Nuremberg (Germany) -- Description and travel; Nuremberg (Germany) -- History
High up on the roof of the choir outside rises a pole with a hat upon
it. Two choir-boys (the story runs) who were playing marbles in the
church fell to quarrelling, and one of them who held the two marbles in
his hand, maintained his rights with the exclamation, "Devil take me!"
Thereupon the Devil immediately appeared and wrung the boy's neck. At
the corner of the St. Lawrence schoolhouse, on the pedestal of St.
Lawrence, you may see carved in the stone the head as it was twisted on
the trunk. The hat on the pole on the choir is that of the unfortunate
chorister.
[Illustration: ST. LORENZKIRCHE (N.)]
Entering the church by the north-west door, near the Tugendbrunnen (see
Ch. X.), we notice that the nave is twice as high and broad as the
aisles which are thus subordinated to it. But, as in St. Sebald's, the
three aisles of the choir are of equal height. Here there are two
stories of windows, instead of a single row of tall ones. Two visits
should be paid to St. Lawrence's in order to see the full effects of
this church--one in the morning when the sun is shining through the
windows of the polygonal east end, and one in the afternoon when the
light streams through the glorious rose window in the west.
Plain, slender pillars carry the vaulting of the choir with its flat
spidery network. A gallery which runs round the whole choir is reached
by a staircase next the sacristy (_s_). The sacristy should be looked
into both for the sake of its own beauty and for the sake of the choral
books, illuminated by Jakob Elssner(?) (d. 1546), and a baptismal basin
by Endterlein (d. 1633).[57]
The east end of the choir contains splendid windows (see p. 213). The
subject of the first, on the north side, behind the altar of St. John,
is the wanderings of the children of Israel; of the second the Passion,
of the third the Transfiguration, of the fourth the donor, Emperor
Frederic III. and his consort, of the fifth, Saints and Fathers of the
Church.
But far the finest and most famous of the windows is the sixth, the
Volkamer window. It is a "Jesse" window, displaying the genealogical
tree of Christ, and, below, the founder and his family. The seventh, or
Schlüssfelder window, represents the holy mill and the four Evangelists
with the four Apostles, after Durer, beneath. All these belong to the
last half of the fifteenth century; but the eighth is a modern one
(1881), commemorating the re-establishment of the German Empire. The
Tucher window next the sacristy was painted by Springlin, 1451, and
contains beautiful red glass in the early Renaissance style.
Another noticeable window is that on the south side, exhibiting the arms
of the Schmidmayer family. The designs are attributed to Durer.
Near this stands one of the old carved chairs, in which the Masters of
the Guilds once sat in turn to receive alms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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