TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN
Melchior Pfinzing, Provost of St. Sebald’s Church.
He conceived and commissioned amongst other
works Albert Diirer’s colossal wood-engraving,
the Zviumphal Arch, which was designed, as
usual, for the ‘glorification of this greatest of
princes. Wherever he happened to be, at Augs-
burg, Innsbruck, Nuremberg or Prague, in the
course of the conduct of one of his innumerable
wars or of a tourney, whilst administering justice,
repressing the chivalrous brigandage of petty lords
or bleeding a Bamberg banker, his eye was always
quick to perceive the merit of any craftsman.
Chroniclers repeatedly record his morning rides
in a town, and describe the visits which he would
pay to the houses of half-a-dozen craftsmen in a
day, buying and ordering costly works of art.
He came to visit also the home of that already
celebrated yet always modest and unpretending
Founder, Peter Vischer, “to whom Princes es-
teemed it an honour to do honour.” Maximilian
had before now shown a practical interest in
bronze work, and had incidentally displayed his
appreciation of Vischer. For when he was start-
ing a Foundry at Miihlau, near Innsbruck, he
had had it in contemplation to appoint the
“geschickligisten und berichtisten Rotschmied ”
—the most skilful and famous coppersmith of
Nuremberg—Peter Vischer to wit, to superintend
the establishment thereof. But Peter had declined
the honour, and Stefan Godl from Nuremberg
was appointed in his stead.
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