This proud boast was more truthful than boasts are in general; its artisans literally sent their handiwork far and wide, their connections were great, and their city was the centre of trade between the East and West; for, prior to the discovery of the circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope, it was the depôt for eastern merchandise, which was principally sent with their own productions from Venice and Genoa; its convenient central position in Europe enabling its traders to distribute such produce, and all others coming to it, by means of the Danube and the Rhine to the north and west of Europe. Its own manufacturers were also much esteemed, and their works in metal highly valued, whether consisting of armour for the knight or bijouterie for his lady. The city, in fact, held within its warehouses the combined results of the taste, luxury, and necessities of the age, and was busied in exchanging them with the great trading towns of the low countries,—Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp,—the trade of the latter rising on the decline of that of old Nürnberg, whose inland position kept it far away from the sea-traffic which resulted from the discovery already alluded to. The religious wars contributed ultimately to accelerate its downfall at the commencement of the seventeenth century, and when peace was again restored, prosperity had flown in the turmoil.
It was during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that Nürnberg attained its greatest prosperity. At this time it was a free city of the German empire, possessing an independent domain around it extending twenty-three German miles, and was enabled to furnish the Emperor with six thousand soldiers. Its castle had been the home of these rulers from the twelfth century: memories of such inhabitants may still be traced.
“In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunde’s hand.”
The old tree still overshadows the inner yard of the castle, and the “Heathen Tower” tells of still earlier times. The entire place is full of antique memories; it has no sympathy with modern life; and you stand in its quiet crumbling walls, and expect, if the silence be broken at all, it will be by the heavy tread and clanking echo of a mail-clad knight. Maximilian himself and his knights, so quaintly delineated by Hans Burgmair, might rise from their graves, and enter their old quarters as if they had but left them yesterday, so unchanged is the aspect of the picturesque old castle which crowns the rock, and was erst the proud home of Germany’s proudest rulers.
But why dwell on the past glories of the warlike great? rather let us again quote the words of Longfellow, and exclaim
“Not thy councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world’s regard;
But thy painter Albert Dürer, and Hans Sachs the cobbler bard.”
Of the latter worthy we shall discourse anon; but the place of honour and our primary attention must now be given to the artist.