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 
>