s and braziers; and fifty
master-goldsmiths dwelt in the town, making elegant and highly
artistic works, images, seals, and medals, which were famous
throughout Europe. The most exquisite flowers and insects, and other
delicate objects, were reproduced in filagree silver; and the first
maiolica works in Northern Europe were also founded here.

Isolated, like the ducal cities of Italy, from the desolating wars of
the great powers of Europe, and like them also growing rapidly in
wealth and cultivation, Nuremberg afforded a secure refuge for Art and
its children. In Duerer's day the great churches of St. Sebald, St.
Lawrence, and Our Lady were finished; Peter Vischer executed the
exquisite and unrivalled bronze Shrine of St. Sebald; and Adam Kraft
completed the fairy-like Sacrament-house, sixty feet high, and
"delicate as a tree covered with hoar-frost." Intimate with these two
renowned artificers was Lindenast, "the red smith," who worked
skilfully in beaten copper; and their studies were conducted in
company with Vischer's five sons, who, with their wives and children,
all dwelt happily at their father's house. Vischer lived till a year
after Duerer's death, but there is no intimation that the two artists
ever met. Another eminent craftsman was the unruly Veit Stoss, the
marvellous wood-carver, many of whose works remain to this day; and
there was also Hans Beheim, the sculptor, "an honorable, pious, and
God-fearing man;" and Bullman, who "was very learned in astronomy,
and was the first to set the Theoria Planetarum in motion by
clockwork;" and he who made the great alarm-bell, which was inscribed,
"I am called the mass and the fire bell: Hans Glockengeiser cast me: I
sound to God's service and honor." What shall we say also of Hartmann,
Duerer's pupil, who invented the measuring-rod; Schoner, the maker of
terrestrial globes; Donner, who improved screw machinery; and all the
skilful gun-makers, joiners, carpet-workers, and silk-embroiderers?
There was also the burgher Martin Behaim, the inventor of the
terrestrial globe, who anticipated Columbus by sailing Eastward across
the Pacific Ocean, passing through the Straits of Magellan and
discovering Brazil, as early as 1485.

In Germany, as in Italy, the studio of the artist, full of pure and
lofty ideals, had hardly yet evolved itself from the workshop of the
picture-manufacturer. Nuremberg's chief artists at this time were
Michael Wohlgemuth, Duerer's master; Lucas Korn