The ecclesiastic town Spišská Kapitula is sometimes also referred to as the “Slovak Vatican”. Church life not only in Spišská Kapitula (The Chapter of Spiš) was organised from here by the bishops, provosts, and canonists. The town, along with other monuments around the Spiš Castle, is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The most important building of Spišská Kapitula is the Late-Romanesque St Martins Cathedral. It acquired it’s massive form of a three-nave building with two towers in the years 1245 – 1275. In 1382, a Corpus Christi chapel was added to it, though it was replaced by the contemporary one in the years 1488 – 1493. This chapel of the Zápoľský family imitates the French chapel of Saint Chapelle. Baroque traits were erased by reconstruction in the years 1873 – 1889 in an attempt to give it a medieval character in line with the taste of the period of Romanticism.
The Bishop’s Palace was built together with the Cathedral as a provosts palace. In the past, there used to be a French park around the palace and it’s entrance was next to the Hodinová veža (The Clock Tower) from 1739.
In the eastern part of Spišská Kapitula on narrow Gothic plots, the Chapters of the canonists are accessible only by one narrow lane. The fortification of this ecclesiastical town, with two entrance gates, was built in the 14th century and rebuilt several times.
Spišská Kapitula is administered by the Spišské Podhradie commune.
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