Despot's Gate

The Despot's Gate features two tall, crenelated towers framing a narrow stone archway, built deep into the heavy masonry of the Belgrade Fortress. Stefan Lazarevic constructed this entrance in the early fifteenth century when he moved the capital to Belgrade. During the Ottoman siege of fourteen fifty-six, the gate became the site of a brutal struggle where defenders poured boiling oil and molten lead onto soldiers attempting to breach the inner wall. Cannonball scars still mark the stone near the base.