Palermo was no longer of importance, though a capital,
and Sicily existed merely as a portion of the kingdom of Naples.
Let us pass, then, to the great German capital. Changes here, too, have
taken place. It is not Bamberg but Prag, for the Imperial crown has
passed from the House of Suabia through the Hapsburgs to that of
Luxembourg, and among its territories is the picturesque old city with
its historic bridge and gate-towers, a Slavonic not a German city in its
origin. The ten German circles of Suabia and Franconia, Westphalia,
Bohemia, and the rest did not as yet exist--they were the later creation
of Maximilian; the Fatherland consisted of some two or three hundred
dukedoms, counts, marquisates, and lordships, all absolute
sovereignties, but all pledged to support the Holy Roman Empire. Very
thinly, perhaps, but still the Imperial sceptre meant a real supremacy,
and in the hands of such emperors as Henry of Luxembourg, a supremacy
maintained with real and becoming dignity.
Prag, as we have said, is in a Slavonic country, and one sometimes
hostile to the Empire. It was the capital of Bohemia. In 1310 its King
was John, the restless son of the new Emperor Henry VII. of Luxembourg.
Hence we find it at the moment we begin the study of its art a nominally
German city.
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