Augsburg, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had a fair claim to be entitled the Athens of the North. Among the cities of Germany it held a place similar to that occupied by Florence among those of Italy. And in both instances the primacy attained in arts and letters had depended on the fostering hand of successful commerce. That which the Medici had done for Florence, the Fugger family had done for Augsburg. The latter name has not at the present day the worldwide celebrity of the former. But then the Fuggers never exalted themselves to sovereignty on the ruin of their country; and flunkeydom has accordingly less assiduously embalmed their memory. In the sixteenth century, however, their name was celebrated throughout Europe. Rabelais, writing from Rome to the Bishop of Maillezais in the year 1536, tells him that Philip Strozzi was esteemed the richest merchant in Christendom, with the sole exception of the Fuggers. Charles V. was their guest when at Augsburg; and an anecdote has been preserved of the fire in the imperial bedchamber under their roof having been made of a faggot of cinnamon, lighted with an I. O. U. of his majesty's to a large amount. It is true that the cinnamon may probably have been the more costly part of the sacrifice. Towards the end of the century Dominick Custos, an engraver of Antwerp, published a magnificent folio volume of a hundred and twenty–seven portraits, "Fuggerorum et Fuggerarum;" a somewhat cacophonous title, the strange sound of which has amusingly caused the book to be classed in more than one catalogue by un–historical bibliopoles among botanical works, under the impression that the ladies and gentlemen of the great merchant family were specimens of ferns.