St. Mary's Cathedral

This guide to St. Mary's Cathedral in Tallinn follows Christian Ackermann, a journeyman woodcarver who arrived from Konigsberg with no right to open his own shop under Tallinn's guild law. It traces how he married his master's widow to gain a workshop, and how the great fire of 1684 that gutted this cathedral gave him an unexpected commission. The pulpit above you, carved with apostles caught mid-stride, was finished in 1686; the altar wall behind it took him a decade longer.