From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

forming thus two divisions which look at each
other across the intervening valley. In this part of
Nuremberg the streets are spacious, the houses of
stone, large and massy, and retaining the
remarkable feature we have already mentioned–
exceedingly lofty roofs; for in some instances six
storeys of upright mason-work are surmounted by
other six storeys of slanting roof, with their
complement of attic windows, suggesting the idea
of a house upon a house, or of two cities, the one
upon the ground, the other in the air, and forming
no unmeet emblem of the ancient classification of
the citizens of Nuremberg into plebeian and
patrician.
To walk through Nuremberg with the hasty step
and cursory eye with which a mere modern town
may be surveyed is impossible. The city, amid all
its decay, is a cabinet of rare curiosities, a gallery
of master-pieces. At every step one is brought up
by some marvel or other–a witty motto; a quaint
device; a droll face; a mediaeval saint in wood,
lying as lumber, it may be, in some workshop; a
bishop, or knight, or pilgrim, in stone, who has
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