Nuremberg once more joined the League, on Maximilian's injunction, though she distrusted the alliance with the Markgraf thereby involved. The League, however, decided in January 1513 to take strong measures to repress the outlawed nobles and to destroy the castles of the robber-knights. But the Emperor objected, and said that he wanted to arrive at a peaceful compromise with Götz. The Nurembergers replied that they would be content if the latter paid over a sum of money sufficient to compensate the merchants for the losses they had suffered. At the same time they took prisoner a robber-knight who was a friend of the Markgraf, and to procure his release the Markgraf promised to arrange peace for them with Hans von Geislingen. This he succeeded in doing. Götz, however, remained at war, proud and obstinate in spite of all mediation. Again and again the League threatened war, the Emperor temporised, and Götz plundered, until at last Maximilian got it arranged that Götz should pay 14000 florins damages. These were subscribed chiefly by his supporters, such as the Bishop of Würzburg, who also persuaded him to cease from his career of robbery. Maximilian died in 1519. He had shown himself a good friend to the Nuremberg artists. No doubt his patronage and his keen interest in art and literature had been partly responsible for the good work of this period. He was himself an author, for he had a considerable share in the _Weisskunig_ and the _Theuerdank_--the latter, a poem which describes allegorically the private life and ideals of the Emperor, being chiefly executed by Melchior Pfinzing, his secretary, the Provost of St. Sebald's and builder of the Parsonage. Of the artists, he frequently employed Peter Vischer and Veit Stoss, whilst he showed the greatest appreciation of Albert Durer, to whom he gave a pension of 100 florins. When at Nuremberg in 1512 Maximilian with the aid of Willibald Pirkheimer and others, planned a colossal _Holzschnittwerk_, or wood-cut picture, "The Triumph," in which he himself was, as usual in the works of art he inspired, to be idealised as the greatest of princes. Durer was to draw part of it. Ninety-two blocks did Durer design for the _Triumphal Arch_ in the course of the next two years. Amongst other works for this patron we may mention _The Triumphal Car_, the _Crucifixion_, and the ornamental borders of the famous _Book of Hours_. Finally when Maximilian held the diet at Augsburg in 1518, Durer, who was one of the commissioners sent by the town of Nuremberg, drew the Emperor's portrait from the life, "in the little room upstairs in the palace." From this sketch he painted the picture now at Vienna, another version of which is in the German Museum at Nuremberg. Durer was as good a courtier as artist. Melanchthon tells us how Maximilian was endeavouring to draw a design which he wished Durer to carry out, but kept breaking the charcoal in doing so. Durer took the charcoal and,