[Illustration: FIG. 193.--ZWINGER PALACE, DRESDEN.] +HOUSES.+ Many of the German houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would merit extended notice in a larger work, as among the most interesting lesser monuments of the Renaissance. Nuremberg and Hildesheim are particularly rich in such houses, built either for private citizens or for guilds and corporations. Not a few of the half-timbered houses of the time are genuine works of art, though interest chiefly centres in the more monumental dwellings of stone. In this domestic architecture the picturesque quality of German design appears to better advantage than in more monumental edifices, and their broadly stepped gables, corbelled oriels, florid portals and want of formal symmetry imparting a peculiar and undeniable charm. The Kaiserhaus and Wedekindsches Haus at Hildesheim; +Fürstenhaus+ at Leipzig; Peller, Hirschvogel, and Funk houses at Nuremberg; the Salt House at Frankfurt, and Ritter House at Heidelberg, are a few of the most noted among these examples of domestic architecture. [Illustration: FIG. 194.--CHURCH OF ST. MARY (MARIENKIRCHE), DRESDEN.] +LATER MONUMENTS.+ The +Zwinger Palace+ at Dresden (Fig. 193), is the most elaborate and wayward example of the German palace architecture of the third period. Its details are of the most exaggerated rococo type, like confectioner’s work done in stone; and yet the building has an air of princely splendor which partly atones for its details. Besides this palace, Dresden possesses in the domical +Marienkirche+ (Fig. 194) a very meritorious example of late design. The proportions are good, and the detail, if not interesting, is at least inoffensive, while the whole is a dignified and rational piece of work. At Vienna are a number of palaces of the third period, more interesting for their beautiful grounds and parks than for intrinsic architectural merit. As in Italy, this was the period of stucco, and although in Vienna this cheap and perishable material was cleverly handled, and the ornament produced was often quaint and effective, the results lack the permanence and dignity of true building in stone or brick, and may be dismissed without further mention. In minor works the Germans were far less prolific than the Italians or Spaniards. Few of their tombs were of the first importance, though one, the +Sebald Shrine+, in Nuremberg, by _Peter Vischer_ (1506-19), is a splendid work in bronze, in the transitional style; a richly decorated canopy on slender metal colonnettes covering and enclosing the sarcophagus of the saint. There are a large number of fountains in the squares of German and Swiss cities which display a high order of design, and are among the most characteristic minor products of German art.