Editing Veit Stoss (section)

==Life==
According to the contracts and other official documents written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Stoss was born in a place pronounced as Horb or Horbn. Most researchers identify this place with [[Horb am Neckar]] near [[Stuttgart]] in Germany. However, there are artistic traces indicating that Stoss's early education could have taken place in the modern Switzerland. Moreover, his brother was certainly born in [[Aarau]] in northern Switzerland, which suggests that the artist's family lived in the region and that Stoss was rather born in the town of Horben, located 30 km southeast of Aarau<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kępiński|first=Zbigniew|title=Wit Stwosz|publisher=Auriga|year=1981|pages=7–9}}</ref>
His exact date of birth is unknown though it must have been shortly before 1450. Nothing about his life is known for certain before 1473 when he moved to [[Nuremberg]] in [[Franconia]] and married Barbara Hertz. Their eldest son Andreas was born there before 1477, when Stoss moved to Kraków, the royal capital of Poland, where he was commissioned to produce the enormous [[polychrome]] wooden [[Altar of Veit Stoss]] (Ołtarz Wita Stwosza) at [[St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków|St Mary's Church]] in Kraków. His son [[Stanisław Stwosz|Stanisław]] who was born in Kraków the next year was also a sculptor.