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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