Matthiasturm, gate tower in Bautzen, Germany

The Matthiasturm is a gate tower forming the main entrance to the Ortenburg in Bautzen, built during construction work between 1483 and 1486. Its city-facing front carries a nine-metre-high, four-metre-wide sandstone relief of King Matthias Corvinus, dated 1486 by the inscription MATHIAS REX and ANNO MCCCCLXXXVI. Two large pointed-arch windows on the second storey mark the former St. George's Chapel inside.

Built between 1483 and 1486, the Matthiasturm was the only significant entrance to Ortenburg castle. A moat separated the castle from the town, and rectangular recesses in the tower's lower masonry still show where drawbridges spanned it toward Schloßstraße. The moat was filled in only at the end of the 18th century, when the present main gate was broken through the wall facing the Burgplatz.

The name comes from the sandstone relief of King Matthias Corvinus on the city side, nine metres high and four wide, dated 1486 by the inscription MATHIAS REX and ANNO MCCCCLXXXVI. The king sits under a canopy, feet on a lion, with two angels holding a crown above his head and eleven heraldic shields around him. The sculptor Alajos Strobl copied it in 1896 for the Hungarian millennium exhibition.

The tower is the main entrance to the Ortenburg, reached from Schloßstraße; rectangular recesses in the lower masonry still show where the drawbridge once hung. The moat was filled in only at the end of the 18th century, when today's main gate was broken through the wall facing the Burgplatz. The passage is open as a thoroughfare, and the St. George's chapel room on the second floor is walkable but unrestored, with a plain beam ceiling.

The second floor once held a chapel dedicated to Saint George, identifiable by two large Gothic windows, which stopped being used as a place of worship after a fire in 1639. Those windows remain visible today and tell the story of the tower's former spiritual function.