The hatred of Nuremberg for the Elector Albert is expressed in the unsparing satire of Hans Sachs, in which the full bitterness of ruthless patriotism finds vent. This poem is of so violent a nature that the Council suppressed it, but a copy is still preserved in the library. It was written in 1557 after the Markgraf’s death, and describes the descent into hell of this “blütiger Kriegsfürst.” A spirit appears to Hans and bids him accompany him for the purpose of seeing how the soul of a bloodthirsty warrior goes to—heaven,
“Ich will dir zeigen ein Kriegsfürsten
Den allezeit hart nach blut ward dürsten
Welcher schier das ganze Deutschland
Mit Krieg erweckt—hat durch sein hand
Wollauf rund kom bald mit dar
Schan wie sein sel gen Himmel far,”
and shows the reception the Markgraf gets there from the soldiers he has not paid, the citizens and peasants, with their wives and children, whom he has robbed and ruined, and the wretched men whom he has forced to murder the helpless and innocent.
The result of the treaty we have mentioned above was that the “Interim” was revoked. Religion was declared free. Three years later came the peace of Augsburg, with its legal recognition of the Protestant States and its system of toleration—cujus regio, ejus religio—not of the sort to avert the evils of the Thirty Years War.
Nuremberg was now at last at peace and kept on good terms with the new Emperor. But the Hapsburg emperors seldom visited her. In 1570, however, the Emperor Maximilian II. was welcomed with such pomp and jubilation as had greeted Charles V. On this occasion the records mention the novelty of an elephant bearing a gold and grey canopy with a Moorish mahout. Again we are told that when the Emperor Matthias, then King of Bohemia, stayed in the town in 1612, on his way to be crowned King of Rome, he was lodged, not in the Castle but in the Ægidienplatz. The house of Martin Peller was intended for his residence, but to this the King’s chamberlain objected on the ground that the Queen did not care for that style of architecture and decoration. This house, on the north side of the Ægidienplatz, is a very fine specimen of rich Florentine, Renaissance building. It is interesting to observe how the façade has been adapted to the old German high-pitched roof. It was built in 1605 by Jakob Wolff, and is now used for the art and furniture show-rooms of Herr J. A. Eysser. Within will be found a grand hall, court and staircase, carved and decorated in the same rich style, and upstairs a beautifully panelled room.
The policy of the town during this period was purely defensive. The wars with the Markgraf had cost Nuremberg dear, and she now set herself to recover from their disastrous effects. Her history for the next few years is a record of peace and of commercial and architectural activity. The great new building of the Rathaus was begun in the year 1622 by Jakob Wolff, the younger. The outbreak of the Thirty Years War prevented it from ever being really completed.