Primary Contributors:

Cristina Neagu

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Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg on 21 May 1471. As a very young man, he trained as a goldsmith in his father’s shop. Then, from 1486 to 1490, he was an apprentice in the workshop of the painter Michael Wolgemut. Towards the end of his apprenticeship, he produced his first painting, the portrait of his father, Albrecht Dürer the elder. In April of 1490, Dürer undertook the first of his many trips, which included the Netherlands, Cologne, and parts of Austria. Amongst other things, he wanted to meet Martin Schongauer, the celebrated German engraver, but by the time he arrived in Colmar in the summer of 1492, the artist had passed away. Dürer continued to Basel and Strasbourg where he engaged in creating a number of highly accomplished woodcut illustrations for books. In May 1494, he returned briefly to Nuremberg, and, on 7 July, he married Agnes Frey. In August he left on another trip. This time he travelled across the Alps to Venice, by way of Augsburg, Innsbruck, the Brenner Pass, the Eisack Valley, and Trent.

Upon his return to Nuremberg in 1495, Dürer became very successful both as a printmaker and a painter. Among the works produced during this period is the Apocalypse, a woodcut series published in 1498, which, due to its innovative format, technical mastery, and powerful imagery, made the artist famous throughout Europe. Other memorable pieces include the Large Piece of Turf (1503), the engraving of Adam and Eve (1504), and the Adoration of the Magi (1504), painted for Frederick the Wise.

In the summer of 1505, Dürer set out again for Venice. The major commission of this period was the Feast of the Rose Garlands (1506), painted for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. While in Italy, Dürer became acquainted with artists such as Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and studied the work of Andrea Mantegna, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Lorenzo di Credi, the young Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. Dürer’s painting Christ Among the Doctors (1506) reflects the influence of Leonardo’s grotesques. The lively correspondence with his friend Willibald Pirckheimer is full of details about the artist’s séjour in Venice. Dürer returned to Nuremberg in 1507 and, except for a few short journeys, he remained in Nuremberg until 1520.

These years are commonly divided according to the type of work on which Dürer was principally focused. Thus, the first five years (from 1507 to 1511), he devoted mainly to painting. Among the works he was commissioned to create were the panels Adam and Eve (1507) and Virgin with the Iris (1508)—although the authorship of the latter is disputed—plus two altarpieces, the Assumption of the Virgin (1509), commissioned by Jakob Heller, the subject of an important series of letters written by Dürer, and the Adoration of the Trinity by all the Saints (1511). In this period, the artist also completed three magnificent, illustrated books, the Great Passion, the Life of the Virgin, and the Small Passion, all published in 1511, together with a second edition of the Apocalypse. From 1511 to 1514, Dürer concentrated on engraving. It was then when he created three of his most famous works, The Knight and Death (1513), ‘Melencolia I’, and St Jerome in his Study (both 1514).

Dürer’s fame and recognition as a world-class artist attracted the attention of Maximilian I, who gave him several commissions, including some of the drawings for the Emperor’s Prayerbook. Dürer was also one of the main contributors in creating three huge prints: the Large Triumphal Carriage (a composite image printed from eight separate wood blocks measuring 2.4 metres in length), the Triumphal Procession (made of 137 woodcut panels, measuring fifty-four metres in length), and the Triumphal Arch (consisting of 192 woodcut panels, measuring three metres high and 3.7 metres wide). Only the latter was completed before Maximilian’s death in 1519.

Following the death of Maximilian I, the need to have his pension confirmed by Charles V (the Emperor’s successor) prompted Dürer to travel to the Netherlands. On 3 August 1520, he arrived in Antwerp, which served as a base for visits to cities including Nijmegen, Ghent, Bruges, Middelburg, and Brussels. Dürer kept a detailed diary of this year-long trip. The diary is accompanied by a sketchbook, containing sophisticated silverpoint drawings—an art form that affords no ‘pentimenti’ or corrections. These are an invaluable source of information about Dürer’s life and art at that moment in time, and reveal that the artist was highly esteemed by his Flemish colleagues.

After his return to Nuremberg, Dürer became increasingly involved in a series of theoretical writings. Thus, the Teaching of Measurements was completed in 1525 and followed by Various Instructions of the Fortifications of Towns, Castles, and Large Villages in 1527. His last and most important treatise, Four Books on Human Proportion, was published posthumously on 31 October 1528.

Dürer’s talent, ambition, wit, and sharp, wide-ranging intellect earned him the attention and friendship of some of the most prominent figures of his time, including Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Willibald Pirckheimer, each captured by the artist in magnificent engraved and painted portraits. Another major work Dürer was engaged with during the final years of his life was the Four Apostles. The artist presented it to the city council in Nuremberg in 1526.

Apart from the extraordinary visual work he produced, Dürer’s surviving personal correspondence, his many scattered notes, and his meticulous diary entries, both document and reveal so much. Despite the passing of time, they continue to touch and delight. They engage and invite the reader to join in, while giving a sense of his own character, his intellect, and his delightful sense of humour. Dürer died on 6 April 1528. It is so long ago, but time does not seem to affect his popularity. He remains the best-known and arguably the greatest German artist of the Renaissance, whose work has been admired throughout Europe ever since.

Partners and Additional Contributors

The metadata was supplied to Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO] by Dr Cristina Neagu (Oxford University), who collated it in the course of her current research for a book based on the discovery of an unknown manuscript linked with a specific copy of Dürer’s Kleine Passion.

Special thanks are due to Miranda Lewis, the Editor of EMLO, for her encouragement, continuous support, and assistance, and to her editorial and technical team.

Key Bibliographic Source(s)

Hans Rupprich, Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, 3 vols (Berlin: Deutscher Verein Für Kunstwissenschaft, 1956–69).

Friedrich Campe, Reliquien von Albrecht Dürer: seinen Verehrern geweiht (Nuremberg, 1828).

Konrad Lange and Franz Fuhse, Dürers Schriftlicher Nachlass auf Grund der Originalhandschriften und Theilweise Neu Entdeckter Alter Abschriften (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1893).

Emil Reicke, Willibald Pirckheimers Briefwechsel (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1940–).

William Martin Conway and Lina Eckenstein, Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1889).

Jeffrey Ashcroft, Albrecht Dürer: Documentary Biography-Dürer’s Personal and Aesthetic Writings, Words on Pictures, Family, Legal and Business Documents, the Artist in the Writings of Contemporaries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Contents

When compared to his achievements in the visual arts, Albrecht Dürer’s written output may seem unimportant. However, not only did he cultivate various literary genres with enthusiastic confidence, he also consciously integrated the fluidity of written expression within the space of his pictorial and graphic works. In fact, the interplay between image and written language is one of the main features of Dürer’s style.

This section of the EMLO database aims to identify and describe in detail the corpus of letters penned by, and/or received by Dürer. It also includes letters written by his friends and contemporaries that have Dürer as subject. It is important to note here that more letters by him survive than by any other German artist of his time. And although they make up only a small fragment of what he wrote, they provide us with invaluable information about the friendships he cultivated, the struggles and ambitions that shaped his career, his desire to learn new things, to push the boundaries of knowledge as much as was humanly possible. The correspondence between Dürer and his peers took the form of personal missives, letters of official business, sometimes even poems, and scribbles accompanied by drawings. These artifacts attest to relationships based on an insatiable love of learning, profound mutual respect and a shared sense of humour. Among the best known are ten of the letters that Dürer sent to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer from Venice.

Add to these nine letters that the artist wrote to Jakob Heller concerning the commissioned altarpiece for the Church of the Dominican monastery in Frankfurt am Main. There are also a series of autograph letters addressed by Dürer to the council of the city of Nuremberg. Apart from all these, there are also exchanges involving some of the most influential political figures, scientists, humanists, and religious leaders of his day.

Dürer’s private letters usually stem from, or are followed by direct contact between author and recipient. If, for instance, we take Willibald Pirckheimer as the recipient, together with the message to his friend, the artist occasionally sends letters to be passed on to his mother, as well as tidings to be delivered verbally to other residents of Nuremberg. Or, let us consider the fascinating case of a letter composed by Cornelius Grapheus in Antwerp on February 23, 1524, and addressed to Dürer “or in his absence to Willibald Pirckheimer.” In this letter Grapheus leaves his news unwritten and says that the bearers of the letter will supply the information that he wishes to convey. Often, Dürer’s private letters are accompanied by hurried drawings and doodles. As an artist, he knows that a picture invites immediate attention and quickly fills in gaps in written expression. In contrast, Dürer’s correspondence with Jakob Heller reveals everything and doesn’t pull any punches. It makes clear how important painting was for him, and discloses how deeply rooted it was in practical experiments with oils, pigments and colour, as well as a sound knowledge of geometry and the theory of proportions. Further details in this sense are provided by the chain of letters surrounding Dürer’s collaboration to the Triumphal Procession print project, commissioned for Emperor Maximilian I. The programme was sketched by Johannes Stabius in consultation with the Emperor himself. Among the contributors were Hans Burgkmair, Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Springinklee, Leonhard Beck, Hans Schäufelein, Wolf Huber, and Albrecht Dürer. Some of these take part in an epistolary exchange discussing all sorts of details regarding this complex enterprise.

Overall, Dürer’s letters are written in a refreshingly direct and clear style. They are in German and reflect the shift in the nature and status of the vernacular at that time. Reading his letters now is a profoundly enriching experience, as, with all his faults and occasional shortcomings, it is obvious the artist also had exceptional linguistic talents. His German is nuanced and versatile, perfectly adapted to the type of text he was writing at one moment or another.

Provenance

The bulk of Dürer’s surviving correspondence (whether original manuscripts or early copies) is located now in Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg. Further material is also found at the Kunstmuseum Basel-Kupferstichkabinett, the British Library, the Royal Society, the Universitätsbibliothek in Basel, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne, the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam, and the Albertina Museum in Vienna.

Each letter which has been digitized contains a link to the url in the catalogue record. For large sections of online documents by and about Albrecht Dürer’s written input, see Heidelberg historic literature—digitized, Arthistoricum net, Universitätsbibliothek Basel–Handschriften-Signaturen, RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, and Durer Online.

Scope of Catalogue

This catalogue is continuously supplemented with new records, as further relevant letters are being processed. Further metadata, transcriptions, and translations are added with the aim to explore and better understand the social nature of the letter during Dürer’s time. Attentive examination of an ever-more substantial corpus will reveal that, in the sixteenth-century, the fondness for letter writing was less about intimacy. More than anything else, it was a sign of outward communication, a symbol of connectivity within a specific circle of friends and fellow intellectuals.

Further resources

Bibliography

Brisman, Shira, Albrecht Dürer and the Epistolary Mode of Address (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Brisman, Shira, ‘The image that wants to be read: an invitation for interpretation in a drawing by Albrecht Dürer’, in Word & Image, 29(3) (2013), pp. 273–303.

Fara, Giovanni Maria, ‘Sul Secondo Soggiorno di Albrecht Dürer in Italia E Sulla Sua Amicizia Con Giovanni Bellini’, in Prospettiva, no. 85 (1997): 91–6.

Fry, Roger, Albrecht Dürer: Records of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries (Massachusetts: Merrymount Press, 1913).

Grimm, Harold J., Lazarus Spengler : A Lay Leader of the Reformation (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978).

Hamm, Berndt, Lazarus Spengler (1479–1534): der Nürnberger Ratsschreiber im Spannungsfeld von Humanismus und Reformation, Politik und Glaube (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).

Heaton, Mary M., The life of Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg : with a translation of his letters and journal, and an account of his works (London: Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, 1881),

Heller, Joseph, Das Leben und die Werke Albrecht Dürers (Bamberg: E. Kunz, 1827–31), p. 233.

Kahsnitz, Rainer, and William D. Wixom, Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg, 1300–1550 (New York, 1986).

Koerner, Joseph Leo, The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

Lippmann, Friedrich, Zeichnungen von Albrecht Dürer, in Nachbildungen, 7 vols (Berlin: G. Grote, 1883–1929).

May, Alan, ‘Albrecht Dürer’s drawing of a printing press: a reconsideration’, in Journal of the Printing Historical Society, new ser., 22 (2015), pp. 62–80.

Price, David, Albrecht Dürer’s Renaissance: Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2003).

Rublack, Ulinka, Dürer’s Lost Masterpiece: Art and Society at the Dawn of a Global World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).

Sahm, Heike, Dürers kleinere Texte : Konventionen als Spielraum für Individualität (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2013).

Schubert, Hans von, Lazarus Spengler und die Reformation in Nürnberg (Leipzig: M. Heinsius, 1934).

Spengler, Lazarus, Ermanung vnd Vndterweysung zu einem tugenhaften Wandel (Nuremberg: Friederich Peypus, 1520).

Stechow, Wolfgang, Northern Renaissance Art, 1400–1600: Sources and Documents (Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, 1989).

Winkler, Friedrich, Die Zeichnungen Albrecht Dürers, 4 vols (Berlin: 1936–9).

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