RATHAUS RAILING
family can only have been improvements; im-
provements introduced by these craftsmen because
anything below their best was intolerable to their
artistic conscience. But it does not pay to be an
artist when you work on commission. So Diirer
also had found. And the Vischers in their turn
suffered from their enthusiasm. The Fuggers,
who had given the commission and had expressed
their approval of the original design, died. Their
heirs, noticing a difference between the approved
sketch and the finished product, suspected a fraud,
or, perhaps, seized the opportunity of avoiding the
expense of this piece of ancestral extravagance.
I'hey therefore brought an action for breach of
contract against the house of Vischer. After
several weary years of litigation—for the law's
delays stretched from 1522 to I1529—a decision
was given. The Fuggers were released from the
responsibility of their ancestors’ commission, and
the railing was thrown upon the hands of the heirs
of Peter Vischer. For the verdict was not awarded
till eight months after the old man’s death, which
occurred on the 7th of January, 1529, when he
was buried in the same grave as his two sons and
three wives who had died before him. His heirs,
then, the sons who survived him, were left to dis-
pose of the railing as best they could, but they
were not called upon to restore the money which
had already been paid on account, and which
amounted to some fourteen hundred odd gulden.
They turned therefore to the Nuremberg Council
ITT
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