DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0039
nJ
durer’s birth-place and friends.
21
bald head is wrapped from the cold in a black kerchief, only
a stray hair or two falling on the forehead. The strong Teutonic
blood is still warm in his starting veins, after 82 years of labour.
A bright worker has he been in this working world, and now
he looks forth upon it, after troubles enough, still serene.
Niirnberg was full of men of note, and Dtirer had more or less
close connexions with all of them. There was his godfather
Anton Koburger, for instance, prince of printers, a man whose
business ramified through all the chief towns of Europe1. He was
one of the first of the great publishers of Europe. At Niirnberg
he had his printing-house with its four and twenty presses
employing the labour of a hundred workmen. He it was who
published Hartmann Schedel’s Niirnberg Chronicle, with its two
thousand and odd woodcuts—the first largely illustrated book
ever issued. Schedel himself was an important agent in the
revival of letters. He was a physician by profession and had
studied at Leipzig, Padua, Nordlingen, and other places. He
finally settled in Niirnberg and became a member of the Great
Council. We are told that he went to Strassburg and saw
Mentel’s great printing presses, in which, as in all other inventions
and movements of the day, he took a profound interest. His
library was famous, and Diirer no doubt had access to it. The
books have not been dispersed and may still be consulted in the
Court Library at Munich. Schedel had relations with all the
chief men of Niirnberg and amongst others with Sebald Schreyer
and Sebastian Cammermeister. These two undertook the
expenses of publication of the World-Chronicle and contracted
with Wolgemut to design the illustrations, and such a set of
woodcuts was the result as the world had never before seen. The
contract was signed 29 Dec. 1491, the book was published
in German and Latin by the end of 1493. Copies were sold in
all parts of Europe. Never before had such success crowned a
literary undertaking. Diirer was away on his travels at the time
the cuts were in hand, but he must have heard much about them
on his return. Schedel was a man calculated to produce an
effect upon Diirer. He had studied the antique in Italy, he was
imbued with the spirit of classical culture. Diirer could scarcely
1 O. Hase—Die Koburger, Leipzig, 1885; Neuberger—Nachrichten.
durer’s birth-place and friends.
21
bald head is wrapped from the cold in a black kerchief, only
a stray hair or two falling on the forehead. The strong Teutonic
blood is still warm in his starting veins, after 82 years of labour.
A bright worker has he been in this working world, and now
he looks forth upon it, after troubles enough, still serene.
Niirnberg was full of men of note, and Dtirer had more or less
close connexions with all of them. There was his godfather
Anton Koburger, for instance, prince of printers, a man whose
business ramified through all the chief towns of Europe1. He was
one of the first of the great publishers of Europe. At Niirnberg
he had his printing-house with its four and twenty presses
employing the labour of a hundred workmen. He it was who
published Hartmann Schedel’s Niirnberg Chronicle, with its two
thousand and odd woodcuts—the first largely illustrated book
ever issued. Schedel himself was an important agent in the
revival of letters. He was a physician by profession and had
studied at Leipzig, Padua, Nordlingen, and other places. He
finally settled in Niirnberg and became a member of the Great
Council. We are told that he went to Strassburg and saw
Mentel’s great printing presses, in which, as in all other inventions
and movements of the day, he took a profound interest. His
library was famous, and Diirer no doubt had access to it. The
books have not been dispersed and may still be consulted in the
Court Library at Munich. Schedel had relations with all the
chief men of Niirnberg and amongst others with Sebald Schreyer
and Sebastian Cammermeister. These two undertook the
expenses of publication of the World-Chronicle and contracted
with Wolgemut to design the illustrations, and such a set of
woodcuts was the result as the world had never before seen. The
contract was signed 29 Dec. 1491, the book was published
in German and Latin by the end of 1493. Copies were sold in
all parts of Europe. Never before had such success crowned a
literary undertaking. Diirer was away on his travels at the time
the cuts were in hand, but he must have heard much about them
on his return. Schedel was a man calculated to produce an
effect upon Diirer. He had studied the antique in Italy, he was
imbued with the spirit of classical culture. Diirer could scarcely
1 O. Hase—Die Koburger, Leipzig, 1885; Neuberger—Nachrichten.