The architecture of Bamberg Cathedral illustrates the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, a characteristic of which are the two apses facing each other. Four slender towers flank the two chancels. This layout, inherited from a former Ottonian edifice, illustrates the reticence on the part of the powerful Imperial ecclesiastic institutions of the time to embrace the innovative French Gothic style. The cathedral houses several masterpieces of Gothic sculpture, in particular the Knight of Bamberg and the tomb of Saint Henry II and of Cunigunde.