The Zwinger, to the west of the Schloss, is a range of buildings of seven pavilions, with the Museum at one corner. In the Museum are the picture gallery, with collections of engravings and drawings, and mineralogical collections, with scientific instruments.
The Picture Gallery is of world renown, containing more than two thousand four hundred paintings, mostly by Italian and Flemish masters. The gem of the collection is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna;” other masterpieces being Titian’s “Tribute Money,” and Correggio’s “Magdalene” and “La Notte.”
The Green Vault in the Royal Palace contains an unrivaled collection of precious stones, articles wrought in gold, silver, and ivory, etc. The new Hoftheater is one of the finest theaters in Europe. Of the churches the most noted are the Frauenkirche, with its lofty dome (three hundred and ten feet high).
The so-called “Dresden china” is made for the most part at Meissen, fifteen miles from Dresden.
Leipzig is not only the seat of a famous university and the great book market of Germany, but has one of the largest annual fairs in the world, to which merchants come from all parts of the earth, even from America and China.
Chemnitz and Zwickau, beside the Saxon coal field, are the great woolen and machine-manufacturing towns of the kingdom. Freiberg is famed for its school of mines.
Cities of Bavaria.—Munich (München), the capital, stands in the midst of a bare elevated plain on the left bank of the Isar, one thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level, but has risen to importance as the central point of the great grain-growing plateau of southern Bavaria. It is the great corn depot of the country, and the place of manufacture of its favorite beer. In recent times it has become celebrated as a seat of the fine arts and for its splendid buildings.
Ancient Nürnburg, with its double line of walls, where watches, first called Nürnberg eggs, were invented, is the great seat of industry and commerce in the north of Bavaria, exporting toys which go to all parts of the world. It stands on the Ludwigs Canal, the most important one in the kingdom, uniting the navigable tributaries of the Rhine and Danube.
Augsburg, on the Lech, northwest of Munich, where the Protestants presented the Confession of Faith to Charles V., is a chief center of Bavarian trade and exchange. Würzburg, on the Main, is the old capital of Franconia, the district which was peopled by colonies of Franks in the sixth century.
Speyer or Spire and the fortress of Landau are also important places in the palatinate.