_Ipse me vivus posuit_, it is added. And indeed this Child of Light was wise in his generation, and knowing that artists are rare, and that through their pen or brush alone can most men achieve an earthly immortality, the archbishop had ordered his tomb from Peter Vischer in 1494, though he himself did not die till 1513. He was not so foolish as to leave the matter to the care of ungrateful heirs like Browning’s Bishop who ordered his tomb in St. Praxed’s Church. The date on the tombstone, which is the date of the setting up thereof, is variously interpreted 1495 and 1497. But all Peter Vischer’s 5’s are quite unlike the final figure in this inscription, although many perceive in it a 5 after the manner of the Arabic lettering of those days. Moreover Vischer was in Heidelberg in 1494, and only returned to Nuremberg to stay in 1496. Only at Nuremberg can he have had the appliances necessary for so elaborate a work, and, even if he paid a flying visit there before ’96, he had not sufficient time to complete his task by 1495. There is yet another reason for putting the date of the Magdeburg monument as late as possible, and that is its amazing superiority to the Breslau tomb of Bishop John IV., the setting up of which Peter Vischer himself personally superintended in 1496. The latter monument is so inferior in style and treatment that it is incredible that the artist, after having made such an advance as is exhibited in the Magdeburg memorial, should have gone back in the following year to so hard, forced and yet feeble a handling of form. If this Breslau tomb is indeed later than the other it must be the work of an apprentice, who has endeavoured to imitate the idea of the Magdeburg masterpiece, and very lamentably failed in his endeavour. The decorative work, however, is very much more successful than the treatment of the figures, of which the drapery still completely hides the anatomy and still falls in stiff and angular folds. [Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, MAGDEBURG 4. TOMB OF ARCHBISHOP ERNST]