Musée Unterlinden

Housed in a former Dominican convent, this Alsatian museum is renowned for a single overwhelming masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece, a hinged set of painted panels of astonishing intensity. Painted for a hospital chapel, its harrowing Crucifixion was meant to console the sick and dying. The convent cloister and a modern wing hold further medieval and modern art. A distinctive detail is the way the altarpiece is displayed unfolded so that all its normally hidden inner panels can be seen at once.