SERVASSET STIGIO SI MODO PACTA IOVI;

which, being roughly interpreted, is to the effect that Orpheus, moving, according to the Grecian fable, rocks and woods and rivers by his music, came to the Infernal Regions, and there had quite won back Eurydice to life if only he had observed the conditions of the king of Hades.

The Hamburg exemplar has this inscription also, with a few literal variations, as, for instance, the mistake of saxo instead of saxa, and the correction of adiisse (which is necessary for the scansion of the line) in place of adysse.

STEIN PHOTO.] [INKSTAND, ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, FORTNUM COLLECTION, OXFORD
21. “EARTHLY LIFE”

A restless, uncontented care of doing better, which is the hall-mark of genius, is proclaimed in the spirit of the craftsman who thus turned again in his maturity to improve, and, if he could, to perfect the theme he had attempted in his youth. The same spirit is evident in the similar development of a theme which we find in the case of two bronze inkstands formerly in the possession of the late H. Fortnum, Esq., of Stanmore, and now forming part of the Fortnum Collection, bequeathed by him to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The first was picked up by the collector in Paris; the second in Genoa. (Ill. [21] and [22].) They are mentioned by Christoph von Murr[[8]] in 1778 as being in the collection of Dr. Silberrad at Nuremberg, and are called by him “two admirable bas-reliefs in bronze by Peter Vischer.” He further describes the second, that is, the later, in the following terms: “It represents the reminding of the future life. Near an urn, which might serve as an inkpot, stands a naked female figure, about six inches high, pointing towards heaven with her finger. In front of her a skull is lying, behind her a small shield and dagger. A beautiful idea. Leaning against the urn is a tablet with the inscription ‘VITAM NON MORTEM RECOGITA’” (Think on life not death). “Under the base is the sign of the master, two fish with the initials P.V. 1525.... Both pieces are still just as they came from the foundry, and one must admire the accuracy and draughtsmanship which betray the hand of one who is a master of his craft.”

[8]. “Beschreibung der vornehmsten Merkwürdigkeiten,” quoted by Seeger.

Now if this female figure above mentioned is rightly interpreted as reminding us of the life to come, the heavenly life, we may regard it as a later and natural variation of the allegory of earthly life represented by the other and earlier work. There the female figure of Life is standing with her foot upon a skull, trampling on the emblem of Death, and is pointing to herself, gazing self-centred, as who should say, “Enjoy life, think on me and forget the death that cometh with the morrow.” And on the tablet at her feet recurs the legend, “VITAM NON MORTEM RECOGITA!” She is teaching the Renaissance love of beauty and the lesson of the joy of existence and the frank delight in the things of this earth. Probably, then, this work was executed shortly after the young craftsman’s sojourn in Italy, when he was filled with the joy of life and had been studying the nude with all the enthusiasm of the early Renaissance school. A mixture of early Renaissance and of mediæval elements is indeed distinctly observable. For the four-cornered vase and its lid is eminently Gothic in character. On the four under sides of the vase we find repeated the sign of the two fish which we have learnt to associate with Peter Vischer the younger, and on the four upper sides the same medallion of a man’s head. Medallions, we know, Peter Vischer the younger turned his hand to frequently after his return from Italy. The Medusa head with the winged helmet, and the club on the base, recall the style of Sansovino, whilst the lion’s feet on which the vase rests, and much of the decoration, correspond with details on the Sebaldusgrab. The pose and the rhythmic movement of the female form are beautiful in themselves, but the neck of the figure is too thick and the body excessively short. When, ten or fifteen years later (1525), the craftsman with a deepened sense of the mystery and sorrow of the world returned to this theme, he read a new meaning into that favourite motto of his, “Think on life not death,” and he also remedied in great part the faults of his earlier effort. The figure, indeed, remains still too short in comparison with its breadth, but it is far slimmer than the other; the work is much more delicate, the lines less accentuated. The artist is now a wiser, sadder, more spiritual man. With his feeling and his knowledge of the world, his power also and his freedom have increased and his mastery of modelling. The influence of his brother’s journey to Rome and of the lessons he had brought home with him, is evident everywhere, and not least in the striving after simplicity which has induced him to leave the base plain and not richly ornamented as was the former one.

STEIN PHOTO.] [INKSTAND, ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, FORTNUM COLLECTION, OXFORD
22. “HEAVENLY LIFE”