The frescoes (now scarcely visible) between the windows are by Gabriel Weyer (1619?). As both _Bædeker_ and _Murray_ state that "among them is a representation of the _guillotine_, which is thus proved to be two centuries older than the French Revolution," it may be worth while to remark that nothing of the sort is proved. The falling-axe, _fall-beil_, the Italian _caraletto_ here represented, was of course much used at this time, as the engravings of Lucas Cranach, Georg Pencz and others and as our own Halifax Gibbet and Morton's Maiden show. But the guillotine, properly so-called, was a revived and modified form of this. The instrument then took its name from the inventor of these modifications, M. Guillotin, a philanthropic French physician, who designed "to reduce the pain of death to a shiver" by this machine; "Qui simplement nous tuera Et que l'on nommera, Guillotine." as the royalist song first phrased it. The bronze railing, by Peter Vischer, which once separated the lower from the upper half of the hall has now disappeared. The small hall on the second floor is used now as the city court. It has recently been repaired and contains, besides portraits of modern Nuremberg worthies, some pompous allegorical paintings by Paul Juvenell (1579-1643). In the Rathaus as in the Castle and Museum some very fine specimens of old German stoves are to be seen. The stucco-relief on the ceiling of the corridor on this floor we have already mentioned more than once.[35] The Municipal Art Gallery (gratuity) on the third floor contains an interesting collection of paintings that deal with the history of Nuremberg. The most remarkable historically is the _Banquet held in the Rathaus_ on the occasion of the Peace of Westphalia (1649), by Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688). Thirty of the forty-seven figures at the table in this piece are portraits from life. * * * * * The power over life and death was given, as we have said, to the Council along with the other rights of the _Schuldheiss_ in 1459 by Frederick III. Till then the Emperor had reserved to himself the power to give to any individual he chose this right, "Ban über das Blut in der Stadt zu richten." It was an evil thing now to fall into the hands of the Council. Prisoners even during their detention before trial were made to suffer more severely than the worst modern convicts. The accused were put into the _Loch_, the hole which formed a part of the cellar of the old Rathaus, where there are twelve underground cells, each about two yards square, and two yards high.