this question with
much research and learning, and comes to the same conclusion; which is
strengthened by the fact, that the names of fourteen engravers, and the
initials of several others, were found engraved on the backs of the cuts
they executed for the "Triumph of Maximilian," now preserved in the
imperial library at Vienna; the names of others are incidentally
preserved; and among the drawings by Duerer in the British Museum, is one
of a young lady, whom he has designated "wood engraver," and who was
most probably employed by him. There is also a sufficient difference in
the style and manner of cutting his designs, which shows they must have
been done by different hands. It is not possible to note here a tithe of
the cuts done from his drawings.[221-*] His great serials are the
"Apocalypse," published in 1498, the two series of the "Passion of
Christ," and the "Life of the Virgin" (from which we give a specimen,
Fig. 241, "Christ bidding Farewell to his Mother"), all published in
1511. His largest woodcut was published in 1515, the "Triumphal Arch of
the Emperor Maximilian," and this, like the car already alluded to, was
engraved on a series of ninety-two wood blocks, and then the impressions
pasted together, forming a large print ten feet high. It is a work of
great labour, and displays considerable invention.

[Illustration: Fig. 241.--Christ bidding farewell to his Mother.]

Of Duerer's powers as a painter we have already spoken; but he excelled
also as an engraver on copper, and his prints of "Adam and Eve,"
"Melancholia," and the small "Life of Christ," have not been surpassed.
To him also we owe the invention of etching; he practised the art on
iron and on copper, and it is impossible to overvalue its utility. In
addition to his other labours he executed several pieces of sculpture,
one of which, the "Naming of John the Baptist," we have already alluded
to as preserved in the British Museum, and some few others in
hone-stone, bearing his well-known mark, exist. He also wrote on Art,
and a portion of the original manuscripts of his book on the
proportions of the human figure, is still preserved in the library of
the old Dominican monastery at Nuernberg. He was a good mathematician, he
also studied engineering, and is believed to have designed and
superintended the additional fortifications in the town walls beside the
castle, which are remarkable as the earliest examples of the more modern
system of defence,