Nuremberg

Nuremberg rose on the Pegnitz beneath the imperial castle, at a crossing of roads between Italy and northern Europe. Frederick II made it a free imperial city with the Great Freedom Charter of 1219, and the power of the burgraves shrank until the last of them, Frederick VI, sold the ruins of their castle to the council in 1427. In 1356 Charles IV issued the Golden Bull here, requiring each newly elected king to hold his first imperial diet in Nuremberg. It was Charles who cleared the Jewish quarter after the pogrom of 1349 and built the Frauenkirche beside the new main market, and in 1423 King Sigismund entrusted the imperial regalia to the city, which kept them for nearly four centuries.

The years between 1470 and 1530 are counted as the city's golden age. Skilled crafts and a position in the middle of Europe made it rich, its exchange linked Italy with the northern trading centres, and ships through Venice brought goods from the Levant. With Cologne and Prague it was among the largest cities of the Empire. Albrecht Dürer, the city's most famous son, worked here, and the yearly public showing of the imperial regalia gave the economy a strong push. Nuremberg accepted the Reformation in 1525, and the religious truce signed here in 1532 eased the conflict between Catholics and Lutherans.

In 1632, in the Thirty Years' War, the city came to terms with Gustavus Adolphus, who quartered his army there and strengthened its defences. Nuremberg was not taken, but the devastation of the countryside weakened it for good, and in 1649 the Swedes hosted the peace banquet that sealed the war. Nuremberg lost its independence when French troops handed it to Bavaria in 1806.