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

and mirth burst out and overflowed till the very
stones of their city laughed along with them.
Where are all these men now? All sleeping
together in the burial-ground, about a mile and a
half outside the city gate, each in his narrow cell,
the skill of their right hand forgotten, but the spelI
of their power still lingering on the city where they
lived, to fascinate and delight and instruct the men
of after-times.
Of the edifices of Nuremberg we shall visit
only one–the Rath-Haus, or Hotel de Ville, where
the Diets of the Empire held their sitting, and
where, of course, the Diet that had just ended in the
resolution which so exasperated Campeggio and
terrified the Vatican had held its deliberations. It is
a magnificent pile, in the Italian style, and
externally in perfect preservation. A lofty portal
gives admission to a spacious quadrangle. This
building was erected in 1619, but it includes an
older town-hall of date 1340. To this older portion
belongs the great saloon, variously used in former
times as a banqueting hall, an audience chamber,
and a place of conference for the Diet. Its floor
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