that Maximilian would raise no fortifications round the castle. On the other hand, during his honourable mission to Hungary (1506), he obtained from the {89} Emperor a substantial grant of privileges for his native city--notably the right "de non appellando." But Peutinger was Maximilian's confidant not merely in political affairs. Indeed, his employment in Imperial diplomacy directly arose from his intellectual and artistic relations with Maximilian, who sought the support of every scholar in his attempt to place the Fatherland in the forefront of Art and Science. In Italy Peutinger had learned the value of old Roman inscriptions, and in 1505 he was encouraged by Maximilian to publish a collection of the inscriptions of German antiquity.[114] The Emperor and the scholar kept up a correspondence on the subject of ancient coins, large consignments of which were sent to Augsburg, by order of the former, from every part of the Empire. During Peutinger's visit to Vienna in 1506 he was monopolized for three whole days for learned conversation, and received a new and more important commission from Maximilian. He was to examine the letters and documents of members of the House of Hapsburg, and to prepare a selection of them for publication; and with this object he was assigned a special apartment in the castle of Vienna, to which chronicles and histories were brought for his use from all quarters. Here he remained for almost three months, and the fruit of his labours was the _Kaiserbuch_, or Book of the Emperors, which was unfortunately never published and which is now extant only in a few fragments. During his labours for Maximilian he seems to have acquired a great number of valuable manuscripts; and had his literary projects been fully realized, we should have gained {90} an astonishing contribution to the historiography of the sixteenth century. But apart from his own unfinished writings, he edited and published, with Maximilian's approval, various early historical works,--the chronicles of Paul the Deacon and of Ursperg being of especial value.[115] Moreover, he was charged by the Emperor with a species of censorship, by virtue of which he prevented the appearance at Augsburg of a Swiss Chronicle, containing statements derogatory to the House of Hapsburg. In short, in almost every phase of the struggle of culture and civilization, which Maximilian so gallantly led, we find Peutinger intimately engaged as his friend and fellow-labourer; and with Beatus Rhenanus we may truly exclaim, "Our Conrad Peutinger is the immortal ornament, not merely of the town of Augsburg, but also of all Swabia!"