twerp, and not only had the master draw his portrait, but
also invited him to a dinner. He then went to Brussels, on business
for his new royal patron, and was present at the pompous reception and
banquet with which the Emperor and the Archduchess Margaret received
the Danish King. Soon afterwards the King invited Duerer to the feast
which he gave to the Emperor and Archduchess; and then had his
portrait painted in oil-colors, paying thirty florins for it. After a
sojourn of eight days in Brussels, the master and his wife went south
to Cologne, spending four long days on the road; and soon afterwards
prolonged their journey to Nuremberg.

The municipality of Antwerp had offered him a house and a liberal
pension, to remain in that city; but he declined these, being content
with his prospects and his noble friends in Franconia.

CHAPTER VII.

Nuremberg's Reformation.--The Little Masters.--Glass-Painting.
--Architecture.--Letter to the City Council.--"Art of Mensuration."
--Portraits.--Melanchthon.

What a commotion must Duerer's return have caused in Nuremberg, with
his commission as court-painter, and his bales and crates of rarities
from America and India and all Europe! The presents which he had
brought for so many of his friends must have given the liveliest
delight, and afforded amusement for months to the Sodalitas Literaria
and the Rath-Elders.

In the mean time the purifying storm of the Reformation was sweeping
over Germany, and the people were in times of great doubt and
perplexity. Nuremberg was the first of the free cities of the Empire
to pronounce herself Protestant, though the change was effected with
so much order and moderation that no iconoclastic fury was allowed to
dilapidate its churches and convents. Pirkheimer and Spengler were
excommunicated by the Pope, though their calm conservatism had
curbed the fanatical fury of the puritans, and saved the Catholic
art-treasures of the Franconian capital.

It is a significant fact that Duerer, during the last six years of his
life, made no more Madonnas, and but one Holy Family. The era of
Mariolatry had passed, so far as Nuremberg was concerned. Yet, during
the year of his return from the Netherlands, he made two engravings of
St. Christopher bearing the Holy Child safely above the floods and
through the storms, as if to indicate that Christianity would be
carried through all its disasters by an unfailing strength.

During the remaining