His second book, entitled “Some Instruction in the Fortification of Cities, Castles, and Towns,” appeared in 1527, and was dedicated to Ferdinand I., and adorned with several woodcuts. In this the artist showed the same familiarity with the principles of defensive works as his great contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo had done. Much attention is paid to the proper sheltering of heavy artillery from hostile shot; and the plans of the towers and bastions about Nuremberg, which were built after Dürer’s death, were suggested in this work. A large contemporary woodcut by the master shows the siege of a city, with cannon playing from the bastions, and the garrison making a sortie against the enemy.
The celebrated “Four Books of Human Proportion” was Dürer’s greatest literary work, and was completed about this time, having been begun in 1523. Its preparation was suggested by Pirkheimer, to whom it was dedicated, and who published it after the author’s death, with a long Latin elegy on him. Great labor was bestowed on this work, and many of the original sketches and notes are still preserved. The first and second books show the correct proportions of the human body and its members, according to scale, dividing the body into seven parts, each of which has the same measurement as the head, and then considering it in eighths. The proportions of children are also treated of; and the dogma is formulated, that the woman should be one-eighteenth shorter than the man. The third book is devoted to transposing or changing these proportions, and contains examples of distorted and unsymmetrical figures; and the fourth book treats of foreshortening, and shows the human body in motion. In his preface he says: “Let no one think that I am presumptuous enough to imagine that I have written a wonderful book, or seek to raise myself above others. This be far from me! for I know well that but small and mediocre understanding and art can be found in the following work.”
The high appreciation in which this book was held appears from the fact that it passed through several German editions, besides three Latin, two Italian, two French, Portuguese, Dutch, and English editions. Most of the original MS. is now in the British Museum.
Among Dürer’s other works were treatises on Civic Architecture, Music, the Art of Fencing, Landscape-Painting, Colors, Painting, and the Proportions of the Horse.
But the year 1527 was nearly barren of new art-works; for the master’s hand was losing its power, and his busy brain had grown weary. His constitution was slowly yielding before the fatal advances of a wasting disease, possibly the low fever which he had contracted in Zealand, or it may have been an affection of the lungs. In the latter days he made a memorandum: “Regarding the belongings I have amassed by my own handiwork, I have not had a great chance to become rich, and have had plenty of losses; having lent without being repaid, and my work-people have not reckoned with me; also my agent at Rome died, after using up my property. Half of this loss was thirteen years ago, and I have blamed myself for losses contracted at Venice. Still we have good house-furnishing, clothing, costly things as earthenware [maiolica], professional fittings-up, bed-furnishings, chests, and cabinets; and my stock of colors is worth 100 guldens.”
The last design of the master was a drawing on gray paper, showing Christ on the Cross. When this was all completed except the face of the Divine sufferer, the artist was summoned by Death, and ascended to behold in glory the features which he had so often portrayed under the thorns.
A violent attack of his chronic disease prostrated him so far that he was unable to rally; and after a brief illness he passed gently away, on the 6th of April, 1528. It was the anniversary of the day on which Raphael died, eight years before. His friends were startled and grief-stricken at his sudden death, which came so unexpectedly that even Pirkheimer was absent from the city. It was long supposed that he died of the plague, on the evidence of a portrait-drawing of himself, showing him pointing to a discolored plague-spot on his side, and inscribed, “Where my fingers point, there I suffer.” It was said that this sketch was for the information of his doctor, who dared not visit the pestilence-stricken sick-chamber. But this hypothesis is no longer considered tenable.
The remains of the master were buried in the lot of his father-in-law, Hans Frey, at the Cemetery of St. John, beyond the walls; and his monument bore Pirkheimer’s simple epitaph: “Me. Al. Du. Quicquid Alberti Dureri Mortale Fuit, Sub Hoc Conditur Tumulo. Emigravit VIII Idus Aprilis, MDXXVIII. A.D.”
On Easter Sunday, 1828, the third centenary of his death, a great procession of artists and scholars from all parts of Germany moved in solemn state from Nuremberg to the grave of Dürer, where they sang hymns.