Part 14 (1/2)

Durer came back home with health broken: yet it is to this period that the magnificent portraits at Berlin of Nuremberg Councillors belong, and certainly his hand and eye had never been more sure than when he produced them. The hall of the Rathhaus was decorated under his direction and from his designs, the actual painting being, it is supposed, chiefly the work of George Penz, who with his fellow prentices became famous in 1524 as one of ”the three G.o.dless painters.”

We now come to a letter dated

NuRNBERG, _December_ 5, 1523, Sunday after Andrew's

My dear and gracious Master Frey--I have received the little book you sent to Master (Ulrich) Varnbuler and me; when he has finished reading it I will read it too. As to the monkey-dance you want me to draw for you, I have drawn this one here, unskilfully enough, for it is a long time since I saw any monkeys; so pray put up with it. Convey my willing service to Herr Zwingli (the reformer), Hans Leu (a Protestant painter), Hans Urich, and my other good masters. ALBRECHT DuRER. Divide these five little prints amongst you: I have nothing else new.

This Master Felix Frey was a reformer at Zurich: he was probably not closely related to Hans Frey, Durer's father-in-law, whose death is thus recorded in Durer's book:

In the year 1523 (as they reckon it), on our dear Lady's Day, when she was offered in the Temple, early, before the morning chimes, Hans Frey, my dear father-in-law, pa.s.sed away. He had lain ill for almost six years and suffered quite incredible adversities in this world. He received the Sacraments before he died. G.o.d Almighty be gracious to him.

Next we have letters from and to Niklas Kratzer, Astronomer to Henry VIII. He had been present when Durer drew Erasmus' portrait at Antwerp.

Durer had also made a drawing of Kratzer, and later on Holbein was to paint his masterpiece in the Louvre from the Oxford professor.

To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht Durer, burgher of Nurnberg, my dear Master and Friend. LONDON, _October_ 24, 1524. Honourable, dear Sir,

I am very glad to hear of your good health and that of your wife. I have had Hans Pomer staying with me in England. Now that you are all evangelical in Nurnberg I must write to you. G.o.d grant you grace to persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but G.o.d is stronger, and is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want you, dear Herr Albrecht Durer, to make a drawing for me of the instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp. Or perhaps Herr Pirkheimer would send me the design of it--he would be doing me a great favour. I want also to know how much a set of impressions of all your prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nurnberg relating to my art. I hear that our friend Hans, the astronomer, is dead. Would you write and tell me what instruments and the like he has left, and also where our Stabius' prints and wood-blocks are to be found? Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I hope to make him a map of England, which is a great country, and was unknown to Ptolemy. He would like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no more than a small part of it. You cannot write to me any longer through Hans Pomer. Pray send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S.

Koloman.[70]I have nothing more to say that would interest you, so G.o.d bless you. Given at London, October 24. Your servant, NIKLAS KRATZEH.

Greet your wife heartily for me.

To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend.

NuRNBERG, Monday after Barbara's (_December_ 5), 1524.

First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer about the instrument you wanted to have. He is having one made for you, and is going to send it to you with a letter. The things Herr Hans left when he died have all been scattered; as I was away at the time of his death I cannot find out where they are gone to. The same has happened to Stabius' things; they were all taken to Austria, and I can tell you no more about them. I should like to know whether you have yet begun to translate Euclid into German, as you told me, if you had time, you would do.

We have to stand in disgrace and danger for the sake of the Christian faith, for they abuse us as heretics; but may G.o.d grant us His grace and strengthen us in His word, for we must obey Him rather than men. It is better to lose life and goods than that G.o.d should cast us, body and soul, into h.e.l.l-fire. Therefore, may He confirm us in that which is good, and enlighten our adversaries, poor, miserable, blind creatures, that they may not perish in their errors.

Now G.o.d bless you! I send you two likenesses, printed from copper, which you will know well. At present I have no good news to write you, but much evil. However, only G.o.d's will cometh to pa.s.s. Your Wisdom's,

ALBRECHT DuRER.

Another letter to Durer from Cornelius Grapheus at Antwerp gives us some help towards understanding how the Reformation affected Durer and his friends.

To Master Albrecht Durer, unrivalled chief in the art of painting, my friend and most beloved brother in Christ, at Nurnberg; or in his absence to Wilibald Pirkheimer.

I wrote a good long letter to you, some time ago, in the name of our common friend Thomas Bombelli, but we have received no answer from you.

We are, therefore, the more anxious to hear even three words from you, that we may know how you are and what is going on in your parts, for there is no doubt that great events are happening. Thomas Bombelli sends you his heartiest greeting. I beg you, as I did in my last letter, to greet Wilibald Pirkheimer a score of times for me. Of my own condition I will tell you nothing. The bearers of this letter will be able to acquaint you with everything. They are very good men and most sincere Christians. I commend, them to you and my friend Pirkheimer as if they were myself; for they, themselves the best of men, merit the highest recommendation to the best of men. Farewell, dearest Albrecht. Amongst us there is a great and daily increasing persecution on account of the Gospel. Our brethren, the bearers, will tell you all about it more openly. Again farewell.

Wholly yours,

CORNELIUS GRAPHEUS.

ANTWERP, _February_ 23, 1524.

II

The events which made Durer an ardent Evangelical and Reformer in a coa.r.s.er paste proved a leaven of anarchy and subversion. Young, hot-headed n.o.bles like Ulrich Von Hutten became iconoclastic, were foremost at the dispersion of convents and nunneries, often playing a part on such occasions that was anything but a credit to the cause they were championing. Among the prentice lads and among the peasants, the unrest, discontent, and appet.i.te for change took forms if not more offensive at least more alarming. The Peasants' War gave rulers a foretaste of the panic they were to undergo at the time of the French Revolution. And in the towns men like ”the three G.o.dless painters” made the burghers shake in their shoes for the social order which kept them rich and respected and others poor and servile. It is strange that all three should have come from Durer's workshop. Probably they were the most talented prentices of the craft, since the great master chose them: besides, painting was an occupation which allowed of a certain intellectual development. They may have often listened with hungry ears to disputes between Pirkheimer and Durer, and envied the good luck, grace and gift which had enabled the latter to bridge over a gulf as great as that which separated them from him, between him and Pirkheimer or Vambuler. All this and much more we can by taking thought imagine to our satisfaction; but the point which we would most desire to satisfactorily conjecture we are utterly in the dark about. Though his prentices were tried, Durer appeared neither for nor against them; nor can we help ourselves to understand a fact so strange by any other mention of his att.i.tude. He had a year or two previously married his servant, (perhaps the girl that his wife took with her to the Netherlands), to Georg Penz, who went the farthest in his scepticism, recanted soonest, and possessed least talent of the three. But this fact, which is not quite a.s.sured, narrows the grounds of conjecture but little; we still face an almost boundless blank. It is difficult to imagine that Durer was quite as shocked as the Town Council by a man who said ”he had some idea that there was a G.o.d, but did not know rightly what conception to form of him,” who was so unfortunate as to think ”nothing” of Christ, and could not believe in the Holy Gospel or in the word of G.o.d; and who failed to recognise ”a master of himself, his goods and everything belonging to him” in the Council of Nuremberg.