the large public and private edifices are later than 1560. The main street of the town is one of the handsomest thoroughfares in Germany; it is bordered with palaces and adorned with
fountains of great beauty; the Hercules and the Mercurjq by Adrien de Vries, and more especially the bronze fountain of Augustus (1598) in front of the town-hall (Figure 17) by Hubert Gerhardt, are veritable masterpieces.
Owing to the scarcity of good building stone, here, as at Ulm, decorated stucco coatings and painted faqades were very common in the sixteenth century; from the little that now remains of these we can form only a feeble idea of the magnificence of Augsburg in the days of its glory. Michel de Montaigne gives a flattering description of it; he also praises in
unqualified terms the neatness and beauty of the cities which he visited in the rest of Southern Germany and in Switzerland.
Elias Holl, who was born at Augsburg in 1573, was one of the ablest of German architects, and he it was who impressed
upon the city the stamp which it still bears. Holl had studied the architecture of Palladio in Venice and the cities of upper
Italy , and in his constructions he gave a new direction to art at Augsburg. His principal edifices are the foundry, the arsenal
Fig. 18. Arsenal at Augsburg. Fig. 19. Stadt-Kanzlei at Ueberlingen.
Fig. 22. Window from the Cloisters of Ratisbon Cathedral.
Fig. 21. House at Colmar.Fig. 23. Doorway in the Court of the Bishop’s Palace
at Ratisbon.
fountains of great beauty; the Hercules and the Mercurjq by Adrien de Vries, and more especially the bronze fountain of Augustus (1598) in front of the town-hall (Figure 17) by Hubert Gerhardt, are veritable masterpieces.
Owing to the scarcity of good building stone, here, as at Ulm, decorated stucco coatings and painted faqades were very common in the sixteenth century; from the little that now remains of these we can form only a feeble idea of the magnificence of Augsburg in the days of its glory. Michel de Montaigne gives a flattering description of it; he also praises in
unqualified terms the neatness and beauty of the cities which he visited in the rest of Southern Germany and in Switzerland.
Elias Holl, who was born at Augsburg in 1573, was one of the ablest of German architects, and he it was who impressed
upon the city the stamp which it still bears. Holl had studied the architecture of Palladio in Venice and the cities of upper
Italy , and in his constructions he gave a new direction to art at Augsburg. His principal edifices are the foundry, the arsenal
Fig. 18. Arsenal at Augsburg. Fig. 19. Stadt-Kanzlei at Ueberlingen.
Fig. 22. Window from the Cloisters of Ratisbon Cathedral.
Fig. 21. House at Colmar.Fig. 23. Doorway in the Court of the Bishop’s Palace
at Ratisbon.