Ehrenburg Palace was built by Johann Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, in 1543-47. It replaced the Veste Coburg as the Dukes' city Residenz. The new city palace was built around a dissolved Franciscan monastery.
According to tradition, the palace was named Ehrenburg ('Palace of Honour') by Emperor Charles V for having been constructed without the use of forced labour.
In 1690, a fire destroyed the northern part of the palace. This was an opportunity for Albert V, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, who had a new Baroque style palace built in 1699.
In the 19th century, Ernst I had the palace redesigned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Gothic Revival style, beginning in 1810. Between 1816 and 1840 the state apartments were redesigned in the French Empire style.
The palace is used as a museum today. Among other exhibits, it features art galleries with works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Dutch and Flemish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries as well as romantic landscape paintings.
References:House of the Blackheads (Melngalvju nams) is a building situated in the old town of Riga. The original building was erected during the first third of the 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. Major works were done in the years 1580 and 1886, adding most of the ornaments.
The structure was bombed to a ruin by the Germans June 28, 1941 and the remains demolished by the Soviets in 1948. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999. Today the House of Blackheads serves as a museum and sometimes concert hall.