In its entire arrangement this structure recalls the Palas of the great German castles of the twelfth century—an impression that is increased by the grand staircase leading up to the principal entrance, which, emphasized with splendid decoration and borne on four caryatides, adapts itself strictly to the system of the whole and with all its magnif icence is devoid of exaggeration. Thus the pre-eminence of the entire creation, which may be called the noblest work of the Renaissance in Germany, depends upon skilful and nobly-artistic proportions and upon a wise disposition of the rich details. This noble artistic refinement— which, it is true, does not approach that of the older Italians, but which is not to be found in other German edifices of the same period—would suggest the opinion that in Otto Heinrich's building we have to admire the work of a later Italian who yet clung to the older traditions, or that the workmen were Italians, did not the lofty German gables which this structure (o. 46, fig. 2) formerly bore prove the contrary.
Decadence of German Renaissance.—Farther on in the century this correctness of proportion diminished more and more in Germany; as the style became more general, the more mechanically was it executed. The mouldings became ruder, the elements more baroque, the distribution of the ornaments less intelligible, the ornament itself more mannered. Again that conservatism which formerly characterized the Germans appears in their architecture. But the honest citizen simplicity, the quiet homeliness, which is expressed in the great majority of the burghers' dwellings has something which so breathes of home that we willingly forgive the German bourgeoisie that they have erected these buildings not with the intention of making works of art, but to provide themselves with cherished homes suitable to their wants, and that only a few of the rich and the highly educated were acquainted with the more splendid sides of the style.
Of the many works belonging to the close of the century which fill all the German cities, we will name only a few. The tall spire which was added in 1559-156r to the tower of the town-hall of the Altstadt of Dant zic may be mentioned as a particularly original work. The castle at Oels (1559-1616) and the original tomb of Edo Wiemken (156r–r564), in the church at Jever, may also be named. The latter is a great polygonal baldachin under which stands the sarcophagus, richly adorned with varied sculptures, among which are God the Father, and Christ on the cross, in company with Jupiter, Venus, Minerva, and other gods, and with allegor ical figures of the Christian virtues.
The erection of the grand Castle Plasseuburg lasted from 1561 to 1599; several German and some Italian architects who had come over from Ansbach were engaged in its construction. About 1563 important build ings were added to the Castle Ambras, near Innsbruck; the Castle Offen bach near Frankfort was built between 1564 and 1572, that at Baden Baden in 1569, the Heiligenberg on the Lake of Constance between 1569 and 1587, in 157o the beautiful porticoes of the town-hall at Lii beck, that of Schweinfurt (fig. 6) in the same year, and in 1569 the en
trance-portico to the Rathhaus at Cologne, whose perfectly-systematic Renaissance architecture has yet the foreign element of pointed arches (fig. 4), while the Gothic lead-work of the roof does not at all disturb the harmony.
Such isolated Gothic elements are scarcely ever lacking in structures of this period. Thus the Rathhaus at Schweinfurt has an open-work gallery round the roof, the Castle Heiligenberg has radiating vaulting in its chapel, and other buildings have other Gothic features. We have also, again with the same naivete, the characteristics of the interior expressed externally; for after the German boor, oisie had taken hold of and assim ilated the Renaissance they again departed from strict symmetry, and went back without scruple to those greater and lesser irregularities which were suited to their wants. Even Gothic cannot go farther than to cut oblique windows in the walls just where a staircase had to be lighted, as is done in the Rathhaus at Schweinfurt and in so many other buildings. The town-hall at Rothenburg was built in 1572, that of Gotha in 1574, and the original and important Rathhaus of Emden in the same year. The last has a gallery in front of the uppermost storey and a clock and bell tower rising out of the roof.
The Lusthaus at Stuttgart, which Georg Beer and other masters built between 1575 and 1593, is one of the most original of buildings. The architect has set before himself the same task as at the Belvedere at Prague. There is a ground-floor surrounded by a portico, above which an open terrace surrounds the great hall on the first floor. Four low round towers with pointed, tent-like roofs, upon the four angles of the portico, may be cited as a reminiscence of the old military construction, and may add to the originality, but not to the classical nobility, of the ensemble. Elegant cabinets and pavilions were in this age formed of the towers once intended for defensive purposes. Above all, it is the high German roof, with its richly-ornamented gables at the ends, that stamps the structure as specially German, and when compared with the Belvedere at Prague shows how far the German taste was from desiring to produce a structure which should be a fully-rounded classical work of art. At Prague we meet classical nobility; at Stuttgart picturesque and characteristic originality without noble proportions of the whole. Yet the detail of the structure, especially of the porticoes around it, must be esteemed pure and noble. Unfortunately, in the middle of the present century the unwarrantable barbarity of destroying the original structure was perpetrated.