THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ALBEET DUEEE, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/albertdurerhisli01thau_0 POETRAIT OF DURER, BY HIMSELF, AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN. {From the Silver-point Drawing in the Albertina at Vienna, done in 1484.) Frontispiece, Vol. I. (.S'ee p. 58.) ALBERT • f URER His Life and Works. By MORIZ THAUSING, PROFESSOK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA, AND KEEPER OF THE ALBERTINA COLLECTION. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, EDITED BY FEED. A. EATO^sT, M.A. Oxon., SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. IN TWO VOLUMES.— Vol. I. WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON: JOHN MUEKAY, ALBEMAELE STEEET. 1882. LONDON ; PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STKEET AND CHARING CROSS. EDITOB'S PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION. 0 exhaustive and critical account of the life and works of Albert Diirer has hitherto been placed before the English reading public. The works of Mr. W. B. Scott and Mrs. Heaton, the latter of whom has lately published a second edition of her book, afford, indeed, useful and popular summaries of the results attained by German research, but do not pretend to examine the career of the great artist from an inde- pendent point of view, or to add anything to the student's knowledge of the subject. Germany, as was only natural, has always taken the lead in rescuing from oblivion or obscurity all that could throw light on the life and career of one of her greatest sons, and in assigning to him his high and well-deserved position among the most famous masters of pictorial art. Notwith- standing, however, all that had been done by various students and writers, among whom should be especially mentioned Herr A. von Eye, who published his important work, Lehen A. Durers, in 1860, it was reserved for Dr. Thausing to treat the subject in such a manner as practically to leave little more to be said about it, either in respect of fact or theory. Endowed with the " God-given diligence " of his hero. Dr. Thausing, whose position of Keeper of the Albertina at Vienna afforded him exceptional opportunities for the vi PREFACE. task, has not only carefully examined the valuable collec- tion of Diirer's works immediately under his care, but also those contained in every known public and private collection, comparing and analysing them with profound care, and wdth the acutest critical insight, assigning to each its chronological order, its value as a work of art, and the meaning which its author intended it to express. He has further collated every existing original document bearing upon the- history of Diirer, his family, his native place, his friends and companions, and his immediate co- temporaries. The topography of Nuremberg, its political position in Germany, its constitution and government, its commercial and artistic importance, and the life of its citi- zens, are all brought vividly before us ; while nothing can be more interesting than the account of Diirer's own family, especially that part of it which treats of his relations with his wife, and absolves her from the commonly received imputation of having been an avaricious termagant. No less important in their bearings on the question of Diirer's artistic career, are the chapters on Michel Wolgemut and Jacopo dei Barbari. But perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of Dr. Thausing's work is the way in which Dfirer's own personality is realised. The man and the artist lives before us not only in his works, his pictures, drawings, engravings, woodcuts, &c. ; but in his letters and journals, of which Dr. Thausing had made a special study * before the publication of the present book. In addition to his own minute and exhaustive labours. Dr. Thausing has made full use of the results attained by others who have studied the same subject. To these he * Diirers Brief e, Tagehiicher und nnd mit Einleitung, AnmerJcungen, Beime, nebst einem Anhange von Zu- Bersonenverzeichniss und einer Beise- schriften an und fur Diirer, iihersetzt carte versehen, Vienna, 1872. PREFACE. vii makes due acknowledgment in the Preface to the German edition, mentioning especially the names of Waagen, Albert von Zahn, and Otto Miindler. Of these, the first two died before the notes they had collected were published, but in each case their papers were made over to Dr. Thau^ing, von Zahn's by his family, and Waagen's by his literary executor, Alfred Woltmann. Herr Miindler, finding that he had no leisure to make use of his materials, determined shortly before his death to place them, to use his own words, unreservedly in Dr. Thausing's vigorous hands. The fact that such confidence should have been reposed in him shows the reputation enjoyed by Dr. Thausing among German art critics. France, too, notwithstanding that several of her distinguished writers have occupied themselves with Diirer, notably M. Emile Galichon, M. Charles Blanc, M. Georges Duplessis, and others, has marked her sense of the merits and completeness of Dr. Thausing's work by publishing an admirable translation of it. No apology, therefore, is necessary for presenting in an English garb this remarkable contribution to the history and literature of art. Though the number of Diirer's genuine oil paintings in England may be counted on the fingers of one hand — indeed few exist anywhere out of Germany — the British Museum contains a large and valuable collection of his drawings, while nowhere are his engravings and woodcuts more known and esteemed than in this country. We have every hope then that Dr. Thausing's life-like presentment of the great master of the German school, his sympathetic appreciation of the moral and intellectual grandeur of the man, and his critical estimate of the work of the artist, will meet with a ready welcome. With the exception of a few unimportant additions and corrections made by the author himself, the book is precisely what it was when originally published in German. Nothing has since come to light to viii PREFACE. induce the author to alter or modify any statements or opinions contained in it. He writes but a very short time ago, "cZas Thatsdchliche in meinem Buche iiber Burer steht uberall noch heute aufrechtr And, as we consider that in a translation of this kind it is the author alone who should speak, we have carefully abstained from adding any notes by way of comment or criticism.* The object has been to carefully follow the text, preserving, as far as possible, the spirit and special characteristics of the original, even to the extent of sometimes retaining modes of expression peculiarly German, whenever it seemed in any way possible that the author's meaning might suffer or not be quite accurately conveyed by a freer and more idiomatic rendering. The task has been by no means an easy one. Apart from the abstruse and often involved style peculiar to much of German literature, which seems to address itself exclu- sively ad clerunij the great number of technical terms that necessarily occur in a work of this description presented unusual difficulties. To give a list of all those who have assisted in the attempt to surmount them would be un- necessary, but the editor feels bound to express his grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. E. Howley Palmer and Miss M. E. von Glehn, who have been his principal colleagues in the laborious work of translation. For the solution of many a doubtful point and the correct meaning of many a technical word or phrase, his best thanks are due to Dr. Jean Paul Eichter, whose kind assistance has been invaluable. Mr. William Mitchell, whom Dr. Thausing speaks of in * In the case, however, of works "which have passed into other hands since the appearance of the original edition, the change of proprietorship has been noted, and the names of the new owners given. The two principal collections to which this remark refers are the Hausmann Collection, which riow belongs to Dr. Blasius, and the former Posonyi Collection, which has been sold by M. Hulot to the Berlin Museum. PEEFACE. ix his Preface as thoroughly versed in all matters connected with Diirer and his art, acting as the author's friend, and so to say his representative, has been kind enough to read through the proof-sheets of the translation, and make some very valuable suggestions and amendments. All the illustrations contained in the German edition, in- cluding the initial letters and tail-pieces, have been inserted, and a few others added. Especial care has been taken to render the Index worthy of so important a work. In addition to the General Index, a special one has been prepared in which, under separate headings, will be found lists of all Diirer's pictures, water-colours, drawings, engravings, wood- cuts, writings, and miscellaneous productions described or referred to in the course of the following pages. It only remains to express the earnest hope that we may have succeeded in doing justice to Dr. Thausing, and in furnishing English readers with a correct and faithful transcript of his interesting and erudite work. FRED. A. EATON. January^ 1882. CONTENTS. VOLUME I. Preface .. .. .. .. .. .. v CHAPTER I. The Early German Schools of Painting and Engraving. The Schools of Cologne, Prague, Nuremberg, and Bruges — Landscape Painting — Portraiture — Character of the German School — Block-books — Engraving on Wood and Copper . . . . . . Pages 1 — 21 CHAPTER n. Nuremberg. Foundation of the City — Its Constitution — The Patriciate — The Guilds — New Buildings — Trade — Classical Studies — State of the Church — Popular Poetry — Farces and Plays — Booksellers .. .. 22 — 38 CHAPTER III. The DiiRER Family. Origin of the Family — Albert Diirer's Birth — His Father— His Mother — His Brothers — Diirer at School — Works under his Father as a Gold- smith — His first Drawings — Apprenticed to Wolgemut .. 39 — Gl CHAPTER IV. Michel Wolgemut. Wolgemut's fame as an Artist obscured — His Wood Engravings — The Schatzbehalter — Schedel's Universal Chronicle — Engravings on Copper — Travels — The Hof Altar-piece — The Peringsdorffer Altar-piece — Portraits — Drawings — The Heilsbronn Altar-piece — Paintings in the Town-hall at Goslar — The Schwabach Altar-piece — Hans Traut — Diirer as Wolgemut's Pupil — Their connection with Adam Kraft — Designs for Goldsmiths' Work .. 62—96 Xll CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. CHAPTER V. Q'ravels and Landscape Painting. Diirer at Colmar — at Basle — at Venice — Venetian Art — Schools of Painting at Venice — Studies made at Venice — Drawings after Mantegna — Archi- tecture — Sketches in the Tyrol — Sketches in the neighbourhood of Nuremberg — Later Landscape Sketches — Diirer's Successors in Land- scape Painting .. .. .. .. ,. Pages 97 — 130 CHAPTER VI. Mabriage and Domestic Life. Diirer's Portrait of himself in 1493 — The Frey Family — Diirer's Father- and Mother-in-law — His Sister-in-law — Portraits of his Wife — Their slender means — Sale of his works— Their circumstances become easier — Diirer's Will — His Widow — Pirkheimer's accusations against her and Speugler — The story of her having been a bad Wife to Diirer untrue — Other Nuremberg women — The Rosenthalerin .. .. 131 — 16G CHAPTER VII. The Studio — Assistants — Copyists. The Dresden Altar-piece — The St. Vitus Altar-piece — Hans Schaufelein — Hans Baldung Grien — Hans von Kulmbach — Hans Leu — The Glim Picture — The Holzschuher Picture — The Paumgartner Altar-piece — The Jabach Altar-piece — Diirer's Portrait of himself in 1498 — The Imhoffs and their trade in Diirer's Works — Diirer's early Portraits — The Hercules of 15C0 167—192 CHAPTER Vlll. The Rivalry with Wolgemut, and the Early Engravings ON Copper. Augsburg and Nuremberg — Hartmann Schedel — Bavarian and Franconian Engravers on Copper — Original Engravings by Wolgemut — Unsigned and signed Plates — Representations of Death — The Doctor's Dream — The Four Witches — The Sea-Monster, or the Rape of Amymone — The Prodigal Son — The Virgin and Child with the Monkey — The Great Hercules and Jealousy — The Cook and the Housekeeper — The Three Genii — The first Original Engravings by Diirer — The Great Fortune, or Nemesis — Sketches of Soldiers — Pirkheimer and the War against the Swiss 193—239 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. xiii CHAPTER IX. The Apocalypse, and the Early Woodcuts. Wolgemut's " Papstesel " — Diirer's Apocalypse — Babylon the Great — The Martyrdom and Calling of St. John— The Throne of God— The Four Horsemen — The Angels of the Euphrates — The Winged Woman clothed with the Sun — The Archangel Michael — The Marriage of the Lamb — The Title-page of the Apocalypse — Painters and Wood Engravers — The Bath — The Holy Family with the Three Hares — The Martyrdom of St. Catherine — The Hercules — Conrad Celtes — His Illus- trated Books — The Quatuor Libri Amorum — Book-plate designed by DUrer for Wilibald Pirkheimer — Wolgemut's share in illustrating Celtes' works — Guntherus Ligurinus — The Apollo — Pupilla Augusta — The Humanists Pages 240—282 CHAPTER X. The Rivalry with Jacopo dei Barbari. Barbari at Nuremberg — The Plan of Venice — Diirer's Drawings — Pic- tures by Barbari — First meeting between Diirer and Barbari — Diirer's minutely-executed Pictures — Poor Wood Engravings by him — The Adoration of the Magi — The St. Eustace Engraving — Difference between the German and Italian Genius — The Adam and Eve of 1504 — The small Engravings on Copper — The Family of Satyrs — The Great and the Little Horse of 1505 — Adoption by Diirer of principles opposed to those of Barbari — Preference shown by the Archduchess Margaret for Barbari's Works 283—318 CHAPTER XI. The Second Residence in Venice. Diirer at the height of his artistic powers— His Portrait Studies — The Great Passion — The Green Passion — The Life of the Virgin — Marc Antonio's Copies of Diirer's Engravings — The Nativity — Decree forbidding the frau- dulent use of Diirer's Monogram — Rebuilding of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi at Venice — Diirer's arrival at Venice — The German Colony commission him to paint a Picture — The Feast of the Rosary, or Rose Garlands — Studies for this Picture — Copies of it — Christ amongst the Doctors — Lorenzo Lotto — Bellini and Titian — Christ on the Cross — Other Pic- tures — Excursion to Bologna — Piero della Francesca dal Borgo — Luca Pacioli — The Six Knots, or Patterns for Embroidery — Leonardo da Vinci — Portraits painted by Diirer at Venice — Letters to PiVkheimer — A recently-discovered Letter — The last Letter to Pirkheimer — Pirk- heimer's Answers .. .. .. .. .. 319 — 375 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I. PAGE Portrait of Albert Durer by himself at the age of Thir- teen (1484). From the Pencil Drawing in the Albertina at Vienna .. .. .. .. .. .. Frontispiece Initial N with a Fox piping to some Chickens , . , . . . v Initial D with a little Angel , . . . . . . . . . 1 Initial T with Dolphins' Heads . . . . . . . . . . 22 Initial S with Durer's Arms . . . . . . . . . . 39 Monogram OF GiLicH KiLiAN Proger ,. .. .. .. 55 Virgin and Child (of the Year 1485). From the Pen Drawing in the Berlin Museum . . . . . . . . To face 59 Initial M with a Satyr . . . . . . . . , . . . 62 Portrait of Michel Wolgemut. From the Chalk Drawing in the Albertina at Vienna .. .. .. To face 93 Initial I with Two Musicians .. .. .. .. .. 97 Three Lions' Heads. From the Pen Drawing in the Albertina .. 112 Landscape. From the Pen Drawing in the Albertina To face 118 Initial D with a Portrait of his Wife by Durer in 1504 . . 131 Caricatures. From Diirer's Letters . . .. .. ,. ,. 166 Initial D with the Arms of Nuremberg , . . . . . , . 167 Initial B with a Monkey . . . . . . . . . . ..193 Figure of the Venus in " The Dream," as seen in Wolgemut's original Engraving, and in Diirer's Copy . . , . . . . . 210 A Part op Wolgemut's Engraving of " The Four Witches" .. 212 A Part of Diirer's Engraving of " The Four Witches " .. 213 Initial 0 WITH Wolgemut's " Papstesel " .. .. 240 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. From the Wood En- graving in the Series of " The Apocalypse " . . To face 250 Initial R with Jacopo dei Barbari's " Eoma " .. .. .. 283 Initial G with A Putto .. .. .. ,. .. .. 319 Portrait op Wilibald Pirkheimer. From the Silver-point Drawing in the Collection of Dr. Blasius at Brunswick To face S22 The Feast op the Rosary, or Rose Garlands. From the Picture in the Monastery of Strahow, at Prague .. .. To face 344 Many of the Initials and Tail-pieces are taken from the marginal illus- trations on the leaves of the Emperor Maximilian's Prayer Book in the Library at Munich. LIFE OF ALBEET DUKER. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING AND ENGRAVING. The arts very easily become extinct, but their recovery is a work of time and labour." — DiiRER. JSTINCTLY a modern art, paint- ing is indebted for everything which has contributed to de- velop it and render it the richest of all the arts — abundance of ideas, great technical facilities, extensive scientific knowledge, and moral aspirations — to the genius and intelligence of com- paratively recent times. Earlier ages did, it is true, contain the elements of modern civilisation, and we find there the first attempts and foreshado wings of pictorial representation. But antiquity was too entirely under the dominion of plastic forms to allow of a higher development of painting ; and the overpowering influence of classical sculpture extended far into that antechamber of modern times which we com- monly call the middle ages. What chiefly, however, cha- racterises the middle ages is its architecture. In the early or Eomanesque period, the grand, sober forms, not altogether untrue to the traditions of the past, are still adhered to. VOL. I. B 9'L 2 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. L But the victory of the papacy over the empire allowed the ecclesiastical idealism of the North to assert itself with such freedom that, loosed from the fetters of nature and modera- tion, it followed the impulses of an emotional excitement even into impossibilities. Gothic architecture, which de- veloped itself in Northern France, was not so much the expression of the varied mediaeval popular life as the re- flection of a definite hierarchical conception of the world, never fully carried out. While the Eomanesque style had recognised the independent value of sculpture and mural painting, Gothic architecture degraded those sister arts to the rank of mere ornament. Meanwhile the great movement by which Eome, first through political and then through ecclesiastical agencies, united the nations of the West in a common and pro- gressive system of civilisation bad become an accomplished fact. The scattered germs had taken root in all directions. By gradual and universal organisation, nations, provinces, cities, individuals, began to enjoy a distinct and independent method of life and civilisation. While the tectonic arts still kept to the old beaten track, the mind of the people, in its search after individuality, devoted itself especially to the various forms of pictorial delineation, and laboured to release mural and miniature painting from their Gothic fetters. In the shape of easel pictures, engravings, and woodcuts, German painting separated itself from archi- tecture, and from literature, which was subject to similar laws, and thenceforth put itself at the head of a new art. In its earliest beginnings, so far as we can trace them, German painting, especially miniature painting, was employed upon primitive Christian forms, derived from antiquity. The figures are more or less imperfectly drawn, with hard outlines, and betray both in the attitudes and the draperies traditions of the antique, and a decided taste for plastic art, though Chap. L] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 3 without any true or deep expression. For a long time these imperfections characterised all pictorial productions, no matter in what part of Germany they were executed. It was only after the middle of the fourteenth century, when such rapid and decisive progress had been made in the methods of technical procedure, that provincial distinctions asserted themselves in the national art, and that the first German schools of painting were formed. Within these schools, for a whole century longer, each individual artist was still entirely subordinate to the same principles ; his work is identified with that of his associates, and is only to be distinguished from the rest by its greater or less degree of technical power, not by its character. It was only a hundred years later that distinctive peculiarities began to assert themselves. Then special tendencies and feelings, as well as definite ideas of form, became gradually marked ; and more and more the artist awoke to the fact that he possessed the strength to receive and spread the thoughts and feelings by which his age was stirred. It is only at this stage, when his life and works gain a more universal importance, and become the embodiment of the whole mind of the nation, that the study and appreciation of an indi- vidual artist is either possible, useful, or necessary. German painting was still somewhat removed from this subjective conception of its duty when it threw off its alliance with architecture in the course of the fourteenth century. The painting of that early period bore distinct marks of its origin, and on this account has been designated as Gothic ; an appellation, however, which was only justified in so far as it denoted a tendency of feeling on the part of painters to the abstract Gotliic ideas of form in general. There are many reasons indeed why it should not be so called. One is the fact that, while painting developed itself and became more perfect by striving after a closer B 2 4 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. I. imitation of nature, the same effort made by Gothic, in the tectonic arts, caused its decline ; thereby showing that the two depended on totally different conditions for suc- cess. Besides, German painting, once independent, followed several essentially different directions. Yet the peculiar contrasts exhibited in these older schools are owing not so much to the already distinctly marked characteristics of different nationalities as to the under-current of those mighty ideas which governed the whole German people throughout the middle ages. The exalted ideal of the mediaeval church found its con- summate expression in the old Cologne school of painting. The slender and gracefully sinuous forms that seem trying to raise themselves upwards, the long, thick folds of the falling draperies, the soft, composed countenances, the gentle look which appears as if absorbed in inward contemplation rather than turned to outward things — the whole steeped in bright transparent colours, and filled in with a rich gold ground — these are not children of this world, they belong to that better land the desire for which is to be awakened by gazing upon them, and the possession of which is to be gained by revering them. They do not seek to withdraw us from a cheerful enjoyment of the present, but to main- tain it in constant relation to the heavenly life, and to keep us in the one path of emulation in suffering and of powerful intercession, namely, the path of the Church. This character, in its fundamental features, is, properly speaking, common to the early period of all German painting ; but it was only on the Middle Khine that the conditions favourable to the production of a higher and more refined class of works w^ere found together. In the rich and holy city of Cologne, the German Eome, art was protected by an eccle- siastical elector, encouraged by an opulent clergy, and cherislied by a burgher class as pious as they were fond of Chap. L] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 5 pleasure. The school tliat flourished there has, from the number of line works it produced, been justly called the Cologne school, though the epitliet has been improperly- extended over a much larger field. Individual artists, such as the famous Wilhelm, can only be dimly and uncertainly distinguished from the rest of the school ; and although we know that the painters were laymen, their works are almost always of a sacred character, and display an unaffected piety, a contemplative fervour, and a glowing rapture, which no imagination has ever since attained. As these representa- tions are very much akin to the ideals of the mediaeval church, they still remain under the immediate action of hierarchical influences. The Cologne school did not even renounce its cha- racteristic feature of devotional piety when, in the first half of the fifteenth century, a keener appreciation of nature gradually began to gain ground. Hand in hand with this novelty came the progress and perfection of the technical methods of painting; and the richer the material means, the less did artists resist the temptation of using them for their own ideal objects. The figures become shorter and fuller in shape, the eyes more life-like, the male saints, especially, stand more firmly on their feet, and the countenances sometimes even show too strongly-marked an individuality. At the same time there is tlie same bending attitude of devotion, especially in the women, with their delicate hands and their charming rounded, child-like faces, which enchant us by a truly angelic look of innocence. The chief figures always appear as supernatural beings, but the colder point of view from which the artist now regards them has made him think it necessary to adorn them with everything that gives dignity and splendour on earth. They wear the gay and, to us, often singular costumes of the upper classes of the day, resplendent with velvet and 6 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. I. silk, gold brocade and jewels. In default of any expression of deep earnestness and thoughtfulness, these accessories are very advantageous, for the splendid colours of the draperies lend even to inferior compositions that solemnity which cannot be dispensed with in a sacred picture. This later Cologne school culminated in the painter of the Cathe- dral, Master Stephan Lochner. With him, however, the strictly ecclesiastical and idealistic art of the middle ages reached the extreme limit, beyond which it was incapable of further development without becoming altogether false to its rigid principles. In contrast to the Cologne school, there began to develop itself in the fourteenth century another German school of painting, that of Prague. Though the west of the empire was almost entirely divided into a number of ecclesiastical appanages which exhausted its strength, and at the same time made it a centre for clerical influence in Germany, and though the Ehine had become a veritable " Ffaffengasse " — " Parsons' Lane," the east still offered to the emperors com- pact territories, whence they could derive support for their power and authority. Irrespectively of the warlike Marches out of which the two great German powers were in time to grow, this held good especially of Bohemia; and it soon became a proverb in the empire that the imperial crown must be placed on the regal crown of Bohemia. Therefore, when Charles IV. of Luxemburg, a learned prince of artistic tastes, for the first time united both crowns in his own person, and attempted to create a fitting metropolis as a centre for Germany, painting not only found a national home in Bohemia, but was at the same time stamped with the leading characteristics of that state and country. In no other part of the empire were the clergy so de- pendent upon the sovereign as in the kingdom of Bohemia, the adopted child of the German state. For though its Chap. I.] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 7 twofold population were distinguished by a strong leaning to personal piety, their religious feelings were not solely directed by an overpowering priestly influence to the thoughts of a better world, but were rather of an earnest, sometimes even gloomy, tendency, and sought their realisation in the circumstances of daily life. The emperor Charles, as might be expected from the position he occupied, brought various influences to bear upon painting at his court, witness the names of Thomas of Modena and Nicolas Wurmser of Strass- burg. Byzantine influences appear also to have been at work. But notwithstanding this the Bohemian school preserved the uniform and local character which can be traced back to Dietrich of Prague and Master Kunze. The figures, mostly thick-set and sometimes larger than life, are dignified and earnest ; the faces and hands are vigorously moulded ; the draperies fall in wide-spreading pliant folds round the more freely moving limbs ; the colouring is deep, toned down by grey shadows and broken up in the draperies, so that its real charm does not have full play. The eyes are wide open, and have a fixed, sometimes almost stern look. The accessories are true to nature. In spite of the diapered gold ground upon which they stand out, the grandeur of their appearance does not consist so much in their connection with a higher world as with the present and with the spec- tator himself, from whom they claim not only veneration but submission and obedience. In this Prague school of painting, more than in any other on German soil, lay the seeds of great monumental art. Created and patronised by Charles IV., it received involuntarily the stamp of the other great power which, with the Church, ruled mediaeval Ger- many, and became, in fact, the school of painting of the Empire. Between these two poles of German art-development in the east and west lay the imperial city of Nuremberg^ 8 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. I. which, alone among all the others, can show similar efforts in the field of painting as early as the fourteenth century. As at Cologne and Prague, the elements of its early de- velopment originated in its native soil. The similarity of the forins in the oldest Nuremberg paintings — as, for in- stance, the altar-piece of the Church of St. James — to those of the Cologne school is perhaps due to certain principles common to all old German painting. But the wide-spread intercourse of the rising merchant city, with its love of building and monuments, led necessarily to manifold points of contact with other towns ; it would therefore naturally come under the influence of the artistic movements both in the east and west. Nuremberg was, moreover, the favourite city of Charles lY., and it was from the Luxemburg em- perors that it received the most powerful support and en- couragement. It is therefore easy to suppose that it maintained intimate relations with the court of Prague. As early as 1310 we find mentioned in the penal register of Nuremberg the name "Cunzel the Bohemian, brother of Nicolas, the painter." The identity of these men with the masters of the Prague school of the same name cannot, it is true, be proved.* But however this may be, the great differences which exist in the oldest specimens of painting still preserved in Nuremberg point to opposiug foreign influences, and so far as any idea can be formed of the general character of the early school there, its peculiarities lay midway between the Cologne and Prague schools. The figures display soft but thick-set forms and forcible model- ling ; the countenances have a child-like expression and widely opened eyes, generally brown. The drawing is accu- rate, the colours very pronounced but dark, and, in the flesh, ♦ See Murr, Journal zur Kunst- gescJiiclde, xv. 25 : " Cunzel bohemus frater Nicolai pictoris scntentiavit se a civitate perpetuo sub pena sus- pendii." Chap. L] EAKLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 9 as in the other parts, the half- tints and shadows are grey ; the gold ground is diapered. It is less easy here than even at Cologne or Prague to name any particular masters. The intermediate position of this third German school of the fourteenth century might indeed be explained by the central situation of Nuremberg. But, added to the differ- ences already pointed out in its works, there is the fact that the most remarkable among them belong to a far later date than their style would lead us to suppose. There is authentic evidence which shows beyond a doubt that the celebrated Imhoff altar-piece in the gallery of the Church of 8t. Lawrence, and also the Virgin and Child there, done for the same family, are not earlier than the second quarter of the fifteenth century.* If, further, we compare the votive picture of the Coronation of the Virgin by Christ t with the same subject in the Pirna Antejpendium;^ and in the prayer-book of the Abbess Cunigunde,§ both belonging to the Bohemian school of the fourteenth century, we shall find that there is a typical and archaeological relationship which extends even to the colouring. Considering their later date, it no longer appears sur- prising that these masterpieces of the old Nuremberg school display '^greater knowledge of and attention to the pro- * To be accurate, between 1418 and 1430. The founder, Conrad Im- hoff II. (died 1449), appears on the wings of the votive picture in com- pany with three women. By his side is Elisabeth Schaflin (married 1418, died 1430). In the year 1431 Conrad married for the fourth time, Chxra Volkamerin, who died in 1439, and does not appear in the picture. There- fore it must have been painted be- tween the third and fourth marriages. (Communicated by Baron G. von Irahoflf from documents preserved in the archives.) Compare the genea- logical tree of the Imhoffs in the charge of the keeper of the Chapel of St. Koch at Nuremberg. t Copied in the Sammler fiir Kunst und Malerei, part i. p. 82. See, too, Otte, KunstarcMulogie, 3rd ed. p. 198 ; von Retberg, Nurnhergs Kunst- lehen, p. 49 ; and Waagen, Handhuch, i. p. 63. X Published by Jak. Falke, in the Zeitschrift fiir bild. Kunst, iv. p. 280. § Reproduced in the Mittheilungen der k. k. Centred- Commission in Wien, v. p. 82. 10 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. I. portions of the human body than those of the old Cologne and Bohemian schools." But painters who, after the lapse of several decades, still adhered freely to the forms of the old style cannot be looked upon otherwise than as dependents of those schools. Henceforth art followed in its progress the fortunes of the German people, and with them was subjected to the changes which affected the very centre of the national life, when the imperial power gradually began to pass away, the authority of the church to be undermined, and the burgher class to acquire more and more an independent importance. The schools of Cologne and Prague represented the highest perfection in painting of which the mediseval idealistic tendencies were capable. As the people became more and more occu- pied with earthly things, every step in advance led neces- sarily to a closer observation of natural objects and to a preponderance of realistic treatment hitherto surrounded by difficulties. The germs of this may already be perceived in the accessories and draperies of the school of Master Stephan. Before, however, these efforts to imitate nature had been able to undermine and weaken the principles of the Cologne school, it succumbed beneath the overpower- ing influence of the style, also realistic, and suited to the taste of the day, of the brothers van Eyck and their pupils. The Prague school, on the contrary, ceased to grow when the sun of imperial favour no longer shone upon it, but continued to live for a time in miniatures. Unable, however, in this branch of painting to retain the grandeur of its conceptions, it sank to representing trivialities, and reproducing the occurrences of daily life ; * and the Hussite * The German Bible of King pare Waagen, KunstdenJcmdler in Wenceslas, in the Imperial Library Wien, ii. p, 28. at Vienna, is a proof of this. Com- Chap. I.] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 11 troubles, whicli rendered any peaceful occupation impossible, put an end to it altogether. A very different fate awaited the Nuremberg school. Here art, more secure than in the priestly or the regal city, took root in the inner life and sentiment of a healthy, powerful, self-reliant burgher community. While the German nobles had sunk into a barbarous, uncivilised con- dition, from which the peasantry had never yet been raised, the imperial cities had grown up into well-ordered, busy, and rich communities, ready to enter upon the inheritance of the middle ages. In them alone could scope be found for any new development of civilisation. Since the Inter- regnum they had been gradually acquiring more and more independence. Laws of their own making provided for order and industry within. Alliances with each other secured freedom and the protection of commerce without, when the empire could no longer guarantee such safety. Extensive commercial relations at the same time enlarged the burgher's range of knowledge, and procured him those riches which are the necessary foundation of a higher civilisation. Whilst in Italy the whole people, sove- reignties as well as republics, with Kome and her great pontiffs at their head, turned towards the new ideas of the day, and whilst in France the strong, monarchical power undertook their direction, in Grermany and in the Nether- lands, at that time bound together by policy as well as nationality, their cultivation rested entirely with the burgher class. And, truly, it was a proud burgher class, such as no other nation in the world could easily show. While the German state threatened to crumble away, the imperial cities maintained in the nation the sentiment of unity and guarded its intellectual possessions. Their alli- ance with one another made up in a measure for the inade- quate state organisation, and procured fitting respect for the 12 LIFE OF ALBEET DUREE. [Chap. I. German name even beyond the limits of the empire. The Hanse towns, especially in the days of their glory, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, occupied a com- manding position in the North of Europe, thanks to the guilds they had established from the Stahlhof in London to the St. Peter shof in Great Novgorod. The kings of Denmark, Sweden, and England bowed down to their chief, the burgomaster of Liibeck. The most important agency of the Hanse towns was at Bruges, in Flanders. Bruges was the great emporium where all the produce of the North and the South came to the market ; it was, so to say, the high school of commerce in general. The word Hansa itself is Flemish, and signifies a tax or duty. Wealthy Flanders took also an active part in the cultivation of the arts, and Bruges may be called the cradle of modern painting, which, thanks to the demand for miniatures for illustrated books, a much-sought-after luxury, found there ample opportunities for developing itself, and for getting at all the secrets of technical procedure. Under Hubert van Eyck, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, painting attained to a degree of truthfulness to nature such as the world had never before seen. The genius of the Flemish master surpassed at one leap the performances of the painters of Prague, Nuremberg, and Cologne in the fourteenth century, whose works all bore evidence of the particular school to which they belonged. The effect of van Eyck's method was everywhere overpowering. It rapidly made its way up the Ehine to Upper Germany, instilling fresh life everywhere, and forming new centres in Cologne, Colmar, Augsburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg. While the various schools still retained their individual characteristics, German art as a whole received the stamp of Flemish influence in the fifteenth century. The importance of van Eyck's innovation consists chiefly Chap. I.] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 13 in two things : the introduction of landscape into pictures, and the development of individuality of form and expres- sion in the human countenance. The more correct treat- ment of the accessory parts and of the costume of the day are of secondary importance, because they are not supported by a better comprehension of anatomy and a just appreciation of the entire human body. The art of composition is, therefore, still almost entirely disregarded, and does not advance beyond the old simple arrangement. The artist's attention is more taken up by details ; with him painting is purely epic, and only becomes dramatic in the Alsatian school of Colmar, with a great master like Martin Schon- gauer. We know how in antique art Greek sculpture at its first awakening began by modelling the naked human body in different attitudes expressive of action without making any alteration in the treatment of the features, which still had the same vacant look and the same awkward stereotyped smile. The tendency of modern art is a directly opposite one. Here painting begins with the study of the human countenance : it occupies itself not only with the form, but with the expression of the face. Only gradually does it attempt to render the movement of the draped figure, and model with accuracy the hands and feet, while it is long ere it masters the naked body. This development occupied almost a whole century. But Vasari is wrong when he states that Jan Mabuse was the first Flemish— by which he means German — painter who drew the naked human body. We shall see that, apart from Jan van Eyck, the Nuremberg masters had already much earlier, before the end of the fifteenth century, successfully ventured to represent nude figures in movement, and had done so inde- pendently, and not, like Mabuse, in direct imitation of the Italians. In short, modern art did not spring up on an empty soil, but among the ruins of the middle ages; it 14 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. L was not built up from below, like antique art, but worked out, so to speak, from above. The middle ages had intensified immensely the life of the human soul. By close intercourse with abstract ideas, by indulgence in fanciful creations, and by the study of all kinds of opinions, the mind became accustomed to a certain independent activity. To give expression in every possible way, by noble forms, to this inner world, which \^ as preferred to the external one, became the great object. Hence at first those contorted forms which seem to be struggling to throw off their outward shape, and those widely opened eyes which gaze at us with feverish eagerness. From these eyes to giving expression to the whole face was but a single step, though certainly a difficult one. It was taken by the van Eycks. They were the first to reveal the soul of man in his countenance, and to find that soul reflected in nature. It was thus that the two constituent elements of modern art were placed within the reach of all. The correctness of this assertion, so far as landscape is concerned, needs no demonstration. Diirer and Altdorfer, by their method of treatment, made a further advance, and the Dutch of the seventeenth century brought landscape painting to its highest point of perfection. It is thoroughly and entirely a modern production, and continues to satisfy an aesthetic need. The other important element in the art of the present day consists in the expression of the countenance. Modern art may have done much towards the representation of the human body, but, with a few single exceptions, has never come near to the perfection of the antique ; and these exceptions have never been, and never will be, understood by the world in general. Few among us have any clear idea of the proportion of the human limbs, of the capa- bility of expression in their movements, and of the phy- siognomical significance of the whole body. How, then, Chap. L] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 15 can an artist succeed in communicating with us in an unintelligible language ? It is a great disadvantage to art, and a sensible want in our training. Yet we cannot deny, but must freely admit, that we measure our admira- tion of a picture too exclusively by our opinion of the heads in it. Nuremberg was to Upper Germany what Bruges was to the Netherlands. Painting developed itself there in a won- derful way amongst the German burgher class. Far from declining under the influence of the new ideas, its austere but vigorous school embraced all the various currents, and turned them to its own uses. As formerly it had asserted its independence of the Cologne and Prague schools, so now it preserved its originality in spite of the numberless influences brought abundantly to bear upon it, from the Khine, from Bruges and Ghent, and, later, from North Italy, and even from antiquity. Susceptible as it was of foreign impressions, it never sank into empty imitation, but rather drew its strength from a close adherence to nature, and from all which then stirred the exuberant life of the nation. Without being strictly ecclesiastical, it was deeply re- ligious, and, without renouncing the truth, it remained elevated and full of warm feeling. It did not certainly attain to purely formal beauty according to modern ideas, or did so only conditionally, for it aimed higher. German genius is not satisfied with mere external charms if it cannot bring them into harmony with the aspect of the inner life. The idealism of German painting consists in this struggle to give material expression to deep and mysterious inward feelings. It shows itself in the schools of van Eyck and Cologne, and even in Martin Schongauer, by a certain air of suffering resignation, \\hile with Durer and Holbein it appears joined to independence of thought and a full appreciation of human nature. 16 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. I. The new tendencies were supported by a new technical method of design which the necessities of the case had developed in German painting : a technical method which sought to represent the whole substance, as well as the mere outline, by lines. While the old Florentines and also Leonardo and Mantegna produced their shadows by means of short, oblique, parallel strokes, the Germans shaded with curved and undulating lines. They were driven to invent this method, which the Italians imme- diately took up, by the small space allotted in buildings to mural painting, and, comparatively speaking, even to easel pictures. The greatest masters, therefore, preferred to devote themselves to engraving on copper and wood ; whence it happens that specimens of the monumental art of Germany must be sought for in examples of the new method, which, it must be remembered, was not yet solely devoted to mere copying.* Linear drawing led to a clearer and more decided manner of treating form. By relinquish- ing the charm of colour, painting no doubt lost what might be called its musical faculty of touching the general intelli- gence ; but this was compensated for by the introduction of more distinct and matured ideas into the composition. In this way painting raised itself to the rank of poetry, and gave eloquent expression not only to the moods but also to the thoughts of the day. In proportion as the characteristic spirit of the middle ages passed away, art and literature descended to the burgher and peasant classes of the people. In common with strictly ecclesiastical architecture, the national epic, which borrowed its subject-matter from the misty distance, and could only satisfy the credulous with its tales of * Compare A. Springer, on ancient KunstgescJiichte, pp. 171-20G; and A. Gei-man wood and copper engraving, v. Zahn, Durers Kunstlehre, p. 36. in his work, JBilder aus der neueren CiiAP. I.] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 17. adventure, had exhausted itself. The German people were tired of imaginary views of a better past or future, and in the comparative peace and seclusion of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they returned to themselves and to the present. The sense of sight now asserted itself; people began to look about them in their own homes, in the church and the state, at their dress and their manners. The subject began to be its own object, and it is significant that the title of mirror was given to popular books, as, for instance, Sachsenspiegel (" Saxony's Mirror "), Gnadenspiegel (" Grace's Mirror "), Eulens]^iegel (" Owls' Mirror "). As literature addressed itself more and more to a people eager to see rather than, as in former times, to hear, the promotion of pictorial activity quite independent of church influence became a necessity. People enjoyed adorning their houess, their furniture, and their books with picturesque represen- tations, which exercised an influence on a circle out- side that to which literature was accessible. As early as the thirteenth century, Thomasin von Zerklere said that pictures were for the peasant who could not understand writing, and in the Narrensehiff Ship of Fools ") it is said : — " He who despises writing, or cannot read it, can see himself in pictures, and find therein who he is, whom he resembles, and what is wanting in him." * The more literature descended into the burgher and peasant class, the more illustrations became of importance in books. In a people, too, who were so infinitely divided, and so deficient in any centralisation, there arose a keen desire for intercommunication, which soon grew into an * Gervinus, Gescliichte der Na- tionalliteratur, ii. Compare Geiler von Kaisersberg, Speculum fatuorum^ published by Zarncko, in his edition of Brant's Narrenschiff, 251 & : " Ecce VOL. I. enira lingua nostra vernacula tl:eu-. tonica . . . conscriptum est, depictum quoque imaginibus pro liis qui literas legere non noverunt." C 18 LIFE OF ALBEKT DURER. [.Chap. unconquerable mania for publishing. This led to the invention of wood engraving, the rapid progress of which in the fifteenth century was thus hastened by the intimate needs of the nation. In the Ars moriendi, the Armenhibeln (" Bibles of the Poor "), the Speculum humanae salvationis, and others, the text shrinks to nothing, to give place to the figures ; and merely for want of any better way of dis- tinguishing these, mottoes are attached to their mouths. The printing of books with movable letters was developed out of these early block-books, and so by a roundabout way popular pictorial illustration supplied literature with the most important medium of its activity. After the external separation of illustration and text from one another, they both entered upon an unfettered career by means of the press. A formidable rival, however, to the woodcut grew up in copper engraving, the capabilities of which for print- ing were first tried in the Ehine district, in the middle of the fifteenth century, and which allowed of an incomparably more delicate execution of the subject. Yet, far from losing ground, wood engraving gained by the introduction of the richer art of copper engraving, for it was restricted to its own natural means, and within those limits attained per- fection just at the time when, at the bidding of the same hands, the copperplate yielded results until then quite unheard of and for a long time unsurpassed. Both these branches of art occupy a prominent position in the development of German painting; and its history cannot be rightly understood unless adequate attention is bestowed upon wood and copper engraving, for, from the conjuncture of events in Germany, it happened that these two pictorial arts came to the front exactly at a de- cisive moment. Painting proper was subject^ to totally different conditions on this side of the Alps from those it met with in Italy. The aversion to flat surfaces in Gothic Chap. I.] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTINO. 19 architecture, the confined areas of secular buildings, and the absence in them of open porticos, excluded mural paint- ing from the inside walls, while the unfavourable climate made external frescoes impossible. The splendid colours of the stained windows threw even altar-pieces into the shade, and the severer ecclesiastical spirit of the North did not allow such free play of the imagination to sacred painting as it enjoyed in the South. The paintings, mostly memorials of personal piety, had continually to repeat the same saintly types, and the well-known groups which became, to the spectator, by the introduction of the donors, — not represented as taking part in the action, but merely in calm adoration — pictures within the picture. Portrait painting, it is true, grew out of these votive pictures, but of grander themes German painting of the fifteenth century was utterly devoid. It was not fostered by people of rank and autho- rity, and questions of art did not enter into the concerns of public life. But individual minds, especially amongst the burgher and peasant classes, felt a deep sesthetic need. The Maecenas which German painting had to satisfy was the people. Labouring for a great impersonal public contributed materially to raise the artisan into the artist. By appealing to it he could relieve himself from any pressure which might be put on him by his employer. The painter could venture to follow out his own inspirations in his designs for engravings on copper and wood, sure that a congenial people would understand them. The fact that he usually was at the same time his own printer and publisher must also have been favourable to his worldly prospeiity. For the security of the property thus created he placed a mark or monogram upon his work, and a well-regulated com- munity, such as Nuremberg, watched carefully over the inviolability of these rights. The monogram at first was c 2 20 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. L only intended to indicate that the author had an exdiisive right of sale. It was the modern conception of person- ality, the thirst for fame characteristic of the Renaissance, which added to this meaning the idea of an intellectual property. The German masters, therefore, employed their whole energies in utilising to the utmost the metal plate and wooden block, which permitted of their works being- multiplied and spread abroad indefinitely. As large surfaces were denied them on which to display their powers, they indemnified themselves by producing effects on large num- bers instead. Engraving in Germany by no means came after painting proper, but stood on an equal footing with it, and indeed often supplied its place. The woodcut was substituted for mural painting, and the copperplate for the easel picture. In fact, in the absence of a centre of civilisation, publicity gave the arts of design, at the time when the art of book-printing began to flourish, a certain monumental importance, so that, when the taste changed they rather led than followed the other arts, and were in no way dependent on or subordinate to them. Thus it was possible for so excellent an art-school as that of the master E. S. of 1466 to make progress without having had, as it would seem, any previous practice in painting ; and Martin Schongauer, of Colmar, the first South German painter of importance who belonged to this school, appears almost solely as an engraver. In complete independence, then, of the powers in church and state, and in harmony with that popular spirit which was pressing forwards and struggling to break loose from its ancient fetters, wood and copper engraving bore their first fruits in Germany. Through these two branches of art, the aspirations of the day first found expression and took shape ; and it wis where these aspirations were the strongest, viz., in Franconia, more especially at Nuremberg that the Chap. L] EARLY GERMAN SCHOOLS OF PAINTING. 21 popular arts of design naturally took their highest flight. The consideration of these circumstances can alone lead us to a just appreciation of our subject. For if we were to set aside the prominent position held by the woodcut and the copper engraving in German painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we should find no key by which to explain the true importance of Nuremberg, and Diirer's place in the history of art. 22 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. II. CHAPTEK 11. NUREMBERG. "For the deep love and affection that I have borne to that venerable city, my fatherland." — Duker. HE spot where Nuremberg arose is remarkable neither for its favourable position nor for being the site of an early colony, as is the case with a number of towns in Southern and Western Ger- many. No attempt at cultiva- tion had yet been made on the banks of the Pegnitz when the Eranconian emperors erected a castle on a rocky height above them. Its name is first mentioned in 1050, in the reign of Henry III., the most high and mighty emperor of Germany and Rome. The establishment of a market, the miracles attributed to the remains of St. Sebald, who was interred here, the frequent visits paid by kings, and the patronage they bestowed, continually attracted fresh comers?, who settled between the castle and the river. And thus, near the royal castle which Conrad III. and Frederick Barbarossa often inhabited a new town sprang up under the rule of the house of Hohenstaufen. It was entirely dependent for its resources on the restless activity of the burghers ; for Frederick II. says, in the important charter of the year 1219, that it is in consideration of its possessijig neither vineyards nor shipping, and of its being situated on very Chap. II.] NUEEMBERG. 23 sterile soil, that he has determined not only to secure to his beloved city its hereditary rights, but also to increase them. The unfruitful and sandy country round the city was no hindrance, but rather a spur, to the development of its powers. The blessings of freedom and justice which had been secured to Nuremberg in the days of the old imperial splendour produced fruitful results in the new city, and enabled the citizens, under their own royal magistrate, to free themselves from all dependence on the burgraves of Nuremberg. Already in the thirteenth century the charge of the imperial castle {Beichshurg auf der Vesten) had been given over to them, and the town gradually acquired all the prerogatives, partly through purchase, partly through imperial grant, which had been given to others in the same county and immediate neighbourhood ; so that, towards the middle of the fifteenth century, it enjoyed complete self- government. In return for this, Nuremberg maintained an inviolable fidelity to the emperor and the empire. According to the constitution of the commonalty, as it had developed itself during the fourteenth century, the government of the town was vested in a patriciate of noble families, the origin of which was probably derived from the knights of the burgraves. In the confusion following the death of Lewis of Bavaria, the guilds at Nuremberg, as elsewhere, made an effort to subvert the government, but the new king, Charles IV., quickly re-established the old council, and punished the leaders of the insurrection."^ It is a striking evidence of the wise moderation of the ruling class that we find, towards the end of the fourteenth century, artisans not only in the council, but occasionally sitting by the side of the highest dignitaries, the Losunger. * G. W. K. Lochner, Geschiclite der Eeichsstadt Niiyn^ierg ziirZeit Karls IV., 1347-1378; Berlin, 1873. 24 LIFE OF ALBEKT DUKER. [Chap. II. Their share in the government, it is true, soon sank to a merely honorary one, as the oligarchy gradually closed its ranks, and resisted any interference on the part of those who did not belong to its order. At the head of the republic stood the first and second Losunger, who had charge of the treasury and the ad- ministration of the finances. These, together with the military commandant of the town (Kriegrshauptmann), were the three principal authorities (Ohristhauptleute). They were chosen from among the seven senior nobles {Eltere Herrn), and these again from the thirteen senior burgomasters, who, together with the thirteen junior burgo- masters, had the conduct of affairs. Two of these burgo- masters, one from each class, exercised the functions of the so-called Frager (remembrancers) ; and these Frager were changed every month. The whole six-and-twenty burgo- masters, with eight senior elected deputies {Alte Genannte) and eight artisans as representatives of the guilds, formed the ''Little Council" of forty-two members, in whom all executive power was vested. To this council was subordi- nate the " Great Council" of deputies {Genannte), chosen from amongst the whole community ; but the latter was only called together on rare occasions to deliberate and take final resolve. The eight artisans in the Little Council also took a share in its deliberations, but it was merely a formal one. They could only be chosen from the guilds of the butchers, bakers, curriers, smiths, tailors, furriers, clothiers, and brewers; and the first and most considerable among them assisted the Losunger in the assessment of taxes, and in rendering a yearly account of the expenditure to the seven senior nobles. His functions remained thus restricted even after the industrial arts had attained to a position of much greater importance. Christoph Scheurl therefore was correct when he wrote Chap. IL] NUEEMBEKG. 25 to Johann Staupitz in 1516 : — " The whole government of our city and the interests of all classes are in the hands of certain families, that is to say, of certain people whose ancestors have long had the management of affairs and ruled over us." * And Alvise Mocenigo, in concluding his account of his sojourn at the court of Charles Y., in 1548, says that Nuremberg, in contradistinction to all the other towns of the empire, is governed by noble families, of whom there are not more than twenty- eight ; and he adds, " This town has the reputation of governing itself better than any other in Germany, wherefore it is often called the German Venice." This, in the mouth of a Venetian statesman, is the highest possible praise.f Like the Venetian nobles, the patricians of Nuremberg followed that principle which alone can give lasting security to the power of a ruling class, the principle of severity towards themselves and clemency towards the governed. It might well cause a sensation throughout the whole world when, in 1469, Nicolas Muffel, head of one of the principal families, honoured by the pope and emperor, at the time first Losunger and the most eminent man in the council, was accused of robbing the public treasury of the town, and, after a short trial, hung upon the gallows as a common malefactor.^ * Die Kroniken der frdnJc. Stddte, Nuremberg, i. and v. 791. t Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, Di- plomataria, xxx. 69 et seq. As early as 1506, Christopli Scbeurl writes: "Unde etiam civitati magnae acce- dunt divitiae, et tantum apud Ger- manos nomen : quantum Venetiis apud Italos. Unde etiam Venetia Teutonica cognominata est.'* — Libel- lus de Laudibus Germaniae. We learn from the same source that there was a proverb at Venice, to the effect, that " all the cities of Ger- many are blind, but Nuremberg is one-eyed " (" Germaniae civitates cecas esse : Norimbergam vero mono- culam ") — words repeated by Ulrich von Hutten in a letter to Pirkheimer in 1518. X See the history of the trial, in the ChroniJcen der frdnh. Stddte, Nuremberg, v. 753 et seq. The letter of justification which the council thought it necessary to send to the Holy Roman See states, inter alia, " nostri majores instituerunt judices, ut par et eequa foret inter omnes dis- pensatio justicia), quas magis quid actum sit, quam quis egerit, in- spiciat."— Ibid. 771. 26 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. II. And in 1496, when Helena Niitzlin was murdered by her husband — the only instance of a murder amongst the patricians — the council emphatically rejected the mediation of the emperor in favour of the murderer, though murder and violence among the common people were very leniently treated. Leonhard Groland having dared, contrary to the manners and customs of the day, to carry on a love affair with Catherine, daughter of Hans Harsdorffer, and the secret correspondence having been discovered, he was arrested and sentenced to two months' imprisonment and five years' banishment from the city and neighbourhood of Nuremberg. The council even declared that it would not enter into the question of an eventual marriage between the two, though they belonged to the same class of society.* The first men of the republic expiated every transgression at once with imprisonment, as Wilibald Pirkheimer, for instance, learnt to his cost, as well as his old and powerful opponent, Anton Tetzel, who, though he had been first Losunger since the year 1507, was thrown into prison in the autumn of 1514, and died there after the lapse of four years, without his crime, which was probably a betrayal of state secrets, ever being known. On the other hand, the patricians exercised their power over the people with singular wisdom and forbearance. They understood, not only how to be good masters, but how to appear as such. By allowing the artisans a share, though a very insignificant one, in the government of the city, they raised the tone and the public spirit of the burghers, and prevented serious disturbances and revolutions. The very jealousy with which the patricians watched over their own political rights exercised a favourable influence upon the progress and development of art and industry in Nuremberg. * G. W. K. Lochner, Eine Neigungsheirath, in the Jahresherieht des hist. Vereinsfur Mitt elf ranken, 1863. Chap. II.] NUEEMBEKG. 27 If the council endeavoured to weaken the influence of the ancient guilds, still less did it encourage any attempt at forming new ones. Every kind of combination or organ- isation within the branches of art-industry was more espe- cially resisted. This may have originated in the idea that the more cultivated craftsmen would, if united in a body, make their influence more easily felt in the conduct of affairs. But the absence of regulations and restraint was of priceless value for the progress of art, and the evident results of this policy might well confirm the council in adhering to it. In Nuremberg, therefore, unlike other imperial cities, painting remained a free art " ; not quite in the sense of being a " liberal art," but as a craft untrammelled by any special rules. For instance, when an executioner once took to painting, and the other painters complained of his thus bringing their profession into discredit, the man was not only not forbidden to paint, but was given full liberty to do so; "for painting," said the court in giving judgment, "is a free art." The joiners were also for a long time in the same position ; and their petition for a governing body and code of laws, after being repeatedly refused, was only granted in 1529-30. Later, indeed, a good many of these so-called "free arts" had procured or received constitutions ; but until Diirer's time the council were jealously careful to prevent anything like a guild from being either established in Nuremberg or introduced there from outside.* At the same time, the council was intent upon the wellbeing of the burghers, meeting every reasonable wish halfway. It was one of the first to establish a regular police, and to insure safety of person and property to everyone. Innumerable careful regulations were made for securing the cleanliness of the town, wholesome * From a letter communicated by Herr G. W. K. Lochner. 28 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. IL food, trustworthy apothecaries, and also a proper care of the poor. Industry was encouraged in every way. The admission of strangers into the community was rendered very easy, all that was required being a recommendation from two citizens and a trifling sum of money ; and the rights thus acquired could be as easily given up. In con- sequence of this, the working population rapidly increased. The last additions to the town were made in the time of the emperors Charles IV. and Wenceslas, when the out- lying suburbs were united to it and enclosed with walls and ditches. Inside these arose churches and convents, religious houses and hospitals, public and private buildings, which, in the middle of the fifteenth century, excited the admira- tion of the refined and learned Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., and testified to the wellbeing of the citizens, as well as their enterprise and artistic skill. Simultaneously with the development of the constitution was carried on the building of the two chief churches — the older, St. Sebald, on the right bank of the Pegnitz, and the more recent, St. Lawrence, on the left ; whence the two halves of the town are called respectively St. Sebald's side" and "St. Lawrence's side." Both churches were completed just when Nuremberg reached its culminating period of glory, towards the end of the fifteenth century. They bear the evidences of their gradual growth. In the simplicity of their general plan and the adherence in them to certain local pecu- liarities, such as the spacious portals and the Eomanesque style of the towers, they are the tokens of a tenacious national force and an unbending self-confidence. The Church of Our Lady (FrauenJcirche), a half secular Gothic building of noble proportions, is, on the other hand, quite uniform in character. It was founded in 1355, by Charles IV., on the site of the J ewish synagogue, and consecrated in his presence in 1361. As it was intended to serve for political purposes, Chap. II.] NUKEMBERG. 29 as well as an imperial chapel, it was also called Our Lady's Hall {TJnserer lieben Frauen Saal). The introduction of certain details of French Gothic is probably due to the Luxemburg emperor. Every part of the stonework, both the ornaments and the numerous figures, is most delicately carved. The figures themselves are slight, but not con- torted, with great individuality and variety in the heads, whilst the hands and limbs betray an observation of nature which, for that time, is very surprising. These statues, executed by unknown, perhaps foreign, masters, must have exercised a great influence on the further development of art in Nuremberg. That they did so is shown by the choir of St. Sebald with the celebrated Brautthure (Bride's Door) built between 1361 and 1377. In the Frauenkirche the gradually declining empire left to its most faithful city a legacy which bore rich fruits in the artistic industry of the citizens. The first evidence of their gratitude is undoubtedly the famous Schone Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) in the Herrenmarkt, opposite the Frauenkirche, executed between 1385 and 1396 by Heinrich Beheim.* Among the statues which adorn this splendid pyramidal structure, that of Charlemagne is represented with the features of Charles IV., the first German emperor whose portrait has been handed down to us by the art of his native land, for Charles IV. loved art as he loved Nuremberg. His sons also, of whom Wenceslas, the eldest, was born at Nuremberg, and baptised with great pomp in St. Sebald's, continued to patronise the town in many ways. In 1424, Sigismund brought the crown insignia and the imperial relics to Nuremberg, and entrusted them to the keeping of the citizens. As long as the Koman Empire continued in the hands of the German nation, the vaults of * From the name, perhaps a Bohemian. Compare the excellent monograph by R. Bergau, Der schone Brunnen zu Niirnberg, Berlin, 1871. 30 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. II. the Hospital Church of the Holy Ghost held these treasures which every year, after Easter, were exposed with great solemnity by the council on a stage erected in the market-place, opposite the Frauenkirche, for the purpose of being adored by the people. This privilege, which Nurem- berg enjoyed until 1804, contributed to increase the importance of the town in the eyes of foreigners as well as the citizens' good opinion of themselves. Nuremberg, therefore, appeared destined to be what it soon afterwards actually became in every respect, the most important of all the German towns. In the fifteenth century Nuremberg was the centre of the whole trade of Europe. The sea passage to India had not yet been discovered, and all merchandise passed through it from Venice, in order to reach the Hanse towns and the northern countries of Europe. It was also the natural emporium of all the products of German industry, which were conveyed to the needy eastern peoples of Poland and Hungary. The riches which in return flowed from all countries into the hands of the merchant princes at once became reproductive in manifold prosperous industries. The love of work was common to all classes in Nurem- berg, and the prosperity which sprang from it at the same time furnished leisure for more elevated and refined pursuits, the fruits of which became increasingly the objects of a noble ambition. It was this love of work which led the burghers of Nuremberg to appreciate rightly the highest earthly possessions, the artisans to practise art, and the rich upper classes to cultivate science. Not amidst storm and strife, as in Florence and ancient Athens, but in peaceful, well-ordered union, this German community of not more than a hundred thousand souls strove to attain the highest perfection in both these branches of knowledge. The external fame and importance of the republic kept pace with its internal progress. Undisputed queen of all the Chap. IL] NUKEMBEKG. 31 cities of Germany, not only neighbouring communities, but bishops and princes, sought her friendship, and her mediation in their quarrels. Nuremberg, consequently, made the impression of a metropolis upon Johannes Butz- bach, of Miltenberg, when, about 1470, he, then a young scholar, travelling with the rough student who tyrannised over him, saw its towers and battlements from afar.* Their active and constant share in public affairs, tlie world-wide commercial relations they kept up, and the frequent journeys these involved, had done much to enlarge the intellectual horizon of the Nuremberg patricians ; while their constant intercourse in the fifteenth century with Venice must have awakened in them the taste for classical studies. When, owing to the exchange of ideas brought about by the great councils of Constance and Basle, and to the influence of Aeneas Sylvius, the study of ancient learn- ing had found its way to Germany, Nuremberg was eager to attract the first representatives of the new movement. Foremost among them was the Wiirzburger, Gregory of Heimburg, a man equally learned in classical literature, and versed in both ecclesiastical and political matters, of whom Aeneas Sylvius records that he was without doubt the most learned and eloquent man in Germany, and that in him Latium seemed to have found a home in Germany, as Greece had formerly done in Latium; Martin Mayr, afterwards the liberal-minded chancellor of the Archbishop of Mayence ; and Nicholas von Wyle, who greatly con- tributed to the culture of the people by his translations, and who as early as 1445 gave lessons to the youth of Nuremberg in German and Latin. All these held office in the city as councillors and secretaries of state during the * Otto Jahn, Aus der Alterthums- und religiose Verhdltnisse im Befor- wissenschaft, 1868, p. 409. Compare mationszeitalter, vol. iii. 1868. K. Hagen, Deiitschlands liter arische 32 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. IL middle of the fifteenth century. Heinrich Leubing, the vicar of St. Sebald's at that time, was won over to the study of ancient literature by Gregory of Heimburg ; and Thomas Pirkheimer, the provost of St. Lawrence, was already reckoned as one of the classical scholars of his native town. Ulrich von Hutten could therefore with perfect truth assign to Nuremberg the honour of having been the first among German cities to cultivate the study of the helles-lettres. When Gregory of Heimburg, between 1460-70, left Nuremberg, Johann Miiller Eegiomontanus,* the most celebrated astronomer of his time, formed there a new centre of scientific activity. He settled there in 1471, because, as he said, he could find no place so suitable for his studies. It was at Nuremberg that he wrote the greater number of his works, besides making astronomical instru- ments, and founding a printing-press for his own use. His most diligent pupil and the inheritor of all his books was Bernhard Walther, whose house, which was near the Thier- gartner Gate, and had an observatory attached to it, after- wards came into the possession of Diirer. Nuremberg, for a long time after, bore the palm for mathematical learning amongst German cities, not excepting even those with uni- versities. In this way the newly awakened appetite for knowledge found every kind of nourishment in Nuremberg. When the council decided that the increasing importance of the town made it desirable that its past history should be recorded, they chose for this purpose Sigmund Meisterlin, an Augsburg monk, well read in Koman literature. Com- missioned by the two Losunger, and at the expense of the city, Meisterlin, who was at the time parish priest at Grundlach and occasional preacher at St. Sebald's, brought out, about the year 1488, his Latin Chronicle of the town * So called from his native place, Konigsberg, in Prussia. Chap. II.] NUEEMBERG. 33 of Nuremberg, and soon followed it up with a German translation, containing corrections and additions. Of Hart- mann Schedel, the author of a universal history ( WeUchronih) which has become celebrated under the title of Chronicon Norimhergense, we shall have occasion to speak later. He was the town physician ; and the zealous humanists, Heinrich Euticus and Dietrich Ulsen, of Fries! and, were also Nurem- berg physicians. The burgher Peter Dannhauser was so devoted to classical literature that one of his ecclesiastical friends was afraid lest his close study of the heathen poets should endanger his Christianity. Amongst the patricians who especially devoted them- selves to the study of classical literature, Sebald Schreyer stood pre-eminent. He was born in 1446, and from 1482 to 1503 was bursar (Kirchenmeister) of St. Sebald's. Though advanced in years when he began to learn, he attained such proficiency that his house soon became a resort for all the scholars of the day. He supported art and literature not only by his goodwill but also with his fortune, and it was he who caused Schedel's Chronicle to be printed. Johann Loffelholz and Johann Pirkheimer,Wilibald's father, were educated in Italy, studied jurisprudence in Padua, became lawyers in their native city, and possessed valuable libraries. All these learned Nurembergers were united by friendship not only with each other but also with one who played a conspicuous part in the introduction of classical studies into Germany, Conrad Celtes. Crowned poet- laureate at Nuremberg by the emperor Frederick III. in 1487, he was the first German who received that honour. He often afterwards stayed at Nuremberg, and kept up a correspondence, besides, with all the learned men we have mentioned, as well as with Charitas, the accomplished sister of Wilibald Pirkheimer; one of his most beautiful odes is on Sebald Schreyer. During his second sojourn in Nuremberg, in 1491, his friends wished to establish a chair VOL. I. D 34 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. II. of classical literature for him, and, when they found they could not get him to stay, they elected in his stead his friend, Heinrich Groninger. The influx of so much learning and culture had all the more effect in Nuremberg from the fact that it met with no hindrance there from any ob- structive authority, either in the shape of a scholastic corporation or a powerful clergy. The adhesion of Nuremberg throughout the middle ages to the emperor in the struggle against the papacy had tended to make the citizens, while still remaining sincerely pious, more liberal in religious matters. The tenets of the Waldenses had already made their way to Nuremberg. In the fourteenth century many of the citizens belonged to the " Society of the Friends of God," and the Hussite doc- trines quickly found a hearing in the city. John Huss himself relates how, in passing through Nuremberg on his journey to Constance, he was warmly welcomed by all the people, and how he expounded his doctrines amid unanimous marks of approval from the burghers. The Nuremberg clergy held a subordinate position to the citizens. The council bad the guardianship, and subsequently the com- plete control of all the churches and convents in the town and its dependencies. It chose the provosts and parish priests in defiance of the opposition of the diocesan, the Bishop of Bamberg, exercised supervision over the morals of the religions bodies, and introduced reforms into them even against the will of the monks and nuns, as, for instance, into St. Catherine's Convent in 1428, and St. Augustine's, in 1436. Thus in no place did the Eeformation find the ground so well prepared to receive it as in Nuremberg. Nowhere, indeed, had the popular opposition to the spirit of the middle ages penetrated so deeply into the minds of the masses as in Franconia. The breaking-up of the ancient duchy into innumerable territories, great and small, ecclesi- astical and secular, ruled, some by nobles, some by burghers. Chap. II.] NUREMBERG. 35 with the constant friction which it produced, allowed the lower orders to assume a more important position, and gave them mgje liberty of action. With the exercise of arms, poetry also had descended from the nobles to the people. The awakening consciousness of the less privileged classes began to make itself felt, not only in mass agitations and peasant riots, but in a popular literature which was more diligently cultivated here than in any other part of Germany. Its first important productions, the Benner of Hugo von Trimberg, and Boner's Edelstein, appeared on Franconian soil. There also the popular song (VolksUed) first opened its blossoms after the voice of the troubadour had ceased to be heard. Inspired by a sound commonsense which loved to clothe itself in the garb of folly, this national poetry laid hold of life in every shape, and barriers which force could not vanquish were set at nought by satirical songs. With the growing love for spectacle amongst the people, farces again came into favour, and German poetry gradually passed into that stage in which the preponderating epic element is replaced by the dominion of the dramatic. The connecting link was formed by the sacred mysteries and passion plays at that time so universally in vogue. Just as the market and the mass went on together, profane and comic interludes crept into solemn religious representations. When at length people began to be shocked at this incon- gruous mixture of sacred and profane things, the carnival plays were entirely separated from the sacred mysteries. It was thus that comic dialogue first gained an independent footing in Nuremberg. But it was obliged to confine itself to incidents of the ordinary everyday life. No allusion could be made to foreign fashions in the presence of an un- educated audience, and any Latin was out of the question. It was the natural product of a time which was entirely taken up with itself. D 2 36 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. II. The Nuremberger, Hans Rosenpliit, nicknamed the " Schnepperer " (prattler), is the first representative of this oldest form of German comedy ; indeed, he is the precursor of all the different branches of popular verse which marked the period of the Keformation. In his lines on Nuremberg, written in the year 1447, he gives us an animated description of his native city : — " 0 Nuremberg, thou noble spot ! Thy like will surely ne'er be found ; Wise counsellors, obedient folk, A priesthood well-behaved, and bound Beneath so firm a rule and yoke That no one o'er the line can stray, And err with women, or at play," &c. He next proceeds to speak of the unparalleled charitable institutions, amongst them a costly poor-house, and then describes the seven marvels of the city — the threefold walls with the wide moats and one hundred and eighty-seven towers ; the forest ; the quarry, which had furnished the materials for many buildings 48 feet high, such buildings as, had they stood upon a hill, might have been taken for palaces ; the public granary ; the Schone Brunnen ; the Pegnitz, which turned within the walls sixty-seven mill- wheels, not one of which a hostile prince could stop ; and, lastly, the imperial jewels. He praises the city as one of the first seats of learning and art, making special mention of the skill of its coppersmiths; he exalts its merchants, its commerce, and its wealth, acquired honourably, not by fraud or robbery ; but the crowning points of all its glory are the exemplary order that reigns within its walls and its love of peace* Such songs of praise are, however, excep- tional with Eosenpliit ; he says himself at the end, " The ass never kicks the miller." His other songs and his car- * Loehner, Der Spriich von Niirnherg, heschreibendes GedicJit des Hans Rosenpliit ; Text mit Erlduferimgen, Nuremberg, 1854. Chap. IL] NUREMBERG. 37 nival plays are full of that spirit of political satire which afterwards found its keenest exponent in XJlrich von Hutten. Kosenpliit's farces and jokes are still somewhat rough in form, mere dialogues in fact, mostly coarse in subject, but not without a good, serious meaning under- neath. He was followed by his younger contemporary and fellow-citizen, the barber Hans Folz, who had his own printing-press. After these two came Hans Sachs, who at first pursued the same light strain in the style of Lucian's Dialogues, till under the influence of Terence's plays, which became known about that time, he adopted the forms of the regular drama. Jacob Ayrer was another Nuremberg author. The development of German comedy in Nuremberg natu- rally had a great influence on the fine arts. Not only did it supply painting with an infinite variety of subjects, but, whilst powerfully exciting the imagination of the artist, it led him by the simplicity of the representations to try and be true to nature. Popular literature and art, combined with the thriving commercial life of Nuremberg, especially favoured the advance of printing and engraving. Card and letter painters, wood engravers, and illuminators, found ample employment. A man like Anton Koburger soon obtained a European celebrity for his printing. When he was compelled to travel to Paris in 1476 to protect his pro- perty, the Nuremberg council commended him to Louis XI., " because he carried on such a considerable trade in Prance through his numerous agents." In 1499, a Paris pub- lisher, Jodocus Badius, dedicated his edition of Politianus' Letters to him, and calls him in the dedication a venerator and promoter of learning, and the king of booksellers.* * O. Hase, Die Koburger, Leipzig, 1869, p. 13; Neudorffer, Nachrichten von den vornelimsten Kunstlern, etc. p. 56. Neudorffer's work was written at Nuremberg in 1546, and published by Campe in 1829. A new edition of it appeared at Vienna in 1875. 38 LIFE OF ALBEET DtlKER. [Chap. II. He worked with twenty-four presses, and employed over a hundred compositors, correctors, pressmen, illuminators, bookbinders, etc. He had agents in every country, and in many towns book-stalls. Moreover, fate had ordained that he, the first printer and publisher of his age, should stand sponsor to Albert Diirer. Thus the geographical centre of Germany had also gradu- ally become the intellectual one. The old German state founded by the Franconian race had, in the pursuit of too widely extended aims, encountered its downfall. The dis- memberment of the territory and the feebleness of its new rulers, among whom the Bishop of Wiirzburg held the empty title of duke, was only the prelude to complete dissolution. But at the same time it contained the germ of a new de- velopment which showed itself when, though the political life of the nation was past help, there was still a hope of saving its intellectual existence. Then the Franconian race again took its stand as the centre and stay of the divided German nationalities. As all the various sources of German life necessarily met together in Franconia, they there found that expression which most closely approached the funda- mental national feeling of the whole country. All that was too abstract in the Swabian, too realistic in the Saxon, too volatile in the Rhinelander, too stolid in the Bavarian, was found by each and all harmoniously blended in the Fran- conian. It was thus only natural that Franconian cities should give birth to the two artists in whom German senti- ment has found its fullest expression and its truest con- ception, to the poet of the eighteenth century and to the painter of the fifteenth — to Goethe and to Diirer. Chap. III.] THE DtRER FAMILY. 39 CHAPTER III. THE DURER FAMILY. " Whence he sprang, and how he came here and stayed." — Durer. UCH was the state of affairs at Nuremberg when, on the llth March 1455, a wandering jour- neyman, by name Albert Diirer, twenty-eight years of age, and a goldsmith by profession, quietly entered the town.* His home lay in far distant Hun- gary. His ancestors had earned their living by farming and cattle-breeding in what was no doubt a German settlement named Eytas,t near the little town of Gyula, eight (German) miles southwest of Gross- wardein. His father Antony had, however, been apprenticed as a boy to a goldsmith at Gyula, now a market-place of about 15,500 inhabitants. Of his three sons, Albert, the eldest, followed his father's trade; the second, Laszlo or * Durers Briefe, Tagehiicher und Reime, translated by M. Thausing, Vienna, 1872, p. 69. t Pronounced in Hungarian, Ey- tasch. In Hungary the name has in modern times been derived from ajtds, formed from ajtd, a door, be- cause Diirer carried a door in his coat - of - arms. According to ] that definition, the Magyar name of the " noble " family is said to have been Ajtosi. Allgem. Zeitung, 1873, No. 47, p. 708, from the Ungar. Lloyd of February 9, and the Szdzadok, the organ of the Historical »^ociety of Hungary. 40 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. III. Ladislas, became a saddler ; and the youngest, John, studied, and was for a long time parish priest at Grosswardein. Albert, the goldsmith, in the course of his wanderings came to Germany, and, after working some time with the great masters of the trade in the Netherlands, reached Nuremberg. The moment of his arrival was opportune, for [on that same day Philip Piikheimer, a scion of one of the best families of the town, was celebrating his marriage at the castle {auf der Veste), and there was a great dance under the broad lime in the courtyard. The festive aspect which the town presented to him on his first entry probably appeared to the wanderer a happy omen for the future, and he did not forget to mention it in his simple relation of the events of his life. But what to the young goldsmith must have been more especially attractive was the splendour displayed on this occasion by the guests, who all belonged to the govern- ing class, and the wealth of silver, which in Nuremberg paid no tax, and he must have felt that here was a rich opening for his handicraft. What, however, he could not foresee was that his name would one day rank with that of the master of the fete, nay, would even outshine it. The wandering journeyman found permanent employment with a highly esteemed master of his art, Hieronymus Helper,* whose name appears in 1461 among the four nominated by the council jurors of their company, with the designation attached to it of " silver weigher " (Silberwdger). His men must have assisted him loyally, not only in the workshop, but in his public functions, for already in the following year the council gave orders for him to share half the hall- * Lochner, in tlie Niirnherger of the family chronicle — one which Ccrrespondent of August 18, 1858, was done at a very late date — must No. 421, has proved this beyond a have originated in an error by the copy- doubt from documents in the arcMves. ist. At any rate, the attempt to identify The hitherto accepted name of him with a member of the patrician •'Haller" in the only existing copy family of Haller was a mistake. Chap. IILj THE DtJRER FAMILY. 41 mark dues with them. Master Helper appears to have carried on a very considerable business, and to have pos- sessed house property ; at least in Endres Tucher's account of the architects of Nuremberg, mention is made of "Helper's house" in 1467* By his wife Kunigunde, of the family of Oellinger of Weissenburg, he had a daughter named Barbara. The child was scarcely grown up before the stranger journeyman Albert had so won the approval of her parents that they chose him for their son-in-law ; and in the year 1467, he, then forty years old, led to the altar his bride of fifteen, " a pretty, well-grown maiden," as Diirer tells us she is called in his father's memoranda. It must have been partly through the good offices of his master that at the same time " Helper's son-in-law named Albert " was invited by the council to take with his master an oath to honestly perform the office of marker and weigher, and was further instructed to become a burgher of Nuremberg. These directions he complied with on the 8th July 1468, when he paid down the customary fee of ten florins to the goldsmiths' company for the privilege of being entered as master, and for the right of citizenship two florins, which was the lowest tax on a fortune under a hundred florins. On this occasion Albert was first called by his family name of Diirer, not because he then adopted it for the first time, but more probably because as an immigrant he had hardly been known by anything else but his Christian name until taking this formal step. Even on the 29th March 1470 he again calls himself "Albert, Helper's son-in-law," when taking his oath as assay er and member of the goldsmiths' company. Albert Diirer the Elder, as he was afterwards called, to distinguish him from his famous son, occupied at that time * Weech and Lexer's Bibliotlieh des Uterarischen Verehies, Stuttgart, 1862, p. 114. 42 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. III. the back part of Johann Pirkheimer's house in the Herren- markt, opposite the Schone Brunnen and the Frauenkirche, looking on to a courtyard and the Winklerstrasse. Once again fate brought the names of Diirer and Pirkheimer together at a momentous time. We have already spoken of the latter as a warm patron of the new classical studies; and if he was zealous in promoting a love for them in his native city, he was none the less anxious to give them due importance in his own house. The care he bestowed on his children's education is shown not only by the history of his famous son Wilibald, but by the learning of his daughters Charitas and Clara. Both these, who became sisters, and were after- wards in succession abbesses, of the Convent of St. Clara, knew how to make good use of their Latin, and were in correspondence with the first men of the day, such as Erasmus of Kotterdam and Conrad Celtes. On the 5th of December 1470, a much desired and only son was born to J ohann Pirkheimer, then bishop's councillor at Eichstadt ; and on the 21st May in the following year, 1471, a third child and second son of Albert Diirer the goldsmith saw the light in the back part of the rich patrician's house. Anton Koburger, the first printer in Nuremberg, and after- wards of all Germany, stood sponsor to him at his baptism, and called the boy Albert, after his father. The burgher family of the Diirers was certainly not on terms of intimacy with the noble families of the town, but the two boys, of the same age, and living in the same house, may often have played together in early days. Perhaps the germs of that close friendship which afterwards bound together the two greatest men in Nuremberg, the artist and the scholar, took root at that early time in their youthful hearts. Certainly the feeling for all that was beautiful and great which per- vaded the Pirkheimer household may well have penetrated with the first dawn of intelligence into the susceptible mind Chap. III.] THE DtJRER FAMILY. 43 of the young Diirer. This intercourse, however, had no further consequences, for Albert was barely four years old when his father gave up his abode in Pirkheimer's house. Old Hieronymus Helper had probably died shortly before this, and it was no doubt a share of his property which enabled Diirer the Elder to buy a house of his own, on May 12, 1475. It was the one belonging to the gold- smith Peter Kraft, at the corner of the street then called Unter der Vesten, now the Burgstrasse, leading up to the imperial castle. The price was two hundred florins, and there was, besides, an annual reixt of four florins in current coin of the city, to be paid to the Pfinzing family, which was equivalent to a debt of a hundred florins. The surroundings into which the family were thrown by this change were not without influence on Albert Durer's future ; and in examining the neighbourhood we discover many well-known names. Diirer 's own house, No. 493, Unter der Vesten, is at the corner facing the Upper Schmied- gasse ; and it was just in front of it that triumphal arches were erected on the occasion of an imperial visit, or any similar festivity. Two numbers lower down stand the two houses near the Schildrohre,* which the painter Michel Wolgemut owned and lived in successively. These are only separated by the narrow Kramergasslein (Mercers' Lane) from the house of the famous Doctor Hartmann Schedel ; next comes the house of Sebald Prey, the uncle of Diirer's future wife ; and, farther down, the house of his godfather, Anton Koburger. These houses make up the left side of the street, going towards the castle, the right being chiefly occupied by the Predigerkirche (Church of the Dominicans), and the convent buildings attached to it.t * The name of a fountain. grapMsche Tafeln zur Geschichte der t See the plan of the position of EeichstacU hiurnherg (Dresden, J. the house in G. W. K. Lochner's Topo- Wolf, 1873), pi. i. of the year 1500, 44 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. IIL In this neighbourhood the elder Durer was highly respected. He was elected master of the guild of gold- smiths in 1482, and the implements of this office of trust — the three leathers with the touch-needles — were deposited with him. A few weeks later he became " Gassenhaupt- mann'" (Captain of the Streets), an office which involved the charge and superintendence of his quarter of the town. The esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens was entirely due to his personal ability, his industry, and his honourable character. His income was barely enough for the requirements of his numerous family. In twenty-four years his wife Barbara presented him with a stately row of eighteen children, the dates of whose births he carefully noted down to the very hour, together with the names of their respective god-parents. Amongst the latter, on the mention of the sixteenth child, in the year 1488, we find the wife of the astronomer Bernhard Walther, already referred to, whose house near the Thier- gartner Thor Diirer purchased in 1500. Though many of these children never lived to grow up, still it is easy to understand that his father's life was, as Diirer himself records, " one of great anxiety and hard labour." A nephew, Nicholas, was also added to the family, and made an apprentice. This nephew was the son of the younger brother, the saddler, Ladislas. Diirer, in one of his letters of the year 1524,* speaks of him as living at Cologne, and as being known by the name of " Niklas linger ;" and on the occasion of his journey to the Netherlands, he paid his cousin a visit at that place. When Nicholas went to live at Cologne, however, is not known. He first established him- self as a master goldsmith at Nuremberg, and became a burgher and married there ; and a contemporary record shows * Diirers Briefe, p. 69. Chap. III.] THE DURER FAMILY. 45 that on the 20th May 1493 he was the owner of a house, near the Malerthor (Painter's Gate), in the Bergamentergasse.* Of the skill of Albert Diirer the Elder in his craft, there is unfortunately no evidence. We only know that from 1486 until his death he had a retail shop near the town-hall, for which he paid a yearly rent of five florins. His son writes of him, Everyone who knew him spoke well of him, for he led a worthy Christian life, was patient and gentle, at peace with every one, and always thankful to God. He did not seek worldly pleasures, was a man of few words, kept little company, and feared God. My dear father was very earnest about bringing up his children in the fear of God, for it was his greatest desire to lead them aright, so that they might be pleasing to God and man. And his daily injunction to us was that we should love God and deal up- rightly with our neighbours." This description of his father Diirer has completed for us by two portraits. The first was done at the close of his apprenticeship, before he started upon his wanderings, as if he wished to give the old man a proof of what he had learnt. This picture is now in the Uffizii Gallery at Florence, and represents the old master a little turned to the left, against a dark green background, in a black cap and jacket and a brown overcoat. The face and the hands, which hold a red rosary, are wonderfully life-like ; the expression is one of dignified earnestness and kindly repose, with strong lines of determination about the mouth ; and the eyes, small indeed, but clear and intelligent, look out upon the world with a keen glance that seems to interrogate the future. Hardly any likeness, except a certain regularity of feature, can be traced in the full, reserved face of the father to the elon- gated, open countenance of the son. The roundness of the * Nuremberg towu archives, Uterse 10, fol. 23. Communicated by Lochner. 46 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. IIL forms is brought out to perfection by grey shadows; the tone of the colouring is singularly true and clear. The hands, holding a rosary between the fingers, are well pre- served, and wonderfully drawn and full of life ; and the painting is unusually broad and vigorous. The reverse side of this small deal panel also deserves attention, for on it are painted the family arms of the elder Diirer: a closed helmet, bearing a Moor's bust with pointed red cap and red jacket with yellow facings, between two golden wings, sur- mounts two shields, one of which shows an open gold door on a red ground, the other a white ram on a blue field. In the first of these scutcheons, which was that adopted by the painter, we recognise the arms of the Diirers, or Thiirers, as the family was originally called ; but the second joined with it can only belong to Durer's mother, and clearly proves that she was not a Haller by birth, the arms being undoubtedly those of the Helper family. The other and better known picture of his father was painted by Diirer soon after his return, when he, no doubt, considered himself bound to show the good old man what progress he had made during his wanderings. This portrait, which bears on a dark background, the colour of wood, the inscription, " U97 albrecht thveer dee elter VND ALT 70 JOR " ("Albert Diirer the Elder at the age of 70 "), is now at Sion House, in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland. It formerly belonged to the Earl of Arundel, and was then, in 1644, engraved by Wenzel Hollar. Old copies of it exist in the Stadel Institute at Frankfurt and in the Pinakothek at Munich ; the latter was lithographed by N. Strixner in 1814. In it the elder Durer again appears in a black cap and under-jacket with a brown overcoat lined with fur. Age has indeed marked the honest face with deep furrows, but there is still a profusion of unblanched hair visible beneath the cap; his tired hands lie folded before Chap. III.] THE DtJRER FAMILY. 47 him, while he gazes out into the world with a simple-hearted earnest look, and an expression of happy contentment play- ing round his delicate lips. This picture is conceived in the same vigorous style as the Florentine portrait, but the colour is darker, and it has been injured by cleaning. During his son's four years' absence a great change had come over the father. The separation from his favourite child, added to the effects of years of trial and sorrow, had told upon his strength ; and though still as upright as ever, he had become, by the time his son returned, a reserved, silent old man. It was a great thing for him now to have a grateful son to take his place, and help him to bear the burden of life, as Albert most conscientiously did. For what is known of the history of the elder Diirer, we are, as every one knows, indebted to his famous son, whose account does his father great honour, and speaks of him in the highest terms. At the same time it enables us to ascertain the kind of education, by no means to be under- valued, which the boy enjoyed. From it we gain a deep insight into the laborious, well conducted, and God-fearing life of a German burgher family. This was the source whence Diirer first derived that spirit-stirring power which enabled him to embody in his art the feelings of an age struggling for freedom of thought. No hollow enthusiasm, no sham and w^orthless sentimentality, no internal misgivings, had any place there. A firm hold on reality, coupled with a deep-seated religious faith, prevented the mind from ever falling into despondency. Such natures were too healthy and too elastic to be affected for any length of time by the hardest blows. The simpler and deeper their feelings, the more quickly do they turn to active life again, and throw their whole being into their work. It is this single- minded energy which is so marked and attractive a cha- racteristic of the work of that period, and which lends such 48 LIFE OF ALBERT DtJRER. [Chap. III. a charm to the smallest details of Durer's homely narrative of his father's and mother's death. Between souls of such simplicity there exists unconsciously a profound harmony which may well escape the notice of the casual observer. It is only when the final parting has taken place that any idea can be formed of how much the inner life of the one was bound up with that of the other. All that passes under the influence of strong natural feeling in the minds of such beings wholly devoid of affectation far outweighs any of the sentimental nonsense that people of the present day are so fond of talking. Five years after Diirer had taken the last portrait of his father, the latter died, not of old age, but of an attack of dysentery. " When he felt death approaching, he resigned himself to it willingly, with great patience," writes Diirer. He died after midnigkt on the 20th September 1502 ; and his son relates how they ran to his room at the last moment to wake him ; " but before I could get down, he had departed, and when I saw that he was dead, I felt deeply grieved that I had not been coimted worthy to see his end ! " The old man, on his dying bed, had commended the mother to the son's care. " My father," Diirer says, " had always spoken to me of her with the highest praise as a truly pious woman, and I am fully determined never to forsake her." True to the resolution he thus records, Diirer, two years afterwards, took his mother to his own home. He describes with touching minuteness how diligently the old woman went to church, how carefully she admonished him when he did not act rightly, and how anxious she always was about the welfare of his own and his brothers' souls. " Whether I went in or out, her invariable words were, ^ Go in the name of Christ ! ' " Her benevolence to all, her gentle- ness of spirit under all the crosses of life, and her good Chap. III.] THE DURER family. 49 repute are themes of which her son never wearies. He, on his part, watched over her with the utmost tenderness and care. Even during his stay in Venice, in 1506, he is always thoughtful of her, and he begs Pirkheimer to ask her to write to him, and to tell her "that she is to take good care of herself"; and he also admonishes his younger brother Hans not to be a burden to her.* On the evening of the 16th of May 1514, after nearly a year's illness, feeling her death approaching, she sent for Diirer, and, with much good and loving advice, gave him her blessing, and commended him to the peace of God. She then begged for the parting- cup, called the " loving-cup " {Minnebeclier) or " St. John's blessing " {St. Joliannissegen). " She had a great fear of death, she said, but was not at all afraid of appearing before God." And Diirer further writes, " Her death was a painful one ; and I remarked that she appeared to see something terri- fying, for she asked for holy water, though for a long time previously she had not spoken." As he was repeating the prayer for the dying, she expired, " and I felt," he says, " a sorrow that I cannot express. May God be merciful to her ! " And in conclusion, the painter cannot refrain from adding : " She looked far lovelier in death than she had done in life. She was in lier three-and-sixtieth year when she died, and I bui ied her with all honour according to my means." t On the lUth March 1514, during her illness, and two months before her death, Diirer did a large charcoal draw- ing of his mother, which is now in the Berlin Museum. J The sharply outlined head of the old woman, with the marked honest features and the strangely expressive eyes, has some- thing very touching about it. From this portrait, and * Thausing, Diirers Briefe, Tage- hiicher unci Beime, &c., pp. 10, 12. t Diirers Briefe, &c., p. 75, 1. 4 ; p. 136, 1. 14 ; and p. 137, 1. 20 ; and notes. VOL. I. X Woltmann, Jahrhucher fiir Kunstwissenschaft^ iv. p. 249. It was purchased at the Firmin Didot sale in Paris for 4900 francs. E 50 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. Ill from the written accounts that Diirer has left of his mother, we gather that she must have had a powerful influence on the development of his character, his imagination, and his religious views. Of the portraits of his father and mother, said to have been in the possession of the Imhoffs, and in the town-hall of Nuremberg, no trace can now be found.* It is not possible to ascertain how many and which of Diirer's eighteen brothers and sisters grew up with him in his father's house. When he collected his notes about the family, in 1524, only two were alive, Andreas, the goldsmith, born in 1484, and Hans, the youngest of the three brothers thus named, born in 1490, a painter, and pupil of Albert's. The other brothers and sisters had died, Diirer remarks, " some in childhood, and some grown up." If we are to believe a notice in the Imhoff inventories,! tliere had been in the possession of that family a drawing representing a fiddler, a youth, and a girl, which originally belonged to Anton Durer, the elder Diirer's sixth child, born in 1474. There is more probability in another tradition, according to which a portrait of a young man in his twentieth year, formerly in the Praun Collection, and now in the Pinakothek at Munich (Cab. 147), is said to represent a brother of Diirer's, named Hans. It is a beardless, bony face with deep- set eyes ; the neck is long and bare, and the head covered with a net, over which is drawn a brown cap. The thin, irregular features, though hard and almost coarse, are life- like, and painted in strong brown flesh tones. The whole of the picture, of which there is a good lithograph by Strixner, bears, even to the date on it, of 15U0, unmistakable signs of * See V. Eye, Diirer, Synoptical Table, 19. The authenticity of these portraits is doubted by Hans Hie- ronymus Imhoff liimself. K. van Mander, Met Schilder-Boccic (2nd edition, Amsterdam, 1G18;, fol. 132, col. 2, mentions a portrait of the mother in the town-hall of Nurem- berg. t A. Springer, MitiJieilungen der Wiener Centnd-Commission, vol. v. p. 857. Chap. III.] THE DtJKER FAMILY. 51 the handiwork of Albert Diirer. The portrait is evidently that of an apprentice in his work-a-day clothes, for no one would sit specially for his picture in such a slovenly dress and with such a slouching air. That it was some one con- nected with Diirer may be inferred from the fact of the same person appearing as one of the side figures in a school picture that issued from Dtirer's studio in 1502, and which is referred to later on. This head has little resemblance to the noble countenance of the master, but rather recalls the features of his brother Andreas, though cast in a far coarser mould. Its identity has lately been dis- puted on the ground that in 1500 Hans Durer was only ten years old ; but it must be remembered that there were two older brothers called Hans, one born in 1470, the other in 1478. If not the first of this name, it may very well have been the second. A further argument in favour of this identification is supplied by the existing record of the admittance of a Hans Diirer into the tailors' guild of Nuremberg in 1507.* Of the younger brothers who outlived Diirer, Andreas probably worked in his father's workshop until the death of the latter, and was then, at the age of eighteen, sent out to travel. The youngest of the three named Hans, then in his twelfth year, Diirer took as his own pupil, and was soon able to make use of him in his studio. But the boy — who no doubt, as the youngest but one of the family, had been rather spoilt — does not appear to have behaved well while Diirer was away in 1506, and the latter consequently advised his mother to look out for some work for him. " I would," he says, in writing to Pirkheimer, " have willingly taken him with me to Venice, and it would have been useful for us both, but his mother was afraid that the skies would fall * Baader, Jalirhuclier fur Kunstwissensclcaft, i. p. 222. E 2 52 LIFE OF ALBERT DURER. [Chap. III. on him ! " He further begged Pirkheimer to look after the boy, and to seriously admonish him to study and behave properly till his return. In 1509 Hans was still working in his brother's studio. All that we know of him after this is that on the night of July 30, 1510, he was stabbed by one Martin Eucker, of Wemding, servant to Christoph Kressens, probably on the occasion of some quarrel ;* and that in 1529 and 1530 he was living at Cracow as court painter to the King of Poland.f Nothing is known of his skill as an artist, though Waagen indeed suggests that a Holy Family at Pommersfelden, with the date 1518, and the initials H. D., and in the manner of Albrecht Altdorfer, was painted by him.J Andreas or Endres Diirer became a master goldsmith in 1514, in his thirtieth year ; and at that time, doubtless in honour of the event, Albert made a sketch of his brother, carefully cross-hatched in silver point on prepared paper with a white ground. The long, pointed, beardless face, in spite of the regular and attractive features, bears very little likeness to Albert himself ; while the more prominent cheek- bones, the less aquiline nose, the narrower chin, and the slender throat, all combine to give him a less striking ap- pearance than his brother. There is a cheerful expression * The circumstance is mentioned in a minute of the town council of that date. See Lochner, Anzeiger fiir Kunde der Vorzeit, 1869, col. 231. t In the archives of the govern- ment commission for the royal trea- sury of Poland there is a manuscript, entitled, "Regestrum perceptarum pecimiarum sacre M. regie a generoso domino Severino Boner Zupario Bur- grabio magnoque procuratore Crac. Biecensi et Bapstinen. capit. etc. nobili Malchiero Czirzowsky vice- procuratori eiusdtm a die 9 Jan. a. 1529 usque ad 31 Dec. 1529 pro edi- ficio castri Cr. ad distribuend. com- missar, percepta," and marked on the cover, " Regestrum edificiorum castri Crac. 1529 anno sexto G. D. S. B. " In it " Hans Diirer pictor regie maiestatis" is often mentioned. See Lepkowski, in the periodical Telia Wilenska, 1857, No. 2, p. 220, &c. See too below. Chapter VI., the account of the division of Diirer's property at his decease in 1530. X Kunstiverke in Deutschland, i. p. 127. Chap. III.] THE DtJRER FAMILY. 53 about the open brow and large clear eyes of the young master goldsmith ; his hair is carefully gathered into a net, and round his neck is a neat high ruff. This drawing is in the Albertina at Vienna; it was engraved in 1785 by Adam Bartsch, and afterwards lithographed by Pilizotti. Andreas appears about this time to have married, but with- out making himself a comfortable home. On the 24th November 1518, we find him . giving his brother, in the presence of Wilibald Pirkheirder and Lazarus Spengler, a legal quittance for his share of the paternal house in the Unter der Yesten, which had hitherto belonged to them both.* After Albert's death, Andreas must again have come into possession of this house on the division of the inheritance between him and his brother's widow, Frau Agnes ; for twenty years later, on the 15th November 1538, he and his wife Ursula sold to the apothecary Quintin Wert- haimer their property in the "Unter der Vesten, opposite Johann Neudorffer the accountant's house, at the corner of the Upper Schmiedgasse, property which he, the seller, had inherited from his late brother Albert Diirer. " j Andreas, meanwhile, had continued his trade at Nurem- berg as a goldsmith, for in a judgment of July 26, 1521, the beadle (Frohnhote) Linhard Motschilder, as administrator of an estate, is ordered to restore to Andreas eleven rubies and an emerald which had been entrusted by him to the deceased.^ As far as we know, he had by his wife Ursula only one child, a daughter, Constantia, whom documents bearing the dates of 1531 and 1533 prove to have also married a goldsmith, Gilg Kilian Proger. Notwithstanding their share in the not inconsiderable fortune left by x\lbert Diirer, this last branch of the family appears to have lived * Dociiments in the Germanische 51, fol. 53. Museum, printed in the Anzeiger fiir % Nuremberg town archives, Con- Kunst der VoizeU, vii. 1860, col. 276. servatorium, vol. xxvii. fol. 203. Com- t Niirembcrg tov