Before, however, I make mention of the Public Library, it may be as well briefly to notice the two churches--- St. Sebald and St. Lawrence. The former was within a stone's throw of our inn. Above the door of the western front, is a remarkably fine crucifix of wood--placed, however, in too deep a recess--said to be by Veit Stoss. The head is of a very fine form, and the countenance has an expression of the most acute and intense feeling. A crown of thorns is twisted round the brow. But this figure, as well as the whole of the outside and inside of the church, stands in great need of being repaired. The towers are low, with insignificant turrets: the latter evidently a later erection--probably at the commencement of the sixteenth century. The eastern extremity, as well indeed as the aisles, is surrounded by buttresses; and the sharp-pointed, or lancet windows, seem to bespeak the fourteenth, if not the thirteenth century. The great "wonder" of the interior, is the Shrine of the Saint,[166] (to whom the church is dedicated,) of which the greater part is silver. At the time of my viewing it, it was in a disjointed state- -parts of it having been taken to pieces, for repair: but from Geisler's exquisite little engraving, I should pronounce it to be second to few specimens of similar art in Europe. The figures do not exceed two feet in height, and the extreme elevation of the shrine may be about eight feet. Nor has Geisler's almost equally exquisite little engraving of the richly carved gothic font in this church, less claim upon the admiration of the connoisseur.
The mother church, or Cathedral of St. Lawrence, is much larger, and portions of it may be of the latter end of the thirteenth century. The principal entrance presents us with an elaborate door-way--perhaps of the fourteenth century--with the sculpture divided into several compartments, as at Rouen, Strasbourg, and other earlier edifices. There is a poverty in the two towers, both from their size, and the meagerness of the windows; but the slim spires at the summit, are, doubtless, nearly of a coeval date with that which supports them. The bottom of the large circular, or marygold window, is injured in its effect by a gothic balustrade of a later period. The interior of this church has certainly nothing very commanding or striking, on the score of architectural grandeur or beauty; but there are some painted glass-windows--especially by Volkmar---which are deserving of particular attention. Nuremberg has one advantage over many populous towns; its public buildings are not choked up by narrow streets: and I hardly know an edifice of distinction, round which the spectator may not walk with perfect ease, and obtain a view of every portion which he is desirous of examining. The Fraüenkerche, or the church of St. Mary, in the market-place, has a very singular construction in its western front. A double arched door-way, terminated by an arch at the top, and surmounted by a curious triangular projection from the main building, has rather an odd, than a beautiful effect. Above, terminating in an apex-- surmounted by a small turret, are five rows of gothic niches, of which the extremities, at each end, narrow--in the fashion of steps, gradually--from the topmost of which range or rows of niches, the turret rises perpendicularly. It is a small edifice, and has been recently doomed to make a very distinguished figure in the imposing lithographic print of Quaglio.[167] The interior of this church is not less singular, as may be seen in the print published about sixty years ago, and yet faithful to its present appearance.
I know not how it was, but I omitted to notice the ci-devant church of Ste. Claire, where there is said to be the most ancient stained glass window which exists--that is, of the middle of the thirteenth century; nor did I obtain a sight of the seven pillars of Adam Kraft, designating the seven points or stations of the Passion of our Saviour. But in the Rath-hauz Platz, in the way to the public library, I used to look with delight--almost every morning of the four days which I spent at Nuremberg--at the fragments of gothic architecture, to the right and left, that presented themselves; and among these, none caught my eye and pleased my taste, so fully, as the little hexagonal gothic window, which has sculptured subjects beneath the mullions, and which was attached to the Pfarrhof, or clergyman's residence, of St. Sebald. If ever Mr. Blore's pencil should be exercised in this magical city for gothic art, I am quite persuaded that this window will be one of the subjects upon which its powers will be most successfully employed.
A little beyond, in a very handsome square, called St. Giles's Place, lived the famous ANTHONY KOBERGER; the first who introduced the art of printing into Nuremberg--and from whose press, more Bibles, Councils, Decretals, Chronicles, and scholastic works, have proceeded than probably from any other press in Europe. Koberger was a magnificent printer, using always a bold, rich, gothic letter--and his first book, Comestorium Vitiorum, bears the date of 1470.[168] They shew the house, in this square, which he is said to have occupied; but which I rather suspect was built by his nephew JOHN KOBERGER, who was the son of Sebaldus Koberger, and who carried on a yet more successful business than his uncle. Not fewer than seventeen presses were kept in constant employ by him, and he is said to have been engaged in a correspondence with almost every printer and bookseller in Europe. It was my good fortune to purchase an original bronze head of him, of Messrs. Frauenholz and Co., one of the most respectable and substantial houses, in the print trade, upon the Continent. This head is struck upon a circular bronze of about seven inches in diameter, bearing the following incription: JOANNES KOBERGER ... SEIN. ALTR. xxxx: that is, John Koberger, in the fortieth year of his age. The head, singularly enough, is laureated; and in the upper part of it are two capital letters, of which the top parts resemble a B or D--and F or E. It is a fine solid piece of workmanship, and is full of individuality of character. From an old ms. inscription at the back, the original should appear to have died in 1522. I was of course too much interested in the history of the Kobergers, not to ask permission, to examine the premises from which so much learning and piety had once issued to the public; and I could not help being struck with at least the space which these premises occupied. At the end of a yard, was a small chapel, which formerly was, doubtless, the printing office or drying room of the Kobergers. The interior of the house was now so completely devoted to other uses, that one could identify nothing. The church of St. Giles, in this place, is scarcely little more than a century old; as a print of it, of the date of 1689, represents the building to be not yet complete.
I shall now conduct the reader at once to the PUBLIC LIBRARY; premising, that it occupies the very situation which it has held since the first book was deposited in it. This is very rarely the case abroad. It is, in fact, a small gothic quadrangle, with the windows modernised; and was formerly a convent of Dominicans. M. RANNER, the public librarian, (with whom-- as he was unable to speak French, and myself equally unable to speak his own language--I conversed in the Latin tongue) assured me that there was anciently a printing press here--conducted by the Dominicans--who were resolved to print no book but what was the production of one of their own order. I have great doubts about this fact, and expressed the same to M. Ranner; adding, that I had never seen a book so printed; The librarian, however, reiterated his assertion, and said that the monastery was built in the eleventh century. There is certainly no visible portion of it older than the beginning of the fifteenth century. The library itself is on the first floor, and fills two rooms, running parallel with each other; both of them sufficiently dismal and uninviting. It is said to contain 45,000 volumes; but I much question whether there be half that number. There are some precious MSS. of which M. Ranner has published a catalogue in two octavo volumes, in the Latin language, in a manner extremely creditable to himself, and such as to render De Murr's labour upon the same subjects almost useless. Among these MSS. I was shewn one in the Hebrew language--of the eleventh or twelfth century--with very singular marginal illuminations, as grotesques or capriccios; in which the figures, whether human beings, monsters, or animals, were made out by lines composed of Hebrew characters, considered to be a gloss upon the text.
As to the printed books of an early date, they are few and unimportant--if the subject of them be exclusively considered. There is a woeful want of classics, and even of useful literary performances. Here, however, I saw the far-famed I. de Turrecremata Meditationes of 1467, briefly described by De Murr; of which, I believe, only two other copies are known to exist--namely, one in the Imperial library at Vienna,[169] and the other in the collection of Earl Spencer. It is an exceedingly precious book to the typographical antiquary, inasmuch as it is supposed to be the first production of the press of Ulric Han. The copy in question has the plates coloured; and, singularly enough, is bound up in a wooden cover with Honorius de Imagine Mundi, printed by Koberger, and the Hexameron of Ambrosius, printed by Schuzler in 1472. It is, however, a clean, sound copy; but cut down to the size of the volumes with which it is bound. Here is the Boniface of 1465, by Fust, UPON VELLUM: with a large space on the rectos of the second and third leaves, purposely left for the insertion of ms. or some subsequent correction. The Durandus of 1459 has the first capital letter stamped with red and blue, like the smaller capital initials in the Psalter of 1457. In this first capital initial, the blue is the outer portion of the letter. The German Bible by Mentelin is perfect; but wretchedly cropt, and dirty even to dinginess. Here is a very fine large genuine copy of Jenson's Quintilian of 1471. Of the Epistles of St. Jerom, here are the early editions by Mentelin and Sweynheym and Pannartz; the latter, of the date of 1470: a fine, large copy--but not free from ms. annotations.
More precious, however, in the estimation of the critical bibliographer-- than either, or the whole, of the preceding volumes--is the very rare edition of the Decameron of Boccaccio, of the date of 1472, printed at Mantua, by A. de Michaelibus.[170] Such a copy as that in the public library at Nuremberg, is in all probability unparalleled: it being, in every respect, what a perfect copy should be--white, large, and in its pristine binding. A singular coincidence took place, while I was examining this extraordinarily rare book. M. Lechner, the bookseller, of whom I shall have occasion to speak again, brought me a letter, directed to his own house, from Earl Spencer. In that letter, his lordship requested me to make a particular collation of the edition of Boccaccio--with which I was occupied at the very moment of receiving it. Of course, upon every account, that collation was made. Upon its completion, and asking M. Ranner whether any consideration would induce the curators of the library to part with this volume, the worthy librarian shouted aloud!... adding, that, "not many weeks before, an English gentleman had offered the sum of sixty louis d'or for it,--but not twice that sum could be taken!... and in fact the book must never leave its present quarters--no ... not even for the noble collection in behalf of which I pleaded so earnestly." M. Ranner's manner was so positive, and his voice so sonorous,--that I dreaded the submission of any contre-projet ... and accordingly left him in the full and unmolested enjoyment of his beloved Decameron printed by Adam de Michaelibus.
M. Ranner shewed me a sound, fair copy of the first Florentine Homer of 1488; but cropt, with red edges to the leaves. But I was most pleased with a sort of cupboard, or closet-fashioned recess, filled with the first and subsequent editions of all the pieces written by Melancthon, I was told that there were more than eight hundred of such pieces. These, and a similar collection from the pens of Luther and Eckuis at Landshut,[171] would, as I conceive, be invaluable repertories for the History of the Reformation upon the Continent. Although I examined many shelves of books, for two successive days, in the Public Library of Nuremberg, I am not conscious of having found any thing more deserving of detail than what has been already submitted to the reader.
Of all edifices, more especially deserving of being visited at Nuremberg, the CITADEL is doubtless the most curious and ancient, as well as the most remarkable. It rises to a considerable height, close upon the outer walls of the town, within about a stone's throw of the end of Albrecht Durer Strasse--or the street where ALBERT DURER lived--and whose house is not only yet in existence, but still the object of attraction and veneration with every visitor of taste, from whatever part of the world he may chance to come. The street running down, is the street called (as before observed) after Albert Durer's own name; and the well, seen about the middle of it, is a specimen of those wells--built of stone--which are very common in the streets of Nuremberg. The house of Albert Durer is now in a very wretched, and even unsafe condition. The upper part is supposed to have been his study. The interior is so altered from its original disposition, as to present little or nothing satisfactory to the antiquary. It would be difficult to say how many coats of whitewash have been bestowed upon the rooms, since the time when they were tenanted by the great character in question.
Passing through this street, therefore, you turn to the right, and continue onwards, up a pretty smart ascent; when the entrance to the citadel, by the side of a low wall--in front of an old tower--presents itself to your attention. It was before breakfast that my companion and self visited this interesting interior, over every part of which we were conducted by a most loquacious cicerone, who spoke the French language very fluently, and who was pleased to express his extreme gratification upon finding that his visitors were Englishmen. The tower, of the exterior of which there is a very indifferent engraving in the Singularia Norimbergensia, and the adjoining chapel, may be each of the thirteenth century; but the tombstone of the founder of the monastery, upon the site of which the present Citadel was built, bears the date of 1296. This tombstone is very perfect; lying in a loose, unconnected manner, as you enter the chapel:--the chapel itself having a crypt-like appearance. This latter is very small.