rg, Adam Kraft, was
employed to execute the sculptures, which still stand a monument of the
piety of the old citizen, whose house (known by the figure of an armed
knight at its angle) is still familiarly called "Pilate's House." Time
has written strange alterations on these old works, and wanton injury
has also been done to them, but there still remains enough to show the
ability of their conception and execution.

[Illustration: Fig. 236.--The Himmelsthor, Nuernberg Castle.]

The castle comprises the somewhat rambling series of buildings of all
ages, styles, and dates, which crown the rock above. The singular manner
in which this isolated mass of stone suddenly rises from the sandy
plain may have induced the first foundation of the city, by the secure
locality it afforded the castle of a ruler in days of old. Its early
history is shrouded in obscurity--one of its towers has been attributed
to the Romans; it can still show undoubted works of the ninth century in
the chapels of Sts. Ottmar and Margaret, from which time it received
alterations and additions of all kinds, ending in leaving it the
picturesque assemblage of quaint old buildings which it at present
remains. The Himmelsthor, or "tower of heaven," is the name given to the
large round tower which is built within the castle precincts on the
highest point of the rock, and which, as its title implies, soars toward
heaven, and forms a prominent feature in all views of Nuernberg. The
panorama from its summit is singularly striking, comprising the entire
country for an immense distance round. The _alt Feste_, where
Wallenstein encamped, in his memorable defence of these lines and of the
city when besieged by Gustavus Adolphus, of Sweden, and the blue hills
known as the Franconian Switzerland, terminating with the Moritzberg,
give relief to the otherwise flat vicinity. This tower has been
introduced in the background of some of Duerer's designs, as well as
other portions of the castle. The old town-walls also figure in those
scenes from Holy Writ he so frequently designed. The anachronisms which
result from such a mode of realising scenes in past history were
sufficiently familiar in his own day to save them from all adverse
criticism; indeed, it had become the formula of early art, thus to
verify sacred events by adapting them to the experiences of every-day
life around, to which it never appealed in vain. To comprehend fully the
art of any one period, and the talent