WILIBALD PIRKHEIMER
Of the three centres of German Humanism, Nuremberg is the greatest and the most fascinating. The home of invention as well as of industry, it made no mere empty boast in the proverb, "Nürnberg Tand geht durch alle Land." Its churches and public buildings were the glory of the age, its craftsmen and designers perhaps then unequalled in the world. Its literary circle contains a larger number of distinguished names than any of its rivals. Meisterlin, the author of the famous Nuremberg chronicle, Cochläus, the bitter satirist of Luther; Osiander, the celebrated Hebrew scholar and Reformed preacher; Jäger the mathematician; above all Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, "the sweet singer of Nuremberg"—all these fill an honourable place in the annals of the city. But the central figures of its life are, beyond any doubt, Wilibald Pirkheimer and Albrecht Dürer; in any case they would monopolise our attention on account of their intimate connexion with Maximilian. When still King of the Romans, he had resided at Nuremberg, and the joyous animation with which he entered into the life of the city won for him wide popularity. "When about to depart, we are told he invited twenty great ladies to dinner; after dinner, when they were all in a good humour, the Markgrave Frederick asked Maximilian in the name of the ladies to stay a little longer and to dance with them. They had taken away his boots and spurs, so that he had no choice. Then the whole company adjourned to the Council House, several other young ladies were invited, and Maximilian stayed dancing all through the afternoon and night, and arrived a day late at Neumarkt, where the Count Palatine had been expecting him all the preceding day."[[116]] As Emperor, Maximilian paid many visits to Nuremberg, and his first Diet was enlivened by a succession of brilliant masques, dances and tournaments, such as roused the enthusiasm of the local chroniclers. He remained on terms of great intimacy with Pirkheimer, who in many ways is the most typical figure of the German Renaissance. After an excellent education, at Padua and Pavia, in jurisprudence, literature and arts, Pirkheimer became councillor in Nuremberg, and won the special confidence of the Emperor both by his skilful diplomacy and by his patriotic assistance in the Swiss War. His great riches he employed not merely for the adornment of his own house, but also in generous support of less-favoured followers of the Muse. While he resembled Peutinger as diplomat, as historian, and as theologian, he had less of the temperament of a pedagogue, and more of the joyous nature of a true poet. As the representative of a great movement of the intellect, he was open to all its various methods and aspirations, and yet understood the lesson of self-restraint and concentration too well to exhaust his powers in a labyrinth of alternatives. With the true cheerfulness and humour of the man who knows the world, yet remains unsullied by contact with it, he and his friends devoted themselves to what is after all the highest philosophy, the study of mankind—hiding under a smiling face, nay, often a mocking mien, their confidence in the great destinies of the race. And yet a deep pathos attaches to Pirkheimer's closing days. Disappointed in his dreams of moral and spiritual regeneration for the people, he turned wearily back from the paths of the new doctrine to the bosom of Mother Church. His violent attack upon Johann Eck, his noble defence of Reuchlin, had seemed to foreshadow him as a leader of the Reformation.[[117]] But his ideals were in reality of the past rather than of the future; and, brooding over his shattered hopes, he lingered out a solitary old age, whose sadness is but deepened by his swan-like lament for Dürer.
ALBRECHT DURER
Dürer was indeed well worthy of all the praise which has been lavished upon him; for from all his works there shines forth the noble modesty of a pure good man. Though scarcely a scholar himself, his deep sympathy with the great movement is manifest not only in the manner in which his art interprets it, but also in his own written words.[[118]] His letters to Pirkheimer from Venice form delightful reading and show the keenness of his sympathy and observation. The years which followed his return to Nuremberg, 1507-1514, were the most productive period of his life, as well as the period of his most intimate connexion with Maximilian. From them date the ambitious designs of the "Ehrenpforte" (Triumphal Arch), which, though executed under Maximilian's direct supervision, were entirely the idea of Dürer. No less than ninety-two large woodcuts, the production of which occupied Dürer for two years, go to make up this imposing metaphorical picture. A structure in itself impossible is overburdened by portraits of all the ancestors of Maximilian, mythical as well as real, and by the many exploits and adventures of the Emperor's own life. But the work must be estimated less by the quaintness of its composition than by its sterling artistic qualities and by the important place which it holds in the development of German Art. The idea was further developed in the "Triumphzug" and the "Triumphwagen," which was completed in 1516. The Imperial and other triumphal cars were drawn by Dürer in sixty-three woodcuts, while the remaining seventy-four were prepared in Augsburg by Hans Burgkmair and L. Beck.[[119]] The procession, whose magnificence was to idealize Maximilian as the greatest of Princes, includes sketches of almost everything that ever roused the Emperor's interest. Landsknechts, cannon, huntsmen, mummers, dancers of every rank and variety, the noble ladies of the Court, are mingled with allegories of every Imperial and human virtue, elaborately grouped upon triumphal cars. The keen personal interest of Maximilian in the progress of the work is well attested. Indeed, he showed his impatience, while the various blocks were in progress, by frequently visiting not merely Dürer himself, but also the "formschneider" or block-cutter, who lived in a street approached by the Frauengasslein. Hence the old Nuremberg proverb, "The Emperor still often drives to Petticoat Lane."[[120]] Dürer was appointed painter to Maximilian, with a grant of arms and a salary of 100 florins a year; and a letter of the Emperor to the Town Council of Nuremberg is still extant, in which he demands Dürer's exemption from "communal imposts, and all other contributions in money, in testimony of our friendship for him, and for the sake of the marvellous art of which it is but just that he should freely benefit. We trust that you will not refuse the demand we now make of you, because it is proper, as far as possible, to encourage the arts he cultivates and so largely develops among you."[[121]] These earnest words of Maximilian reveal to us very clearly his attitude towards the great movement of his day. Yet, sad as it is to relate, Dürer never received payment for the ninety-two sheets of the "Triumphal Arch," which had cost him so much time and labour, and after Maximilian's death they were sold separately. But the Emperor may fairly be absolved from the charge of mean treatment of Dürer, for his own needs were great and many, and it is strictly true that he spent very little upon himself. The great artist was always treated with distinction as a personal friend of the Emperor, who, besides granting him a fixed salary, gave him material assistance in checking the forging and pirating of his engravings. He sometimes resided at Court, when Maximilian held it at Augsburg, and often employed his time in making sketches in chalk of the illustrious persons whom he met. On one occasion Maximilian was attempting to draw a design for Dürer, but kept breaking the charcoal in doing so. When the artist took the pencil and, without once breaking it, easily completed the sketch, the Emperor expressed his surprise and probably showed his annoyance. But Dürer was ready with his compliment. "I should not like your Majesty," he said, "to be able to draw as well as I. It is my province to draw and yours to rule."[[122]] Not the least interesting and important of Dürer's commissions was to paint that portrait of the Emperor which now hangs in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. The prominent nose, the hanging eyelid, the half-contemptuous, half-mournful turn of the lips, the wrinkled cheeks and neck, the long hair falling over the ears, the pointed bonnet with its clasp, the sombre flowing robes, form a striking picture and suggest a speaking likeness. Disappointment, but also that peculiar attribute of the Hapsburgs, resignation, are clearly marked upon Maximilian's face. In the other two portraits by Dürer—a chalk drawing executed at the Diet of Augsburg (1518) and a woodcut completed shortly before his death—the features are less rugged, and reveal somewhat more of the sanguine spirit of Maximilian's early days. With the exception of these sketches,[[123]] Dürer's last commission for Maximilian was the exquisite decoration for the latter's private Gebetbuch (Book of Prayer), of which only ten copies were printed,[[124]] and which will ever remain one of the gems of artistic and devotional literature. With Dürer's career after 1519 we are not concerned; but it is worthy of notice that his most brilliant work dates from the reign of Maximilian, and that his sympathy with "the nightingale of Wittenberg" seems to have partially diverted his attention from his art.
It must not be supposed that Maximilian's humanistic enthusiasms were confined to the three great centres which have just been described, or that he only helped on such movements as were already animated by a vigorous existence and a fair prospect of success. His own hereditary dominions were even more directly indebted to his efforts than were other parts of the Empire.