Vischer's foundry at Nuremberg enjoyed a great fame, and orders were sent to it from far and near. No doubt a great many monuments were cast here which were not designed by Vischer at all. His works were numerous, but I shall only describe his masterpiece, which was the shrine or tomb of St. Sebald, and occupied Peter Vischer from 1508 to 1519, he being assisted by his five sons. The son Peter was admitted as a master in the thimble trade in 1527. Hans was called "the caster," and seems to have superintended the carving of models; Hermann went to Italy and brought home designs and models; and Jacob and Paul seem to have had no special departments. Between 1495 and 1508 so little was recorded of Peter Vischer that it leads to the belief that these years must have been given to study and to the improvement which the tomb of St. Sebald shows over the work of the monument to Archbishop Ernst, in the Magdeburg Cathedral, which was done in 1495. The bones of St. Sebald had been inclosed in a sarcophagus of the Middle Ages, and the work required of Vischer was a fitting tomb for such precious and honored relics, for St. Sebald is the special patron saint of Nuremberg, and dwelt in a cell near that city. His legend relates that he was the son of a Danish king, who came to Germany as a missionary and settled at Nuremberg, where he did many miraculous works of charity. On one occasion, during very cold weather, he is said to have found a family nearly frozen and without fuel; he commanded them to bring the icicles hanging from the roof and make a fire of them. They obeyed, and were thus warmed. Many such wonders are told of him, and Vischer in his statue makes him to appear as a pilgrim, with shell in hat, staff, rosary and wallet, while in his hand he holds a model of a church intended to represent that in which the tomb is erected. This Church of St. Sebald is now used for the Lutheran service, and the shrine still stands in the centre of the choir. (Fig. 94.) [Illustration: FIG. 94.--TOMB OF ST. SEBALD. _By Peter Vischer._ _Nuremberg._] The architecture of this remarkable work is of the richest style of Gothic, and the whole of it is in bronze, except that the oaken sarcophagus is encased in silver plates. This rests beneath a fret-work canopy supported on slender pillars. There is an abundance of ornament everywhere, but the close examination of its detail shows beauty and fitness in every part. For example, if we compare the statue of the saint, of which we have spoken, which stands at the end of the shrine most exposed, with the statue of Vischer himself, which is at the opposite end, we shall see how the saint, with his symbols and his flowing drapery, is an ideal work, and seems to be advancing with authority and the air which befits the son of a king, while Vischer, with his round cap, leather apron, and German face, is simply the representation of a worker bent upon doing his best (Fig. 95).