St. Michael's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Alba Iulia

St. Michael's Cathedral stands inside the Alba Carolina Citadel in Alba Iulia, on Mihai Viteazul Street, next to the Roman Catholic Archbishop's Palace and a few dozen metres from the Coronation Cathedral. It is 93 m long on its axis and is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia. Work on the first cathedral began in the 11th century, after King Stephen I of Hungary founded the Diocese of Transylvania, as a three-aisled basilica. The Mongol invasion of 1241 destroyed the cathedral and the fortress. The church was rebuilt after 1246 on the old foundations, in Romanesque style with Gothic elements. On 21 February 1277, Saxons from the Sibiu area attacked the cathedral during a service and set it on fire. Gothic elements were added in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, and the Lázói and Várday chapels, with Renaissance decoration, were built in 1512 and 1524. Between 1565 and 1715 the church was used by the Calvinists; after 1715 it returned to the Roman Catholic Church and Baroque elements were added. The organ, with 2,209 pipes, was installed in 1877 and still works today. Inside you can see the sarcophagi of John Hunyadi, regent-governor of Hungary (died 1456), and of his son Ladislaus Hunyadi in the south aisle, and those of Queen Isabella and her son John Sigismund, the first Prince of Transylvania, in the north aisle. The Lázói Chapel, in the apse of the north aisle, keeps Renaissance frescoes. The cathedral is an active church and can be visited outside services; it is reached on foot through the Alba Carolina Citadel. The cathedral is a category A historic monument, LMI code AB-II-m-A-00129, and belongs to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia. Did you know that Giovanni Morando Visconti, the Italian engineer who designed the bastioned Alba Carolina Citadel, is buried in this very cathedral? Visconti died in Alba Iulia in 1717, while the citadel was being built.