CHAPTER VII

“Tristrem of the Hospital and his famous assistants André and Trois Eschelles are novices compared with me in the use of the noble and knightly sword,” and who claimed “if one of my profession shall do his grim office on nine men of noble birth with the same weapon and with a single blow to each patient, hath he not a right to his freedom from taxes and his nobility by patent?”

The day-book of the Nuremberg executioner, 1573-1617, shows that no less than 361 were executed, and 345 were beaten with rods and had their ears and fingers cut off in that period. Besides these there were doubtless many dungeon executions and much cellar practice as well. There were also the victims of the Secret Tribunal, the Vehme-Gericht.

After leaving the torture-chamber we pass the entrance to a passage, inaccessible now by reason of the masses of fallen stone, which leads beyond the town to a distance of nearly two miles, and emerges(it is said) in the forest near Dutzendteich. It was used to despatch envoys, and as a means of access to, and escape for, the Senate in troublous times.

The passage which we follow was constructed about 1543. It runs beneath the streets towards the Castle, making a circuitous course and passing under the Albrecht Dürer Platz. It varies in height from 3 to 7 feet, and, as it nears the Castle, is hewn out of the living rock. Presently we pass on the right the passage which leads down to the Deep Well (see Chap. V.); and then at last we emerge first into the Thiergärtnerthorthurm and then on to the Castle bastion—the Schlosszwinger. This bastion is now a well-kept garden, and the empty, spreading embrasures for guns are now covered with creepers. Our guide leads us out into the Burgstrasse. A few years ago it was possible to descend again into the passages, traverse the inner side of the town-wall and pass into the Castle dungeon—the secret prison of the Vehme-Gericht. Underground passages led thither both from their own tribunal—a hall now used as a warehouse in the Pannier-Gasse—and from the private residences of the Senators. There, too, was that deep and dismal abyss[39]which was wont to receive the mangled remains of the prisoners, mostly of rank, who had been condemned to “kiss the maiden”—die verfluchte Jungfer. He upon whom doom had been passed was forced, after a night spent in her presence, into the embraces of the famous female figure, which stands to-day with Sphinx-like placidity in the Castle. Graduallyby cunningly-contrived machinery the Maiden grasped the unhappy man with iron arms and pressed him crushingly to her bosom. But from her body and from her face sharp spikes sank as gradually into his eyes and flesh, piercing him through and through. At last the arms relaxed from their cruel embrace, but only to precipitate him, a mass of ghastly laceration, into the pit below, where the body was received upon sharply-pointed bars of steel placed vertically at the bottom, and was cut to pieces by wheels armed with knives which soon completed this inhuman work of secret destruction. This subsequent cutting into a thousand pieces may be compared with the ChineseLing-chee, and theBodoverestaprescribed by Zoroaster for incompetent physicians. Besides its horrid appeal to the imagination, it was doubtless useful in concealing the identity of a prisoner secretly condemned and secretly executed.

There are various parallels to the Nuremberg Maiden. A similar instrument was invented by Nabis, a Spartan tyrant, who named it the Apega, after his wife. But the famous Morton’s Maiden in the Museum of Antiquities in Edinburgh is simply a beheading machine, something after the manner of a guillotine. Tradition says that the Regent, Earl of Morton, introduced it into Scotland and was the first to suffer by it. This is a story as old as the Bull of Phalaris. But it is not likely that Morton introduced it and he was certainly not the first to suffer by it. Similarly the rack was called Exeter’s Daughter because the Duke of Exeter is said to have introduced it into England. So, too, the Scavenger’s Daughter in the Tower of London took its name from Sir William Skevington, a lieutenant of the Tower under Henry VIII., who revived the use of an iron hoop, in which the prisoner was bent heels to hams and chestto knees, and was thus crushed together unmercifully. In all these cases, it will be observed, the instrument took its title of Maiden or Daughter from the grim contrast that would strike the popular mind between the soft embraces of a girl and the cruel greeting of the machine. It was the sweetest maiden he ever kissed, said the Marquis and Earl of Argyle when he suffered death by Morton’s Maiden. So in the navy the gun to which a sailor was lashed before being flogged was termed the Gunner’s Daughter.[40]So, too, in the days of the French Revolution, as Dickens tells us, the figure of the sharp female figure called La Guillotine was the popular theme for jests: it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close; who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. In Nuremberg this grim jest was translated into literal earnest. But it must have been difficult for the sufferer to appreciate the hideous humour of the thing.

Not long ago there was an exhibition of torture instruments in London. The Nuremberg Maiden was represented, and round her neck hung a placard with the legend: “Maiden: Nuremberg.” A cockney, the story runs, read out this inscription to his companion: “Syme old gyme,” was the comment; “Myde in Germany.” And it was.

Albert Durer and the Arts and Crafts of Nuremberg. (Michel Wolgemut, Peter Vischer, Veit Stoss, Adam Krafft, etc.)

“Wie friedsam treuer SittenErtrost in that und WerkLiegt nicht in Deutschlands MittenMein liebes Nüremberg.”—Wagner,Die Meistersinger.

“Here, when Art was still Religion, with a simple, reverent hart,Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the evangelist of Art;Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.Emigravit is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies;Dead he is not—but departed,—for the artist never dies.”—Longfellow.

AT Nuremberg, as elsewhere, in the Middle Ages, every trade formed a close corporation, the rules and ordinances of which were subject to the Council alone. These unions, besides enjoying a monopoly of their particular trade, aimed at producing good work after their kind, and at “living together peacefully and amicably, according to the Christian law of brotherly love.” Wages and prices were fixed, the relations of masters and subordinates were regulated by the corporations. Equality as well as fraternity was aimed at. Each master was allowed only a certain number ofapprentices and workmen, who might not work at night, on Sundays, or on Feast days. Occasionally, in the case of artists whose work was in very great repute and demand, the Council relaxed this rule. By special privilege Adam Krafft was allowed to increase his establishment of workers. The trade-corporations paid great attention to the quality of the goods produced. They were always anxious that only products which were “in the eyes of all good, irreproachable, and without flaw,” should be delivered. To guarantee their quality and soundness goods were carefully inspected before being put on sale: shoes or works of art, bread or beef—all alike came under the eye of inspectors appointed by the respective associations. Punishment for infringement of the rules was severe. Two men were burnt alive at Nuremberg in 1456 for having sold adulterated wine.

The modern publican would doubtless be surprised at such treatment.

The youth who was destined for a certain trade had to be apprenticed to some master of that trade, “who,” say the rules of the time, “must maintain his apprentice night and day in his house, give him bread and attention (and in some cases even clothes), and keep him under lock and key.” The master, who was responsible for his apprentice’s work, had also to teach him his trade, and to see that he was brought up in the fear of God, and that he attended church. When the apprenticeship (Lehrjahre) expired the young worker set out on his travels (Wanderjahre) for one, three, or even five years, visiting foreign countries, and learning all he could of his trade. Then he returned and occupied himself, whilst working for a master, in endeavouring to produce a piece of work—his masterpiece—which should entitle him to be admitted to the rank of master.

ALBERT DURER’S HOUSEALBERT DURER’S HOUSE

That this system had faults, economically, is undeniable. That it produced good work and engendered in the craftsmen a personal interest and pride in their work, is equally certain. Among the craftsmen of Nuremberg in her golden age were Albert Durer, Peter Vischer, Adam Krafft, Veit Stoss, and a host of others eminent in their line. It was under the conditions we have sketched that they learned and laboured.

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Among the most treasured of Nuremberg’s relics is the low-ceilinged, gabled house near the Thiergärtnerthor, in whichAlbert Durerlived and died, in the street now called after his name. The works of art which he presented to the town, or with which he adorned its churches, have unfortunately, with but few exceptions, been sold to the stranger. It is in Vienna and Munich, in Dresden and Berlin, in Florence, in Prague, or the British Museum, that we find splendid collections of Durer’s works. Not at Nuremberg. But here at any rate we can see the house in which he toiled—no genius ever took more pains—and the surroundings which impressed his mind and influenced his inspiration. If, in the past, Nuremberg has been only too anxious to turn his works into cash, to-day she guards Albert Durer’s house with a care and reverence little short of religious. She has sold, in the days of her poverty and foolishness, the master’s pictures and drawings, which are his own best monument; but she has set up a noble monument to his memory (by Rauch, 1840) in the Durer Platz, and his house is opened to the public (on payment of 50 pfennige) between the hours of 8A.M.and 1P.M., and 2 and 6P.M.on week days. The Albert-Durer-Haus Society has done admirable work in restoring and preserving the house in itsoriginal state with the aid of Professor Wanderer’s architectural and antiquarian skill. Reproductions of Durer’s works are also kept here.

The most superficial acquaintance with Durer’s drawings will have prepared us for the sight of his simple, unpretentious house and its contents. In his “Birth of the Virgin” he gives us a picture of the German home of his day, where there were few superfluous knick-knacks, but everything which served for daily use was well and strongly made and of good design. Ceilings, windows, doors and door-handles, chests, locks, candlesticks, banisters, waterpots, the very cooking utensils, all betray the fine taste and skilled labour, the personal interest of the man who made them. So in Durer’s house, as it is preserved to-day, we can still see and admire the careful simplicity of domestic furniture, which distinguishes that in the “Birth of the Virgin.” The carved coffers, the solid tables, the spacious window-seats, the well-fitting cabinets let into the walls, the carefully wrought metal-work we see there are not luxurious; their merit is quite other than that. In workmanship as in design, how utterly do they put to shame the contents of the ordinary “luxuriously furnished apartments” of the present day!Simplex munditiisis the note struck here.

The artists of those days gave themselves no airs: they were content to regard themselves merely as successful workmen. The same hands that carved the most splendid cathedral stalls were ready to lavish equal care on the most insignificant domestic utensil: whilst the simplest artisan was filled with the ambition to turn out work truly artistic. He aimed at perfection, sharing in his master’s toil and triumphs, and hoping, no doubt, to produce some day a masterpiece himself.

And what manner of man was he who lived in this house that nestles beneath the ancient castle? In the first place a singularly loveable man, a man of sweet and gentle spirit, whose life was one of high ideals and noble endeavour.[41]In the second place an artist who, both for his achievements and for his influence on art, stands in the very front rank of artists, and of German artists isfacile princeps. At whatever point we may study Durer and his works we are never conscious of disappointment. As painter, as author, as engraver or simple citizen, the more we know of him the more we are morally and intellectually satisfied. Fortunately, through his letters and writings, his journals and autobiographical memoirs we know a good deal about his personal history and education.

Durer’s grandfather came of a farmer race in the village of Eytas in Hungary. Durer, it has been plausibly suggested, is a Nuremberg rendering of the Hungarian word Ajtó = door = Eytas. The Open Door, Azure, in his canting coat of arms seems to confirm this. The grandfather turned goldsmith, and his eldest son, Albrecht Durer the elder, came to Nuremberg in 1455 and settled in the Burgstrasse (No. 27). He became one of the leading goldsmiths of the town: married and had eighteen children, of whom only three, boys, grew up. Albrecht, or as we call him Albert Durer, was the eldest of these. He was born May 21, 1471, in his father’s house, and Anthoni Koberger, the printer and bookseller, the Stein of those days, stood godfather to him. Themaintenance of so large a family involved the father, skilful artist as he was, in unremitting toil.

“My dear father,” writes Durer, “passed his life in the midst of great toil, and difficult and arduous labour, having only what he earned by his handiwork to support himself, his wife and his family. His possessions were few and in his life he experienced many tribulations, struggles and reverses of all sorts: but all who knew him had a good word to say of him, for he clung to the conduct of a good and honourable Christian. He was a patient and gentle man, at peace with all men and full of gratitude to God.”

The portrait he has left of his father (at Munich) corresponds exactly to the character he has thus described. It is the trustful, strenuous face of a worn but strong old man, who seems to accept without regret, in the glad possession of a conscience free from all reproach, a life deprived of all comfort and worldly pleasure. He took great pains to bring up his children in the way they should go.

“My father took much trouble over our education. He brought us up to the glory of God: his chief desire was to keep his children under severe discipline, so that they might be acceptable to God and to man. Every day he urged us to love God and to show a sincere affection for our neighbours.” Of his mother, Albert Durer writes, “It was her constant custom to go much to church. She never failed to reprove me every time that I did wrong. She kept us, my brothers and me, with great care from all sin, and on my coming in or my going out, it was her habit to say ‘Christ bless thee.’ I cannot praise enough her good works, the kindness and charity she showed to all, nor can I speak enough of the good fame that was hers.”

His father, who was delighted with Albert’s industry, took him from school as soon as he had learned to read and write and apprenticed him to a goldsmith. “But my taste drew me towards painting rather than towards goldsmithry. I explained this to my father, but he was not satisfied, for he regretted the time I had lost.”

ALBERT DURER AS A BOY. FROM A DRAWING BY HIMSELF AT THE AGE OF THIRTEENALBERT DURER AS A BOY.FROM A DRAWING BY HIMSELF AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN

Benvenuto Cellini has told us how his father, in like fashion, was eager that he should practise the “accursed art” of music. Durer’s father, however, soon gave in and in 1486 apprenticed the boy to Michel Wolgemut. That extraordinarily beautiful, and, for a boy of that age, marvellously executed portrait of himself at the age of thirteen (now at Vienna) must have shown the father something of the power that lay undeveloped in his son. So “it was arranged that I should serve him for three years. During that time God gave me great industry so that I learnt many things; but I had to suffer much at the hands of the other apprentices.”

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Painting was already in vogue at Nuremberg in the fourteenth century, but it was never much encouraged. One of the reasons may perhaps have been that there was little opportunity for fresco painting here, as in Italy; for the Gothic style of architecture offers no large surfaces that seem to demand the relief of colour and drawing. Painting was regarded at first merely as an assistant of architecture, glass-blowing and sculpture, for the purposes of decoration and ornament, and painters therefore always continued to be treated as mere artisans of one craft or another. “Here I am a master,” writes Durer from Italy, “at home a Parasite.” But, however regarded, the art of painting had attained to the dignity of a separate existence when, in the fourteenth century, it was called in to supply the place of sculpture and to furnish altar-pieces and memorial pictures attached to monuments. These latter, “epitaphs,” are highly characteristic of northern art, and no better examples of them are to be found than in the great churches of Nuremberg. Many of them, in their original positions, can be seen in the Churches of St. Lorenz and St. Sebald, executed for the great burgher families—Imhoffs, Tuchers, Holzschuhers, etc.—on the deathof one of their number. An early example is that of Paul Stromer (1406) in St. Lorenzkirche.

The oldest Nuremberg picture is said to be an altarpiece in St. Jakobskirche. A great advance on this awkward work is the celebrated Imhoff’sche Altar-piece in the Lorenzkirche (1418-22). Of the same period, but more full of colour and movement, are the pictures of the Deokarus Altar in the same church, of the Altar of the Sacristy in St. Jakobskirche, and notably of the Tuchersche Altar in the Frauenkirche (1440). The figures in this picture are more severe and also more vigorous than the graceful, soft, full figures of the Imhoff’sche Altar-piece.

The names of the painters of these works are unknown. Berthold, who was commissioned by the Council in 1423 to paint the interior of the Rathaus, is the only early painter of note whose name has survived. To him some of the earliest epitaphs are safely to be attributed.

So far no outside influence had affected the work of the Nuremberg painters. They were content to supply their pictures with plain gold backgrounds and to subordinate the composition of them to the requirements of the folding divisions of the altar-pieces, carved in stone or wood. The grouping is therefore often crowded and the drawing and arrangement of the limbs and figures frequently approaches the grotesque. But presently, and probably through the agency of Martin Schongauer, the famous engraver and painter of Colmar, the influence of the Flemish School began to make itself felt. The introduction of landscape backgrounds and a great improvement in drawing and composition are noticeable, and may be traced in the Löffelholz Altar-piece in St. Sebald’s (1453). In these respects and in the smooth and brilliant colouring, not quite perfectly harmonised,Michel Wolgemut’s(1434-1519)earliest works show the influence of the Flemish School in full vigour. It was in 1473 that he married the widow of Hans Pleydenwurf, a painter of some reputation, and in his house, beneath the old Castle, proceeded to carry on the firm of Wolgemut and Pleydenwurf. From this workshop all the principal paintings of that period would seem to have issued. It is extremely difficult to determine how far the pictures that have hitherto passed under the name of Michel Wolgemut are really his. The master has certainly failed as a rule to stamp his own personality on his works. This is no doubt due in great part to the fact that he left much of each picture to be done by his pupils and assistants. The “firm” took a frankly business view of their handiwork. The amount of personal attention Michel Wolgemut gave to a picture probably varied with the price paid for it. It is unfortunate that Durer in many cases followed the same custom. He found that his careful and elaborate style of painting was simply beggaring him, and he frequently therefore allowed his paintings to be finished by his assistants.

Some common characteristics of the Pleydenwurf-Wolgemut School soon impress themselves on us as we study their works in the German Museum, or the Churches of St. Lorenz, St. Sebald, St. John, and St. Jakob. The drapery is stiffly drawn but the colouring remarkably clear and brilliant. The modelling of the limbs, not founded on Durer’s close studies of the nude, still leaves much to be desired. The female type is at first sight graceful, but on closer acquaintance we find it soulless and unsatisfying. The prominent cheekbones, straight noses, mild expression of almond-shaped eyes, thin lips and lifeless mouths produce an impression very different from that caused by the almost painful intensity of Durer’s portraits. As the fifteenth century draws to a close an increasing severity of design andhardness of expression becomes noticeable. It is not altogether fanciful, I think, to attribute this in part to the stern independent spirit of the Reformation and in part to the prevalence of engraving. For Wolgemut, with Wilhelm Pleydenwurf, paid much attention to woodcarving,[42]and aided doubtless by their youthful apprentice, Albert Durer, illustrated theSchatzbehalter(1491) and theHartmann-Schedel Chronicle(1493), published by Koberger. The influence of this style of work is perhaps traceable in the flatness and severe modelling of the hands, feet, and faces, and in the stiff movement of the figures in Wolgemut’s pictures.

Wolgemut is seen to best advantage in his single figures of saints, as in his Peringsdörffer masterpiece, from the Augustinerkirche, now in the German Museum, the only painting of importance known to have been produced in his studio during Durer’s apprenticeship. But even in his best pieces we see little more than the fine feeling of a skilful workman. We look in vain for inspiration, in vain for imagination, we listen in vain for any echo from that world of PerfectBeauty which Durer and the greatest artists have known in part and striven to express. And yet, somehow, his best works do appeal to us and stir our hearts. What the secret of that appeal may be is a question which will doubtless find various answers.Quot homines tot sententiæ.For me it is that Wolgemut speaks in the naïve, straightforward tones of the Middle Ages, and decks the actors of the Sacred Story in the clothes and colours of his own time and his own surroundings. The atmosphere of his pictures is laden with subtle associations. If there was no note of poetry in Wolgemut, still, round the landscapes in his pictures, there hovers a tone like the echo of some old folk-song that has been sung and yet lingers in the air.

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Albert Dureralways entertained the highest respect for his master, and in 1516 painted the immortal portrait of him in his eighty-second year, now in Munich.

When in 1490 his apprenticeship was completed Durer set out on his Wanderjahre, to learn what he could of men and things, and, more especially, of his own trade. Martin Schongauer was dead, but under that master’s brothers Durer studied and helped to support himself by his art at Colmar and at Basle. Various wood-blocks executed by him at the latter place are preserved there. Whether he also visited Venice now or not is a moot point. Here or elsewhere, at any rate, he came under the influence of the Bellini, of Mantegna, and more particularly of Jacopo dei Barbari—the painter and engraver to whom he owed the incentive to study the proportions of the human body—a study which henceforth became the most absorbing interest of his life.

“I was four years absent from Nuremberg,” he records, “and then my father recalled me....After my return Hans Frey came to an understanding with my father. He gave me his daughter Agnes and with her 200 florins, and we were married.” Durer, who writes so lovingly of his parents, never mentions his wife with any affection: a fact which to some extent confirms her reputation as a Xantippe. She, too, in her way, it is suggested, practised the art ofcross-hatching. Pirkheimer, writing after the artist’s death, says that by her avariciousness and quarrelling nature she brought him to the grave before his day. She was probably a woman of a practical and prosaic turn, to whom the dreamy, poetic, imaginative nature of the artist-student, her husband, was intolerably irritating. Yet as we look at his portraits of himself—and no man except Rembrandt has painted himself so often—it is difficult to understand how anyone could have been angry with Albert Durer. Never did the face of man bear a more sweet, benign, and trustful expression. In those portraits we see something of the beauty, of the strength, of the weakness of the man so beloved in his generation. His fondness for fine clothes and his legitimate pride in his personal beauty reveal themselves in the rich vestments he wears and the wealth of silken curls, so carefully waved, so wondrously painted, falling proudly over his free neck. Joachim Camerarius, the first rector of the Melanchthon Gymnasium in Nuremberg, tells a pleasant story of how the aged Giovanni Bellini once asked Durer to present him with one of the brushes with which he drew hairs.

“Durer immediately produced several ordinary brushes such as Bellini himself used, and begged him to take the best, or all if he would. Bellini said ‘No, I don’t mean these. I mean the ones with which you draw several hairs with one stroke. They must be more spread out and more divided; otherwise in a long sweep such regularity of curvature and distance could not be preserved.’ ‘I use no other than these,’ Albrechtreplies, ‘and, to prove it, you may watch me.’ Then taking up one of the same brushes, he drew some very long, wavy tresses, such as women generally wear, in the most regular order and symmetry. Bellini looked on wondering, and afterwards admitted that no human being could have convinced him by report of the truth of that which he had seen with his own eyes.”“Nature had given him a body,” says the same writer, “noble in build and structure, consonant with the beautiful mind it contained. His head was expressive, the eyes flashing, the nose nobly formed, and what the Greeks called τετρἁγωνον (Roman). His neck was long, and his chest broad; his thighs muscular, and legs powerful.”

“Nature had given him a body,” says the same writer, “noble in build and structure, consonant with the beautiful mind it contained. His head was expressive, the eyes flashing, the nose nobly formed, and what the Greeks called τετρἁγωνον (Roman). His neck was long, and his chest broad; his thighs muscular, and legs powerful.”

And most noteworthy of all are his exquisitely beautiful hands and fingers, which strike us equally in the portrait of the boy of thirteen, and in the Munich portrait which forms our frontispiece. No one who studies the latter picture can fail to notice how closely the countenance of Durer approaches the ideal type of Jesus Christ in art. The artist, indeed, was conscious of this himself, for his own representations of Christ bear a resemblance to his own features.

On his marriage Durer did not proceed to live in the house of his parents-in-law as was customary, but, for some reason, took up his abode in his father’s house. It was his ambition to excel as a painter, but it is as an engraver that he won his hold on the world—and still retains it. Copperplate engraving had been practised as early as the first quarter of the fifteenth century. It had been developed out of the goldsmith’s art, and perfected by the masters E. S. and Martin Schongauer. There was a great demand for engravings. Accordingly, with a view to earning the much needed money for his family, Durer at first devoted himself to this art. We can trace clearly enough the progress of the artist as he endeavoured to produce not merely the simple representation of a subject, but by the aid of landscape backgrounds, a picture, an artistic whole on thecopper. For this purpose he turned to account his early studies of Nuremberg scenery and his charming drawings of Nuremberg, the Pegnitz, and the houses to which he was ever devoted. Piracy of his works soon followed on and proved his popularity. Literary piracy, it will be seen, if not yet respectable, is at any rate of some antiquity. Meantime he was busy painting the portraits of members of patrician families, of his father, of himself. For these we must not seek in Nuremberg, but an example of his painting at this period (circa1500), is to be found in the Pietà, now in the German Museum. In painting, it was Durer’s rule to deal only with sacred subjects or portraits. The much damaged and inferior work, “Hercules with the Stymphalian Birds,” in the same museum forms an interesting exception to this rule. But in his engravings Durer did not confine himself to any one subject: sacred and secular history, mythology, animals, satire, humour, architecture, land and water scapes, portraits, all formed material for his receptive and strenuous mind. His humour may be studied in his designs for Maximilian’s “Book of Hours,” and there, too, his mordant satire lashes the faults of vain women and thegaucheriesof proud and foolish peasants.

We have already had occasion to refer to the circle in which Durer moved in these days; but special mention should here be made of Willibald Pirkheimer, his great friend and patron, the most generous Mæcenas of sciences and art in Nuremberg. Scholar and statesman, writer, orator, and soldier, his house and splendid library in the Herrenmarkt was the centre of intellectual activity in Germany, and the chief meeting-place of the Humanists. Maximilian I., Conrad Celtes, Eobanus Hesse, Luther and Melanchthon, and especially Ulrich von Hutten and Durer were among his most favoured and frequent guests. He was a constant correspondent

ST. ANTHONY, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY ALBERT DURER. BACKGROUND OF NUREMBERG SCENERYST. ANTHONY, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY ALBERT DURER. BACKGROUND OF NUREMBERG SCENERY

also of Reuchlin and Erasmus. A martyr to gout, he was naturally choleric, but he had the humour to write a poem in praise of gout. His quick temper and vehement opinions led to his quarrelling in time with every friend except the gentle Durer. Coarse and caustic was his wit: and it is only under his influence that Durer ever shows these qualities. Pirkheimer was, in fact, a great man, a very great man, in his day; but he lives now through his friendship with Durer, and through the portrait, that marvellous engraving so full of character, which Durer published in 1524.

Besides copper-engraving and painting Durer also turned his attention to wood-engraving, and by his admirable work and designs began to give it its place among the pictorial arts. One of his earliest woodcuts is entitledThe Men’s Bath. It represents a group of nude male figures in one of those open-air public baths in the Pegnitz, which are still used in Nuremberg, and of which an old writer says: “A solicitude particularly attentive to the needs of the working classes and to the health and well-being of artisans, servants and the poor, has established baths in the towns and villages: it is a habit very praiseworthy and profitable to the health to take a bath at least once a fortnight.” There were a dozen such public baths at Nuremberg, often visited by Durer no doubt in his pursuit of the study of the nude. He continued to pour forth works drawn from mythology and church history, until in 1498 he produced that “great trumpet-call of the Reformation,” the famous series of wood-cut illustrations to theApocalypse. In this series, so full of artistic skill and imagination, Durer not only reveals to us the aspirations of his own mind, but he also expresses the thoughts and emotions of the age in which he lived. The Apocalypse, in which under the veil of religious symbolism are made to appear theterrible judgments of the Lord and the peace of his saints, was followed by that sweet and tender poem,The Life of Mary, and by theGreatand theLittle Passion, two sublime tragedies that leave nothing to be desired in truth of expression and vigour of design. Durer put his whole soul into these religious works—the same deeply penitent, simply trusting soul which he reveals to us in his prayers, his diaries, and his books. How real his subjects were to him, how homely his religion, is indicated by the inevitable manner in which he transfers the scenes of Holy Writ to the ordinary surroundings of his daily life in Nuremberg. Deeply imbued with the religious spirit, he tells this pictorial history of the Christian faith as one to whom it was indeed a living reality and a very intimate part of his life.

But before this immortal series was finished various important events occurred in the life of the artist. In 1502 his father died.

“O all you who are my friends,” writes Albert, in words that remind us of St. Augustine, “I pray you for the love of God, when you read the account of my good father’s death, remember his soul, and say for him aPaterand anAve. Do so too for your own salvation, that we may all obtain the grace of truly serving God, and that it may be granted to us to lead a holy life and to make a good end. No, it is not possible that he who has lived a good life should leave this world with regret or fear, for God is full of mercy.”

In the following year were produced the tenderVirgin and Child, and in 1504 theAdam and Eve, in which the fruits of his study of the nude were given to the world in ideal figures of man before the Fall. Next year another break occurred in Durer’s career. Whether, as Vasari says, to secure himself against the piracy of his engravings, or merely in search of fresh knowledge, towards which “his lofty mind was ever striving,” Durer paid another visit toVenice in 1505. Here he painted for the German colony, as an altar-piece in the Church of St. Bartolommeo, theMadonna del Rosario, now at Prague. This picture contains portraits of Maximilian, Julius II., Durer, Pirkheimer, and several German merchants. So great was the admiration roused by it that the Doge visited the artist and endeavours were made to induce him to live permanently in Venice. But in 1507, in spite of all temptations, he returned to his native town and proceeded to execute many commissions. In 1508 he obtained an injunction from the Council to prevent the fraudulent copying of his prints. In the same year a Nuremberg worthy, Matthäus Landauer, added a chapel to the almshouses (Zwölfbrüderhaus or Landauerkloster) he had founded in 1501. The chapel was dedicated to All Saints, and Durer was invited to paint an altar-piece for it, representing “The Adoration of the Trinity by all Saints.” The result, the Allerheiligenbild, is one of the artist’s noblest and most famous compositions, but it too has left Nuremberg. For in 1585 the Rat sold it to Emperor Rudolph II., replacing it by a copy for which they retained the original frame.

In 1509 Durer bought the Durer-haus and took his aged mother to live with him there. He also bought his father’s house in the Burgstrasse off his brother. This in itself shows that the stories of his poverty have been much exaggerated. On his death he left 6858 gulden—a very good fortune in those days. His connection with Maximilian, to which we have already referred,[43]no doubt brought him something, though he had difficulty in procuring the payment of the pension allowed him by the Emperor. The Council, in 1510, at last gave a sign that they were aware of the presence of a great artist in theircity by ordering Durer to paint the portraits of Charlemagne and Sigismund, to be displayed at the festival when the Imperial insignia and sacred relics—many of which were introduced into the pictures—were shown to the people. These portraits, into the former of which Durer introduced the features of Stabius, Maximilian’s poet-laureate, are now in the German Museum, much restored and over-daubed with repaintings.

The illness and death of his mother in 1514 caused Albert Durer very great grief. Most touching is his description of that event.

“Just a year after she had fallen ill, my mother died in a Christian manner, after having received full absolution. Before dying she gave me her blessing, and with many pious words invoked upon me the peace of God, recommending me above all to keep myself from all sin. She had much fear of death, but, she said, she had no fear of appearing before the Lord. She suffered when she died, and I observed that she saw before her something which terrified her, for she asked for holy water, although she had not uttered a word for a long time. At last her eyes grew fixed and I saw Death deal her two great blows to the heart. Then she closed her eyes and mouth and died suffering. I betook myself to reciting prayers at her side, and experienced such paroxysms of anguish as I cannot express to you. May God have mercy on my mother! It was always her greatest joy to speak to us of God, and she saw with gladness everything that could increase the glory of the Lord. She was sixty-three years of age when she died, and I had her interred honourably according to my means. May our Lord give me grace to die a holy death even as she died! May God with all the heavenly host, my father, my mother, my relatives and my friends, be present at my end! May God Almighty grant us the life everlasting! Amen. And after my mother was dead her face became more beautiful than it had been during her life.”

Sorrow is the source of most great works of art. In his sorrow Durer produced his three most famous, best-wrought engravings, works full of imagination and of thought, works in which, expressed in exquisitedraughtsmanship, lies his whole philosophy. ThroughSt. Jerome in his Library,The Knight,Death and the Devil, andMelencolia, Durer has more than elsewhere revealed himself to us and shown us his outlook upon things, his manner of regarding the world, his criticism of life.

On the death of Maximilian Durer travelled to the Court of Charles V. in order to get his pension confirmed. He succeeded in his object, and, after travelling through the Netherlands, where he was accorded a great reception, he returned to Nuremberg in 1521, having refused the pressing invitation of the Council of Antwerp that he should take up his residence in their city. When he returned he received another commission from the Rat—to design decorative paintings for the great hall of the Council-house. But Durer’s health was broken and his prolific imagination was flagging. He seems to have taken little interest in this commission. He chose the time-worn subject of theCalumnyof Apelles for one design, and used his unfinished sketch of Maximilian’sTriumphal Carfor the other. The painting was carried out by Georg Pencz and others of his pupils. Durer’s last great imaginative effort was the painting of the Four Preachers, two large upright panels with figures of St. Peter and St. John on the one, and St. Mark and St. Paul on the other. These, as his final message to his native town, he presented in 1526 to hisgunstigen und gnädigen Herren, the Council of Nuremberg.

Painter, designer, engraver, mathematician, Durer was also an author. The year before he died, he published his “Instructions how to Use the Compass” and “Instructions how to Fortify Towns, Castles, and Villages,” and after his death appeared the four books of his life-long work on “The Human Proportions.”

His life had been passed in a strenuous endeavourto perfect his art: he died amid a universal chorus of regret, on April 6th, 1528. His grave is in St. John’s Churchyard (No. 649). A plain bronze plate on the headstone bears his well-known monogram and the following inscription:—

Me(ister)Al(brecht)Du(rer)Quicquid Alberti Dvreri MortaleFuit, Svb Hoc Conditur Tumulo.Emigravit, viii, Idus Aprile,M., D.XXVIII.

Me(ister)Al(brecht)Du(rer)

Quicquid Alberti Dvreri MortaleFuit, Svb Hoc Conditur Tumulo.Emigravit, viii, Idus Aprile,M., D.XXVIII.

“I can truthfully say,” wrote Durer to the Council, “that in the thirty years I have stayed at home, I have not received from people in this town work worth 500 gulden—truly an absurd and trifling sum—and not a fifth part of that has been profit.” After his death his fellow-citizens became more fully alive to the value of his works, and the worthy shopkeepers began those transactions which gradually stripped Nuremberg of almost all the master’s drawings and paintings. I borrow the following account from Mr Lionel Cust’s excellent monograph on “The Paintings and Drawings of Albert Durer”:—

“The greater part of his drawings, which were made for his own use, appear to have passed into the possession of his life-long friend, Pirkheimer, perhaps handed over by Durer’s widow to redeem the many financial obligations under which Durer lay to his friend. The sketch-books used by Durer in the Netherlands seem to have passed into the possession of the Pfinzing family, and were dispersed by their next owner. At Pirkheimer’s death the whole of his collections, including the paintings and drawings by Durer, became the property of the Imhoff family, the bankers and usurers of Nuremberg. The Imhoffs, as befits a good, steady, money-making firm, seem to have regarded Durer’s works as a marketable commodity. At the end of the sixteenth century, when the Emperor Rudolph II. was forming his great collection of works of art and curiosities, the Imhoffs, knowing his intense admiration for the works of Durer, pressed upon him thecollection of paintings and drawings which they possessed. The Town Council of Nuremberg seem to have followed suit with the paintings which were immediately under their control, if not actually in their possession. In a short time Rudolph became possessed of the bulk of Durer’s paintings and drawings at Prague or Vienna. Several of the paintings remain in the Imperial collection to this day, and a large portion of the drawings now forms the nucleus of what is known as the ‘Albertina’ collection at Vienna. Another portion of the Imhoff collection found its way through a collector in the Netherlands, perhaps through one of the Austrian governors, into that of Sir Hans Sloane, and is now in the print-room at the British Museum. These two collections, together with the great collection, which official industry and acumen have brought together at Berlin, are the best field for the study of Durer’s work as a draughtsman, although in some of the smaller public or private collections some of the most remarkable examples are to be found.“The good citizens of Nuremberg continued their work of converting Durer’s works into hard cash whenever the opportunity occurred. In 1585 the Town Council persuaded or compelled the governors of the Landauer almshouses to sell to the Emperor Rudolph their great painting ofAll Saints, replacing it by a copy which, by way of carrying out the deception, was inserted in the original frame designed by Durer. TheAdam and Evealso appear to have passed into the same Imperial hands. In 1627 the Council sold to the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria the two great panels of theFour Preachers, Durer’s last gift to his native town, and replaced them by copies. The long inscriptions from the Bible were cut off from the original panels and added on below the copies. A few years before, in 1613, they had presented the same Elector with the beautiful Baumgärtner altar-piece, which was torn from its place in St. Catherine’s Church at Nuremberg. The twoDescents from the Crossfollowed in the same channel: and the Praun collection at Nuremberg yielded up the portrait of Wolgemut and the portrait of Hans Durer. Worst of all, the portrait of their beloved and honoured citizen, the world-famous portrait of Durer by himself, which had become actually the property of the Town Council, was lent by them to a local painter to copy; this ingenious craftsman sawed the panel in half, and glued his copy on to the back, on which were the town seal and other marks of ownership, and sold theoriginal to King Ludwig of Bavaria. The worthy magistrates never discovered the fraud, or pretended not to, and this copy hangs to-day at Nuremberg a monument of dishonour and fraud. Gradually Nuremberg divested itself of every work by Durer which it could, and rejoiced in its copies and its cash. Ludwig I. of Bavaria took pity on its denuded condition, and gave back to it as a gift theDescent from the Cross, known as the Peller altar-piece, and also apparently returned from Schleissheim theHercules and the Stymphalian Birds. With the overdaubed paintings of Charlemagne and Sigismund, these appear to be the only authenticated paintings by Durer in his native town at the present day. Three hundred years after Durer’s death, a statue was erected to him in Nuremberg, and his house is now preserved and shown as a national relic. Yet little more than fifty years after the erection of this statue, in 1884, the citizens allowed the famous ‘Holzschuher’ portrait, the last great work by Durer which the town possessed, to be sold by the family, to whom it still belonged, to the Munich Gallery. Truly a prophet hath little honour in his own country!”

“The good citizens of Nuremberg continued their work of converting Durer’s works into hard cash whenever the opportunity occurred. In 1585 the Town Council persuaded or compelled the governors of the Landauer almshouses to sell to the Emperor Rudolph their great painting ofAll Saints, replacing it by a copy which, by way of carrying out the deception, was inserted in the original frame designed by Durer. TheAdam and Evealso appear to have passed into the same Imperial hands. In 1627 the Council sold to the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria the two great panels of theFour Preachers, Durer’s last gift to his native town, and replaced them by copies. The long inscriptions from the Bible were cut off from the original panels and added on below the copies. A few years before, in 1613, they had presented the same Elector with the beautiful Baumgärtner altar-piece, which was torn from its place in St. Catherine’s Church at Nuremberg. The twoDescents from the Crossfollowed in the same channel: and the Praun collection at Nuremberg yielded up the portrait of Wolgemut and the portrait of Hans Durer. Worst of all, the portrait of their beloved and honoured citizen, the world-famous portrait of Durer by himself, which had become actually the property of the Town Council, was lent by them to a local painter to copy; this ingenious craftsman sawed the panel in half, and glued his copy on to the back, on which were the town seal and other marks of ownership, and sold theoriginal to King Ludwig of Bavaria. The worthy magistrates never discovered the fraud, or pretended not to, and this copy hangs to-day at Nuremberg a monument of dishonour and fraud. Gradually Nuremberg divested itself of every work by Durer which it could, and rejoiced in its copies and its cash. Ludwig I. of Bavaria took pity on its denuded condition, and gave back to it as a gift theDescent from the Cross, known as the Peller altar-piece, and also apparently returned from Schleissheim theHercules and the Stymphalian Birds. With the overdaubed paintings of Charlemagne and Sigismund, these appear to be the only authenticated paintings by Durer in his native town at the present day. Three hundred years after Durer’s death, a statue was erected to him in Nuremberg, and his house is now preserved and shown as a national relic. Yet little more than fifty years after the erection of this statue, in 1884, the citizens allowed the famous ‘Holzschuher’ portrait, the last great work by Durer which the town possessed, to be sold by the family, to whom it still belonged, to the Munich Gallery. Truly a prophet hath little honour in his own country!”

Of the pupils and assistants of Durer who carried on his tradition we may mention Hans Schäuflein, Albert Altdorfer, Hans Baldung, Georg Pencz, the two Behaims and the two Sebalds, and Hans von Kulmbach. We meet with many examples of their work in the churches and in the German Museum.

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As we turn our steps from Durer’s house and wander through the Durer-platz to St. Sebald’s we come upon the oldest restaurant in Nuremberg, where the devout tourist should not fail to drinkein Glas Bierto the memory of Hans Sachs, Pirkheimer, and Durer, who sat here, drank and talked in days gone by. TheBratwurstglöckleinis a little beerhouse clinging to the north wall of St. Moritz Chapel, and owes its name, I suppose, to the custom of ringing a small bell when the sausage was ready. As to the curious position of this little restaurant we may remark that thepractice of bargaining in the sacred precincts was very prevalent at one time, and little booths were frequently built on to the churches. It is only quite recently that the booths attached to the Frauenkirche were broken up.

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North of the Rathaus runs the Theresien Strasse. No. 7 is the house of Adam Krafft, the greatest of Nuremberg sculptors (1430-1507). The house belonged originally to the Pfinzing family, and is of interest in itself for its architectural features. The figure of St. Moritz on the fountain in the courtyard is by Peter Vischer. Here Adam Krafft, the pious and modest stone-mason, worked at his art to the glory of God. We know next to nothing of the man beyond what we can learn from his handiwork. There is fortunately little reason for believing the legend that he died in great poverty. A friend we know he was of Lindenast and Vischer, with whom, so great was his industry and eagerness to improve in art, he used to practise drawing on holidays, even in his old age; and it is recorded that he made his wife call herself Eva because he was Adam. That quaint humour of his is revealed in the pleasing relief over the gateway of the “Waage” or old weighing-house in the Winklerstrasse. If we would see the counterfeit presentment of the man himself, we must pay a visit to St. Lorenzkirche, and there, on the pedestal of his masterpiece the figure of the master appears with the tools and in the costume of his craft, kneeling in company with his assistants and supporting their beautiful creation.

A simple man, of calm, unruffled temper and fervent faith he must have been, thoroughly representative of the best German spirit of his day. No German artist has portrayed the scenes of Christ’s passion with greater depth of genuine feeling. Happily many of his principal works are at Nuremberg. Probablythe earliest examples of Nuremberg sculpture are the figures of Adam and Eve and the prophets round the portal of St. Lorenzkirche. They date from the fourteenth century. In point of style and execution it is a far cry from these stern and angular figures to the almost supernatural grace and lightness of Krafft’s Pix within the cathedral. Well did legend pay him the pretty compliment of saying that he knew the art offoundingstone like bronze. Tender and graceful as the artist here shows himself, the strength and vigour of his reliefs are equally remarkable. His treatment of the folds of garments seems to reflect the influence of the Netherland school, and to point to a dangerous striving after the effects of painting. For his subjects Krafft rarely went outside the New Testament, which he interpreted in the terms of Nuremberg life and dress. His figures, like those in the works of his contemporaries at Nuremberg, are in most cases short, not to say dumpy, and reflect, no doubt, the ordinary type of human form around him. But always the homely Nuremberg costumes in which they are clad seem to bring the scenes portrayed nearer to our hearts; and thereby when a Mary draws to her breast the head of her crucified Son, or a Magdalene at the feet of Jesus waters His feet with her tears, we are impressed the more vividly with sympathy for their sorrow.

One of his earliest works, if, as I think, it is indeed by him, is the Last Judgment over the Schauthüre, on the south-east side of St. Sebaldskirche. His earliest works of unquestioned authority are the Seven Stations of the Cross on the Burgschmietsstrasse. These are a series of bas-reliefs on seven pillars, each representing a scene in the passion of our Lord. Starting from the house of the founder they mark the way to St. John’s churchyard. Some of them are much defaced by time and some have been carefully copied by Burgschmiet,[44]but here and there we can still recognise the vigorous touch of Adam Krafft, and they still keep green the memory of their pious founder. Martin Ketzel, somewhere about the year 1470, had undertaken a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Struck by the fact that the distance between Pilate’s house and Golgotha was exactly that between his own house and St. John’s Churchyard, he returned home with various measurements, determined to erect at certain intermediate stations some pieces of sculpture commemorative of our Saviour’s passion. To his dismay when he arrived he discovered that he had lost his precious measurements. There was nothing for it but to return to Jerusalem and take the measurements afresh. For he could trust no one to perform so important a task for him. This time he was more successful, and Adam Krafft was commissioned to provide the reliefs. Starting from Pilate’s house, which was represented by Ketzel’s own house—Thiergärtnerthorplatz (opposite Durer’s house—it is adorned by the statue of an armed knight) the pillars were placed at intervals, marking the spots corresponding to those where Christ was said to have rested on the real Dolorous Way to Mount Calvary. Calvary itself is represented at St. John’s. Each pillar bears an inscription:—

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