s choose to stir only a joyous elation in the heart he
rings a peal of silver bells. Here all is glad thanksgiving. The Divine
has come into a sick and sorry world; and, behold, all is changed!
Nothing sordid, nothing shabby, consists with the _meaning_ of this
miracle. Therefore it is not here. All is transformed; all is a New
Jerusalem--splendour, peace, ineffable and mysterious Beauty.

With the dominance of the anti-Catholic party, which unseated Meyer
zum Hasen in 1521, his friend Oberriedt also fell into trouble. And
soon after Erasmus and Bonifacius Amerbach,--disgusted with the
iconoclast fanaticism of 1528 and 1529,--took refuge in Catholic
Freiburg-in-the-Breisgau, Oberriedt also left Basel for that city. He
took these wings with him to save them from the destruction which
probably overtook the central work. The latter was, perhaps, too large
to conceal or get away. During the Thirty Years' War they were again
removed, and safeguarded at Schaffhausen. And so great was their
fame that they were twice expressly commanded to be brought before a
sovereign; once to Munich, to be seen by Maximilian of Bavaria; and
again to Ratisbon for the Emperor Ferdinand III. In 1798 they were
looted by the French, and were only restored to Freiburg in 1808.

Illustration: PLATE 9
THE PASSION
_Eight-panelled Altar-piece Oils. Basel Museum_
I _Gethsemane_
II _The Kiss of Judas_
III _Before Pontius Pilate_
IV _The Scourging_
V _The Mocking_
VI _The Way to Calvary_
VII _"It is finished"_
VIII _The Entombment_

Another great religious picture, once no less renowned than Oberriedt's
altar-paintings, has suffered a worse fate. This is the eight-panelled
altar-piece of the Passion, now in the Basel Museum (Plate 9). So far
back as is known it was preserved, probably after being hidden from the
fury that attacked all church pictures, in the Rathaus. Maximilian I.,
of Bavaria, the zealous collector of Duerer's works, offered almost any
price for this altar-piece by Duerer's great contemporary. But Basel,
unlike Nueremberg, was not to be bribed; and the world-famous painting
remained to draw art-lovers from every country in Europe. Nor did the
most competent judges fail to envy Basel her jewel, and to eulogise its
perfections. Painters such as Sandrart, looking at it after it had
survived a hundred and fifty years of vicissitude, could exclaim: "It is
a work in which the utmost that our art is cap