallinn old town World Heritage area.

Things to know

The building is a museum, not a working church. Much of the fabric is post-1944 reconstruction. The Danse Macabre is a fragment, about a quarter of the original length. Photography rules vary by gallery.

Nearby

Tallinn old town surrounds it; Kiek in de Kok lies west.