em. So in Duerer'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!

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 endeavor. 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 is "facile princeps." At whatever
point we may study Duerer 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.

Duerer's grandfather came of a farmer race in the village of Eytas in
Hungary. The grandfather turned goldsmith, and his eldest son, Albrecht
Duerer 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 Duerer, 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. The maintenance of so large a family involved the father, skilful
artist as he was, in unremitting toil.

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 toward painting rather than toward
goldsmithry. I explained this to my father, but he was not satisfied,
for he regretted the time I had lost." Benvenuto Cellini has told us how
his father, in like fashion, was eager that he should practise the
"accurst art" of music. Duerer's fathe