CNG 100, Lot: 2353. Estimate $500. Sold for $550. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

GERMANY, Nürnberg (Stadt). AR Medal (46mm, 21.90 g, 12h). The Nürnberg Flooding. By Johann Leonhard Oexlein. Dated 1784. GOTT SEY UNSERE HÜLFFE IN DEN GROSEN NOETHEN DIE UNS TROFFEN HABEN (God be our succour in the great afflictions which have plagued us), Noris (civic deity) kneeling and praying left; coat-of-arms of Nürnberg to lower left; the Fleischbrücke (meat bridge) in foreground, withstanding flood destroying parts of city in background; Œ to lower right / Inscription in thirteen lines. Erlanger 1160; Brettauer 1845. EF, attractively toned. Historically and architecturally interesting.

Ex CNG Inventory 883218 (November 2010); Künker 175 (28 September 2010), lot 4063.

The Fleischbrücke, built in the mid-late 1590’s, has stood as a an architectural wonder for the past four centuries, crossing the river Pegnitz in the center of the old city and linking the districts St. Sebald and St. Lorenz along the axis of the main market. A bridge constructed ahead of its time, its designers employed several technical features unusual for the late Renaissance, such as its large width of 15.3 m and a clear span of 27 m, as well as its minimal rise of only 4.2 m and span-to-rise ratio of 6.4 to 1 – making it second only to the Ponte Santa Trinita, built 30 years earlier in Firenze, in terms of its nearly flat profile.

The only change to the bridge after its construction came in the form of a portal added in 1599 bearing the inscription Omnia habent ortus suaque in crementa sed ecce quem cernis nunquam bos fuit hic Vitulus: “All things have a beginning and grow, but look: Never has been the ox you see a calf.” Possibly in reference to this inscription, the medal depicts on ox resting upon the pediment of one of the undamaged buildings in the background, reinforcing both the steadfastness and the seemingly eternal presence of the bridge.