HERMANN VISCHER 
that the Nuremberg artists lack the local note. 
But they readily accepted the ideas of Flemish 
realism and again of the Italian Renaissance, and 
translated them into the terms of their own speech. 
Albert Diirer, for instance, in spite of his wide 
experience, always speaks in his art like his master 
Wolgemut, in the Nuremberg dialect. The in- 
tense patriotism and the deep religious feeling 
which formed so intimate a part of the lives of 
the citizens are reproduced in their art and litera- 
ture, giving the greatest examples of them the 
added charm of locality. The religious spirit in 
which they worked lent a great humility to these 
craftsmen. Sculpture and painting had indeed 
been applied with splendid results to the adorn- 
ment of domestic and public life, results so splen- 
did that the traveller Aneas Sylvius was obliged 
to confess that the mansions of the burgesses 
seemed to have been built for princes, and that 
the kings of Scotland would gladly be housed as 
luxuriously as the ordinary citizen of Nuremberg. 
But the chief work of men like Adam Krafft and 
Peter Vischer was given to the beautifying of the 
churches. And, working as they did in a deeply 
religious spirit, it is noticeable that when they 
represent themselves in paint, bronze, wood or 
stone, they give themselves the humble pose of 
suppliants, choosing always the lowliest place, and 
often, like Krafft in the tabernacle in the Church 
of St. Lorenz, or Vischer in the Sebaldusgrab in 
the Church of St. Sebald, they appear in their 
?