Dürer

The free imperial city of Nuremberg, in the heart of Franconia, was one of the chief centres of the active life of the Middle Ages and shared with Augsburg the great trans continental traffic between Venice and the Levant and Northern Europe. Its municipal liberties were jealously guarded by venerable guilds and by eminent magistrates drawn from the families of the merchant-princes, forming a government somewhat similar to the Venetian Council.