"As his Princely Highness had very little ready money he sent me to Herr Fugger to borrow four thousand thalers; but he decidedly declined doing this, excusing himself quite politely; however the following day he sent his steward to me to be introduced to my lord, through whom he presented to his Princely Highness two hundred crowns, a beautiful goblet worth eighty dollars, and besides that a splendid horse with black velvet housings." Together with this taste for display we find in other patrician families at the beginning of this century far higher aims in life. The firms of Pentinger at Augsburg, and Perkheimer at Nuremberg were the focus of the noblest interests of the nation; the heads of these houses were men of princely opulence, landed proprietors and merchant princes, statesmen and warriors, and at the same time men of learning and research. It was for families like these that Albert Duerer painted his best pictures; to them the travelling Humanitarians resorted; every elegant verse, every manly sentiment or word of genius, were there first heartily appreciated. As councillors and patrons in worldly concerns, as liberal proprietors of valuable libraries and of first-rate cabinets of antiquities, as hospitable masters of rich households, they knew how to do honour to all who brought to their houses intellect, knowledge, and refinement.[56] In these families, the women also frequently received an education which went further than the knowledge of cooking, spinning, and the prayer-book; the daughters of these households gained what was seldom to be found in the castles of the princes or in the mansions of the landed nobility,--a heartfelt interest in the sciences and arts with which the friends of the family were occupied. There is a peculiar charm for us in the contemplation of the first female characters who were ennobled by the dawn of a new civilization. Constance Peutinger, who twined the laurel wreaths for Hutten; Caritas Perkheimer, the suffering abbess of Clarenklosters at Nuremberg, and later Philippine Welser, the wife of the Emperor's son, all belonged to the class of German patricians; they were sensitive natures often oppressed and wounded in this rough and thorny period.