[38] See Sir R. Burton’s note on the Thirty-First Night, Arabian Nights, 1. 293.
[39] The Iron Maiden is shown now in the Five-Cornered Tower. This is not, of course, its original position. Nor is it profitable to inquire how far the instruments shown are the actual original ones; for the collection of Torture Instruments, Rings, Pictures, Books, etc.; which used to be shown at Nuremberg, are now the property of the Earl of Shrewsbury.
[40] Cf. Plautus, Captivi, 888. Boius est, Boiam terit.
[41] It is interesting to note that most of the Nuremberg artists were essentially good men who drew their inspiration from religion—a fact that may afford food for reflection to those who nowadays declare so loudly that art has nothing to do with morals, that they incline to fall into the opposite error and suppose that it has everything to do with immorality.
[42] “It appears to have been the ancient practice of those masters, who furnished designs for the wood-engravers to work from, carefully to avoid all cross-hatchings, which, it is probable, were considered as beyond the power of the Xylographist to represent. Wolgemut perceived that, though difficult, this was not impossible; and in the cuts of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the execution of which, besides furnishing the designs, he doubtless superintended, a successful attempt was first made to imitate the bold hatchings of a pen-drawing, crossing each other, as occasion prompted the designer, in various directions. To him belongs the praise of having been the first who duly appreciated the powers of this art, and it is more than probable that he proved with his own hand, to the subordinate artists employed under him, the practicability of that style of workmanship which he acquired.”—Ottley, “History of Engraving.”
It should, however, be added that cross-hatching appears in Reuwick’s illustrations to Breydenbach’s “Pilgrimage” (1486).
[44] The originals of those which have been replaced are in the German Museum.
[45] Some smaller bronze pieces by or attributed to him will be found in the German Museum. These and his other works and those of his sons are fully discussed in my monograph “Peter Vischer.”
[46] For the life and miracles of St. Sebald see Ch. IX.