TRANSACTIONS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL INSTITUTE OF SCOTLAND,

SESSION 1855-56.

No. II.

ON THE

ARCHITECTURE OF NUREMBERG.

BY

GEORGE BURNETT, Esq.

ADVOCATE.

[Read at a Meeting of the Institute at Edinburgh, on 7th January 1856.]

Of all the ancient towns of Germany, none is more interesting to the lover of the fine arts than Nuremberg. Its fantastic, irregular, and richly decorated streets, its turrets and oriels, its Sebalduskirche and Lorenzokirche, and its "Schöne Brunnen" are all so thoroughly mediæval, so unlike the prosaic and lifeless architecture of the nineteenth century, that the stranger, who for the first time beholds them, can almost believe himself transported to the age of Adam Kraft, Peter Vischer and Albert Dürer.

The architecture of this quaint old city is closely connected with its history. Founded as is generally believed by Conrad the Salic, in the beginning of the eleventh century, Nuremberg early attained the privileges of free market, custom, and coinage, and rapidly extending and rising into commercial importance, was declared by Henry V. independent of any sovereign but the Emperor. The Burg or Castle was at the same time given in charge to an officer called

a Burggraf, chosen from the nobility of the empire. By and by the Burggraf from being the protector, became the oppressor of Nuremberg. The council of twenty-six citizens who administered the civic affairs, holding themselves responsible to the Emperor alone, were disposed to resent any undue stretch of power on the part of his representative. Another grievance existed in the predatory incursions of the robber knights from the fastnesses of Upper Franconia. Yet in the face of all adverse circumstances, Nuremberg rose in wealth and importance, and began at the same time to be distinguished for the cultivation of the Arts. She continued to enjoy a considerable share of imperial favour, diets being held within the walls, and the Burg becoming a frequent residence of the Emperors. Her geographical position was also a great cause of her prosperity. The African continent not having yet been circumnavigated, all the merchandize from the East necessarily came overland into Europe; and Nuremberg being about equally distant from Venice and other trading towns of Flanders, was conveniently situated for a central entrepôt.

During the fourteenth century the wealthier and more influential citizens began gradually to form themselves into an aristocracy, and monopolize the functions of government. The administration of affairs was committed by them to seven magistrates chosen from their number. In matters of special importance, the three eldest of the seven only were allowed to act, one of whom was minister of war, and the two others called, the "Losunger" (collectors of the "Losung," or tribute), had the public treasury at command, and enjoyed an almost unlimited authority. Various privileges were conferred on Nuremberg by Charles IV. at the diet at which the "Golden Bull" was promulgated. According to that famous constitution, Nuremberg became

the chief city of the empire, and each new emperor was bound to hold his first diet there.

Meanwhile the office of Burggraf had become hereditary in the house of Zollern; and when Sigismund sold the Marquesate of Brandenburg to the representative of that family, the latter, in order to raise the purchase-money, parted with the Burg and a portion of his rights to the town of Nuremberg for 120,000 florins. The citizens having thus got rid of the Burggraf as a neighbour, dismantled and destroyed the greater part of his fortress.

Before this period Nuremberg had attained her climax of external prosperity. She was the centre of the glory and wealth of the empire, taking the lead both in commerce and in the arts; and though luxury and demoralization had already made their inroads, the Nurembergers were, on the whole, a virtuous community, and their privileged classes most frequently used their power for the benefit of the people. Then came the era of the Reformation, when that feeling of sturdy independence which, at an earlier period, had led the citizens to resist manfully all encroachments on the part of the Holy See, now induced them to take the lead in throwing off the yoke of the Popedom. Though Nuremberg was no longer capable of rearing glorious architectural monuments like those of former days, and Adam Kraft, her greatest sculptor, had been some years in his grave, yet, this was the age when Albert Dürer painted, Pfinzing composed his "Tewrdanck,” and Hans Sachs cobbled shoes and lampooned the clergy. The artificers of Nuremberg, in all departments, were really artists: the painters of glass, carvers in wood and ivory, goldsmiths, armourers, and casters in bronze, stood unrivalled, and Nuremberg "Witz," became a proverb throughout Europe.

The succeeding century, however, saw a change come over the current of affairs. Commerce fell off, private animosities increased, and public honesty declined. The patrician government becoming corrupt, postponed the public welfare to the aggrandizement of the aristocracy. In the dungeons beneath the Rathhans, a tribunal whose very existence was shrouded in mystery, sat on the lives and liberties of the citizens. The privileged classes, forgetful of that commerce by which their ancestors had been elevated, neglected the trading interests of the town, and attempted to cope with the nobility of the empire.

Meanwhile other causes also contributed to Nuremberg's decline. A demand arose for cheap and inferior workmanship, in which the Nuremberg artisans could not compete with those of other towns: and things were in this state when the Thirty Years' War broke out, and religious feuds were kindled all over Germany. Nuremberg suffered severely during the war, her financial resources being completely exhausted in upholding Gustavus Adolphus against Wallenstein. Her downfall was completed by the Seven Years' War, and the events which followed it. What the French left the Austrians took; Bavaria and Prussia joined in the work of spoliation, and in 1806, the republic was, by a decree of Napoleon, declared to be at an end, and Nuremberg handed over to the king of Bavaria. No more favourable event could have occurred to the old town than this annexation. The republic was not only effete, but its coffers were exhausted, and the Bavarian government recognizing the debt and extending the privileges of the citizens, has enabled Nuremberg to exhibit some faint yet unmistakeable evidences of reviving vigour.

With the general resemblance which the history of Nuremberg bears to that of Venice there is this difference,

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that the degradation and decay were not so complete. The national character never fell so low as at Venice, and there is a primitive simplicity classes of people in Nurem

even at the present day, and heartiness about all berg, which has greatly disappeared in most parts of Germany. Nor are the costumes of the lower orders much altered since the days of Albert Dürer. The men still wear their wide hanging coats, huge steel buttons, and shovel hats; and the women, attired in gay scarlet petticoats trimmed with velvet, and a stiff black head-dress glittering with brilliants, may yet be seen proceeding to and from the public fountains with the long narrow “Wasserbutte," or pail for water, strapped to their shoulders.

Nuremberg in her palmy days, attained about an equal share of eminence in the three fine arts: in painting she had her Albert Dürer, in sculpture her Adam Kraft, and if the names connected with the earlier period of her architecture have not been handed down to us, it is but the usual fate of the architects of the middle ages to be forgotten, while the monuments of their genius live. Georg and Fritz Rupprecht however, and Conrad Roritzer, are still remembered in connection with the Frauenkirche, Schöne Brunnen, and Lorenzokirche.

Nuremberg first became a walled town in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Of the old walls few vestiges remain, except two narrow and lofty gate towers, now in the middle of the town. A century later the city had so greatly extended, that it was found necessary to enclose a much larger area, and the present walls were built, coinciding with the old only where they take within their circuit the ancient Burg. Along these walls are a succession of small bastions, also numberless little square feudal towers with high pitched roofs, sometimes ridged,