DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0058
40
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
references to her, whether in his Venice letters or his Netherlands
diary, he gives no sign of affection. They had no children, and
in Antwerp, at any rate, they lived a life apart, she dining in her
room with her maid, he with the inn-keeper. No stress need,
however, be laid upon Durer’s verbal references to her. Their
portraits tell all we care to know. On the one hand, a man of
large and splendid gifts and of a most keenly sensitive nature,
one of the rarest mortals that ever breathed; on the other hand,
a pretty but empty-headed woman, growing harder and narrower
with every added year.
The young couple lived, with Diirer the elder up to the time
of his death. Then they set up for themselves, and two years
afterwards took the widow-mother to live with them, till her
death in 1514.
“Some time after” the marriage, continues Diirer, “it happened
that my father was so ill with dysentery that no one could stop
it. And when he saw death before his eyes, he gave himself willingly
to it, with great patience, and he commended my mother to me, and
exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing to God. He received the
Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as I have described at
length in another book) in the year 1502, after midnight before
S. Matthew’s eve (19 Sept.). God be gracious and merciful to him.”
Only one leaf of the ‘ other book,’ to which Diirer refers, has
come down to us1. It begins with the last word of a sentence :
“ ...desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap on his
head had suddenly become wet with great drops of sweat. Then he asked
to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfall wine. He took a very little
of it and then desired to get into bed again and thanked her. And
when he had got into bed he fell at once into his last agony. The old
wife quickly kindled the candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard’s
verses, and ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly to
my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was gone. I
saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not been worthy to be
with him at his end.
“And thus, in the night next before S. Martin’s eve, my father passed
away, in the year above-mentioned (20 Sept. 1502)—the merciful God
help me also to a happy end!—and he left my mother an afflicted
widow behind him. He was ever wont to praise her highly to me, say-
ing what a good wife she was, wherefore I intend never to forsake her.
1 It is in the Berlin Print-room. Reproduced in Jahrbuch der Koeniglich. preus-
sischen Kunstsammlungen, Berlin, 1880, vol. I. p. 32, etc.
durer’s literary remains.
[chap.
references to her, whether in his Venice letters or his Netherlands
diary, he gives no sign of affection. They had no children, and
in Antwerp, at any rate, they lived a life apart, she dining in her
room with her maid, he with the inn-keeper. No stress need,
however, be laid upon Durer’s verbal references to her. Their
portraits tell all we care to know. On the one hand, a man of
large and splendid gifts and of a most keenly sensitive nature,
one of the rarest mortals that ever breathed; on the other hand,
a pretty but empty-headed woman, growing harder and narrower
with every added year.
The young couple lived, with Diirer the elder up to the time
of his death. Then they set up for themselves, and two years
afterwards took the widow-mother to live with them, till her
death in 1514.
“Some time after” the marriage, continues Diirer, “it happened
that my father was so ill with dysentery that no one could stop
it. And when he saw death before his eyes, he gave himself willingly
to it, with great patience, and he commended my mother to me, and
exhorted me to live in a manner pleasing to God. He received the
Holy Sacraments and passed away Christianly (as I have described at
length in another book) in the year 1502, after midnight before
S. Matthew’s eve (19 Sept.). God be gracious and merciful to him.”
Only one leaf of the ‘ other book,’ to which Diirer refers, has
come down to us1. It begins with the last word of a sentence :
“ ...desired. So the old wife helped him up, and the night-cap on his
head had suddenly become wet with great drops of sweat. Then he asked
to drink, so she gave him a little Reinfall wine. He took a very little
of it and then desired to get into bed again and thanked her. And
when he had got into bed he fell at once into his last agony. The old
wife quickly kindled the candle for him and repeated to him S. Bernard’s
verses, and ere she had said the third he was gone. God be merciful to
him! And the young maid, when she saw the change, ran quickly to
my chamber and woke me, but before I came down he was gone. I
saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not been worthy to be
with him at his end.
“And thus, in the night next before S. Martin’s eve, my father passed
away, in the year above-mentioned (20 Sept. 1502)—the merciful God
help me also to a happy end!—and he left my mother an afflicted
widow behind him. He was ever wont to praise her highly to me, say-
ing what a good wife she was, wherefore I intend never to forsake her.
1 It is in the Berlin Print-room. Reproduced in Jahrbuch der Koeniglich. preus-
sischen Kunstsammlungen, Berlin, 1880, vol. I. p. 32, etc.