Imhoff family

They worked closely together with other Nuremberg traders such as the Gross, Mendel, Pfinzing, Stromer and Pirckheimer families.

Their retail range was extensive and mainly included spices, colors, precious metals, silk, canvas and cloth, wine, tobacco, leather and skins, weapons and Nuremberg handicraft products, the latter mostly in exchange (raw materials for finished goods).

In 1510 the Imhoffs founded a trading post in Bari, Italy, to ship Indian saffron via Venice to Germany.

In 1505 three Imhoffs, as well as members of the Hirschvogel and Welser families, took part in an expedition on the first trade trip of Upper German merchants to India.

Around 1500, the Imhoff expanded trading and barter into money and banking and became involved in silver and gold mining in Saxony and Silesia.

He was a close friend of Willibald Pirckheimer, Lazarus Spengler, Albrecht Dürer, Adam Kraft and Eobanus Hessus, and supported them financially.

The Imhoff family donated numerous works of art in Nuremberg and elsewhere, including altars and paintings.

The sacrament house in the St. Lawrence Church in Nuremberg by Adam Kraft, donated in 1493, is one of the major works of the German late Gothic period.