PETER VISCHER
violin. This is not surprising, for there was a
general tendency both in Italian and German art
to furnish mythical personages with modern musi-
cal instruments. Liibke reminds us, for instance,
>f the Apollo in Raphael's “ Parnassus.”
Of the other two plaquettes to which we have
referred, one is to be found in the Hamburg Mu-
seum, and the other was, till 1807, in St. Blasien
in the Black Forest, but is now preserved in the
institution of St. Paul in Carinthia. They are
almost exactly the same with the Berlin copy.
But the latter has a poetical inscription above on
the upper edge which is absent from the example
at St. Paul. | |
The inscription, which a recollection of the fond-
ness evinced by the young Peter for the study of
poetry inclines us to attribute to his pen, runs as
follows :
ORPHEA CVM SILVIS FLVVIOS ETSAXA MOVENTE
SRECIA LAETEOS FERT ADYSSE LAVIS
EVRYDICN ILLIC VITAE REVOCASSE PRIORI
SERVASSET STIGIO SI MODO PACTA IOVI ;
which, being roughly interpreted, is to the effect
that Orpheus, moving, according to the Grecian
fable, rocks and woods and rivers by his music,
came to the Infernal Regions, and there had quite
won back Eurydice to life if only he had observed
the conditions of the king of Hades.
The Hamburg exemplar has this inscription
also, with a few literal variations, as, for instance,
04