TOMB OF MAXIMILIAN
Master of those who know.” Doubtless, indeed,
both his Arthur and his St. Peter of the Sebaldus-
grab owe not a little to the masterpiece of Dona-
tello.
But the beauty of the figure and pose of King
Arthur is not all. It need not blind us to the
exquisite ornamentation of the armour, which, un-
like that of Theodoric, is rich with the richness of
the North Italian Renaissance. The dragons
thereon are full of life, and the chain of the
Order of the Golden Fleece, and all the other
minute details of the decoration, are as notable
for the fecundity of invention as for the skill in
execution which they display.
~ These two heroic figures were completed by
the Vischer family as early as the year 1513, but
they did not reach the place for which they had
been destined till some ten years later, for the
Emperor kept them at Augsburg. And even
after they had arrived at Innsbruck and been set
in position there, they were not left in peace. A
great danger threatened Theodoric in 1548, for it
did not square with Charles V.’s conception of
the order of the Universe that the king of the
Goths should be found among the ancestors of
the Hapsburgs. He therefore gave orders that
his statue should either be recast or at least be
renamed. Fortunately neither of these things got
itself done.
/