The first impression made upon the mind by the famous Hofkirche is one of lightness and elegance, wedded to a somewhat flamboyant decorative scheme, rather than impressiveness or age. The lofty and slender-looking columns which support the roof on either side of the nave are of red marble, and the ceiling itself is elaborately decorated in rococo. The vista on entering is extremely fine, including as it does the wonderful tomb of Maximilian, the organ loft, and the huge crucifix in the centre, and the handsome pulpit on the left of the tomb. The impression of magnificence and beauty grows upon one, thus carrying out what was doubtless the design of the architect and the Emperor who was instrumental in its erection. [Sidenote: MAXIMILIAN'S TOMB] The tomb in the centre, with its imposing bronze figure of Maximilian kneeling with clasped hands on the top of the huge marble sarcophagus, at the four corners of which are smaller figures, at once arrests attention. The Emperor is in Imperial dress, with crown, armour, and a robe, and is surrounded by the twenty-eight huge figures which have become world-famous, and all save two of which were once torch-bearers, and are now seen with their right hands extended as though holding torches. The two exceptions are King Arthur of England, and the Emperor Theodoric the Goth. All of the statues surrounding the tomb are thought to have had some real or legendary connection with the House of Habsburg, and it is believed that Maximilian himself chose the characters who were to be represented. They may be grouped into two series. One consisting of his five favourite heroes of antiquity; the other of twenty-three ancestors, contemporary relatives or members of his house, both men and women. The figures differ very greatly both in style and merit. It was perhaps only natural that this result should have been arrived at when one remembers that several generations were occupied upon the construction of this marvellous example of German Renaissance monumental work erected during the sixteenth century, and that it was necessarily the work of several designers as well as many different hands. The tomb is a wonderful, perhaps even unequalled, example of the German art of a period which marked the blending of the mediæval and the modern. To the Imperial designer of the tomb the chivalric figures he chose to surround it were no mere abstractions but living, breathing entities; just as the old feudal Empires of south-eastern Europe were real. He was unable to realize that even then the old order was about to pass away, to be replaced by a new which was so divergent from that he had known, and of which he himself had been so prominent a figure.