PETER VISCHER
lion and the jawbone of an ass, Perseus with sword
and shield and in company of a mouse, Hercules
with a club. Between these heroes, in the centre
of either side, are female figures emblematic of
the four cardinal virtues of mankind—>Strength in
1 coat of mail with a lion, Temperance with a bowl
and globe, Wisdom with mirror and book, and
Justice with sword and scales. Inall, besides the
apostles and prophets, there are seventy-two
figures, in the presentation of which amidst flowers
and foliage the joyful, exuberant fancy of the artist
and his helpers has run riot. But there is, as I
have suggested, a well-conceived plan and unity
throughout; an intimate correspondence, 1n spite
of the variety of groups, between the parts and the
whole. Everything is subordinated to the two
central ideas which animate the whole, and every-
thing executed with a delicacy of feeling and a
fineness of finish little short of marvellous. The
whole fabric rests upon twelve large snails, with
four dolphins at the corners.”
The bronze is, apparently, just as it left the
mould. It has not been filed and chiselled and
smoothed and polished after the modern fashion,
and it has therefore lost nothing of the vigour
and character of the lines as they were originally
shaped by the craftsmen’s hands. The very
roughnesses are commendable.
‘Vhen Peter Vischer received the commission
co produce this great memorial of the municipal
Saint the lines on which it should be wrought were
48