Georgentor

About this place

The Georgentor was built between fifteen thirty and fifteen thirty-five for Duke George the Bearded as the old town's gate towards the Elbe bridge. It counts as the first Renaissance building in Dresden, put up before the royal palace behind it was remodelled in the new style. Its original front carried a Dance of Death frieze and a Latin motto declaring that death entered the world through the envy of the devil. Rather more has changed than has survived. The gate was rebuilt in baroque form between seventeen eighteen and seventeen nineteen, then given the neo-Renaissance skin it wears today around nineteen hundred and one, complete with the equestrian figure of Duke George over the arch. It burned in February nineteen forty-five and the outer shell was rebuilt in the mid nineteen sixties with simplified detail. The original stone Dance of Death relief survived the war and now hangs in the Dreikoenigskirche across the river in the Neustadt. In practice this is a part of the Residenzschloss rather than a separate ticketed sight. You walk under the arch for nothing on the way from Schlossplatz to Augustusstrasse, the Procession of Princes and the Stallhof courtyard. Inside the wing are State Art Collections galleries including the coin cabinet, entered on the single Residenzschloss ticket. Stop under the arch for a moment and look up before you carry on.