HERMANN VISCHER 
was an excellent workman without being endowed 
with the superlative excellence of the artist. For 
the Font at Wittenberg, which is cast in the Gothic 
manner with small, undistinguished figures of the 
apostles, is a work of very little importance. In 
Nuremberg, where he lived in a house “ Am Sand” 
in the Schiessgraben, there is one work which is 
generally attributed to Hermann, although it is 
quite possibly from the hand of one Eberhard 
Vischer who became a master in 1459 and died in 
1488, just one year later than Hermann. The 
work to which we refer is the large bronze Cruci- 
fix outside the central window of the Léffelholz 
chapel of the church of St. Sebald, which was 
presented by the Starck family in 1482. It was 
remodelled in 1625, and on that occasion the 
Nurembergers earned the nick-name of Herrgott- 
schwirzer or Blackeners of the Lord. For the 
story ran that the cross was made of silver, and 
that the Council of the town resolved that it should 
be painted black in order to preserve it from the 
roving bands of soldiers that passed through the 
town during the Thirty Years’ War. The figure 
on the cross is that of a Hercules rather than of a 
Christ. The feet are each nailed separately after 
the ancient manner. 
Hermann Vischer was twice married. By his 
first wife, Felicitas, he had one daughter, Martha, 
and one son, Peter, the date of whose birth is not 
known. By his second wife he had three sons of 
no importance, and he died in 1487, in the year 
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