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Dürer's Portrait of Erasmus and the Ars Typographorum*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Andrée Hayum
Andrée Hayum*
Affiliation:
Fordham University
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Extract

Dürer's portrait of Erasmus is an image so familiar that for most of us it has become the quintessence of the scholar portrait (Fig. 1). In spite of this—or perhaps because of it—few have thought about this famous engraving with any precision. It comes as a surprise, moreover, when one examines the literature, to find that the encounter between such a notable pair of personages has produced a strangely limited and unsatisfying body of commentary. What emerges is basically the critical dilemma summed up in one writer's assessment of Dürer's effort: “Il a fait une admirable gravure, mais un mauvais portrait.“ Heinrich Wölfflin and Erwin Panofsky found certain commendable traits in the Erasmus engraving. But these and other scholars reach consensus principally in their negative judgment of how Dürer's print functions as a likeness of Erasmus.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , Winter 1985 , pp. 650 - 687
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1985

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Footnotes

*

A happy decision to join forces with my colleague Lia Lerner in a class presentation on The Praise of Folly led me to consider the portraits of Erasmus and to convey my intuitions concerning Dürer's engraving. My associates in the University Seminar on the Renaissance at Columbia University provided the first opportunity, in the Spring of 1983, for me to air these ideas in developed form. Subsequently I presented this paper within the sympathetic fora of the Renaissance Studies Program at Yale University and the Medieval Renaissance Society at New York University. This manuscript has benefited from the keen editorial skills of Amy Johnson; suggestions by Constance Jordan and Laura Slatkin have also been gratefully absorbed.

References

1 André Machiels, “Les Portraits d'Érasme,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 4th ser., 6 (1911), 349-61.

2 Heinrich Wölfflin, The Art of Albrecht Dürer, trans, by Alastair and Heide Grieve, London, 1971; orig. German ed. 1905, p. 270: “It is Dürer's largest portrait engraving. It shows the scholar half-length, standing and writing… . Much care has been taken in the rendering of accessories and the distribution of black and white is remarkably original … .” Panofsky, Erwin, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer (1943; rpt. Princeton, 1971), p. 239 Google Scholar: “Dürer did his best to ‘characterize’ Erasmus by the paraphernalia of erudition and taste, with a charming bouquet of violets and lilies-of-the-valley testifying to his love of beauty and, at the same time, serving as symbols of modesty and virginal purity.”

3 Wölfflin begins his discussion (Art of Albrecht Dürer, p. 270), “The only portraits in which Dürer was notoriously unsuccessful were those of Erasmus. He had tried to draw him twice in Antwerp and had not been able to manage it, and now he had the lamentable weakness to yield to the vanity of the sitter and attempt an engraving after so many years had passed.” Max Friedländer comments (Albrecht Dürer [Leipzig, 1921], p. 188), ”… als Erasmus sich später sehr dringlich um ein Kupferstich Portrait von Dürers Hand bemühte, ging der Meister zögernd und ohne rechte Neigung ans Werk.” See also Paul Ganz, “Les Portraits d'Érasme de Rotterdam,” La Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne, 67 (1935), 3-24, at p. 6: “Dürer n'a pas réussi à saisir le caractère réel du modèle, ni même une vision à peu près juste de son apparition.” Panofsky (Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, p. 240) adds, “So curiously impersonal is Dürer's engraving— whose Greek inscription, ‘the better image will his writings show,’ is truer than it was meant to be—that Carlo Maratta could transform it, about a century and a half later, into an ideal portrait of Correggio merely by changing the face and some of the attributes.“

4 By contrast, individual painted portraits of Erasmus have been the subject of intensive study. See especially Heckscher, William S., “Reflections on seeing Holbein's Portrait of Erasmus at Longford Castle,” in Essays in the History of Art presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London, 1967), pp. 128-48Google Scholar; also Phillips, Margaret Mann, “The Mystery of the Matsys Portrait,” Erasmus in English, 7 (1975), 18–21 Google Scholar; Lorne Campbell, Margaret Mann Phillips, Hubertus Schulte Herbrüggen, and J. B. Trapp, “Quentin Matsys, Desiderius Erasmus, Pieter Gillis and Thomas More,” The Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), 716-24.

5 Engraving, 249 x 193 mm., 93/4 x 71/2. For a summary of critical remarks, history, and states of the print, see catalogue entries in Dürer in America, ed. Charles W. Talbot (New York, 1971), no. 79; The Intaglio Prints of Albrecht Dürer, ed. Walter L. Strauss (New York, 1977), no. 105.

6 The portrait drawing by Dürer now in the Louvre is understandably considered to be the work in question (Great Drawings of the Louvre Museum: The German, Flemish and Dutch Drawings, ed. Roseline Bacou [New York, 1968], no. 10. Black chalk, 37.1 x 26.7 cm.; dated at the top right, 1520, and inscribed “Erasmus fon rottertam.“) Erasmus refers to such a previously existing rendering in his letters. Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, V, ed. P. S. Allen [Oxford, 1924], 307, no. 1376. Erasmus to Pirckheimer, Basel, 19july 1523: “S. Durero nostro gratulor ex aninio; dignus est artifex qui nunquam moriatur. Coeperat me pingere Bruxellae: utinam perfecisset!” Opus Epistolarum, VI (Oxford, 1926), 2-3, no. 1536. Erasmus to Pirckheimer, Basel, 8 January 1525: “A Durero cuperem pingi, quidni a tanto artifice? Sed qui potest? Coeperat Bruxellae carbone, sed iam dudum excidi, opinor.” Dürer's journals of his trip to the Netherlands mention several encounters with Erasmus and further suggest that the artist made two attempts at portraying Erasmus during that period. An entry of 1520 reports, “Jch hab den Erasmum Roterodam (urn) noch einmahl conterfet.” Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, ed. Hans Rupprich (Berlin, 1956), p. 156, line 100. (Between 27 August 1520 and 2 September 1520, Marines and Brussels.)

7 Opus Epistolarum, VI, 37Iff., no. 1729. Basel, 30 July 1526, to W. Pirckheimer, at pp. 371-372. ”… Alberto Durero quam gratiam referre queam cogito. Dignus est aeterna memoria. Si minus respondet effigies, mirum non est. Non enim sum is qui fui ante annos quinque.“

8 Opus Epistolarum, VII (Oxford, 1928), 376, no. 1985. Basel, 29 March 1528, to H. Botteus: ”… Unde statuarius iste nactus sit effigiem mei demiror, nisi fortasse habet earn quam Quintinus Antuerpiae fudit aere. Pinxit me Durerius, sed nihil simile.“

9 Opus Epistolarum, V, 396-97, no. 1417; 468ff, no. 1452. Basel, 8 February 1524 and 3 June 1524, to W. Pirckheimer, for example, discuss ways of transforming the matrix of Quentin Matsys’ medallic portrait of Erasmus in order to overcome what Erasmus perceived to be problems of descriptive fidelity in the process of reproduction.

10 This copy of The Praise of Folly first belonged to Oswald Myconius, a friend of the printer Froben. Erasmi Rotterodami Encomium Moriae (Basle, 1515), facsimile ed., H. A. Schmid, II (Basle, 1931), 17. Above the sketch in the margin appears in Myconius’ Latin script: “Dum ad hunc locum perveniebat Erasmus, si pictum sic videns exclamavit, ohe, ohe, Si Erasmus adhuc talis esset, duceret profecto uxorem.” While Holbein's sketch is very small and casually rendered, the image of Erasmus at his desk next to a blank space framed by an arch does present a prototype for the Durer engraving.

11 There are portraits from Erasmus’ lifetime by Holbein, Matsys, and Dürer in painting, bronze relief, and engraving. Yet Erasmus says about himself in the Compendium Vitae, “He was somewhat fastidious, nor did he ever write anything which pleased him. He was not even pleased with his own face, and it was only with effort that his friends forced him to agree to sit for a painting.” Olin, John C., ed., Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus (New York, 1976), p. 29 Google Scholar. While the authenticity of the Compendium Vitae has at times been questioned (Roland Crahay, “Recherches sur le Compendium Vitae attribué à Érasme,” Humanisme et Renaissance, 6 [1939], 7-19, 135-53, it is accepted by major Erasmus scholars such as P. S. Allen, F. M. Nichols, and J. C. Olin. In a letter to W. Pirckheimer (as translated by Barbara Flower) of 14 March 1525 (Johan Huizinga, Erasmus and the Age of Reformation, trans, by F. Hopman [New York, 1957], pp. 230ff., at pp. 239-40), Erasmus says: “I should not object to having my portrait painted by Durer… . Though I have long been a sad model for painters, and am likely to become a sadder one still as the days go on.” Erasmus* doodle-like caricatures of his own likeness, which appear in the margins of some of his manuscripts, graphically embody this ambivalent attitude towards his own appearance. See Mayer, Emil, Handzeichnungen des Erasmus von Rotterdam (Basel, 1933), p. 5, Abb. C, nos. 1-4Google Scholar.

12 Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Werke, 61, Tischreden (Frankfurt, 1854), p. 103, no - 2054 (119). Under “Von Erasmi Conterfeit.”

13 For instance, in Erasmus’ letter to Pirckheimer of 8 January 1525, “I wish I could also be portrayed by Dürer, and why not by such an artist?” 14 March 1525, “I would not refuse the opportunity to be painted by an artist of Dürer's stature, but how this can be accomplished I do not know.” Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I (Berlin, 1956), 271, no. 79; 272, no. 83. Translated in The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, IV, ed. Walter L. Strauss (New York, 1974), pp. 2271-72.

14 See the series of letters from Erasmus to Pirckheimer in the course of 1525 to 1526 assembled in Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, 271, nos. 79, 80; 272, nos. 83-87; 275, no. 97. The richness and intimacy of Dürer's relationship with Pirckheimer can best be gleaned from the artist's letters to Pirckheimer from Venice in 1506. See Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, 41-59, nos. 1-10.

15 Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, 171. Translated in The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, IV, 1993ff. On May 17, Dürer was informed of Luther's arrest and, fearing the worst, wrote, “O all you pious Christians, help me to lament this divinely inspired man and pray that another enlightened one be sent us. O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you stand? Do you not see the result of the unjust tyranny of worldly power and of the forces of darkness? Hear, thou knight of Christ, ride on beside our Lord Jesus, guard the truth and win the martyr's crown! … “

16 Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation, ed. by E. G. Rupp and P. S. Watson, The Library of the Christian Classics (Philadelphia, 1969). Erasmus’ De Libero Arbitrio was first published in 1524 and Luther's De Servo Arbitrio in 1525.

17 The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, IV, 2304. Record of Proceedings of City Council of Nuremberg, October 6, 1526. Wolfgang Stechow, ed., Northern Renaissance Art 1400-1600, Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966), pp. 107-108. For an illuminating discussion of Dürer's Lutheran focus in the Munich “Apostle” panels as well as in the slightly earlier Last Supper woodcut, see Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, pp. 221ff. and 232ff. Early in 1520, Dürer had expressed the desire to engrave Luther's portrait. See the letter from Dürer to Georg Spalentinus, Nuremberg, 1520, Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, 85ff, no. 32; translated in The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, IV, 1903ff., “If God helps me to meet Martinus Luter, I shall carefully draw his protrait and engrave it on copper as a lasting remembrance of this Christian who helped me out of great distress.” That project was never realized.

18 With Elizabeth L. Eisenstein's magisterial The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1979), as the most comprehensive treatment to date, the essays of such historians as Natalie Zemon Davis and Robert M. Kingdon have contributed greatly to our awareness of the impact of this new technology. See, for instance, their respective contributions to Aspects de la propagande réligieuse, ed. H. Meylan (Geneva, 1957). Traditional art historical studies have generally underplayed the significance of this manifest cultural change in favor of imposing standards and criteria more continuous with those used to measure the situation either before or long after this historical moment. An apposite case in point is the handling of the famous exchange of works of art between Durer and Raphael in the critical literature. We know from Vasari that Durer had sent a self-portrait on linen to Raphael. An inscription by Durer on a figure drawing now in the Albertina states that in “ 1515 Raphahill de Urbin der so hoch peim Popst geact ist gewest hat der hat dyse nackette Bild gemacht und hat sy dem Albrecht Durer gen Nornberg geschickt Im sein Hand zu weisen.” That Raphael sent this drawing, according to Durer's closing formulation, “in order to show him his hand,” was turned into a challenge by recent connoisseurship studies, ever more sophisticated in distinguishing Raphael's drawings from those of his shop, with the outcome that this drawing has sometimes been removed from Raphael's oeuvre and attributed to Giulio Romano. Nowhere, however, has this artistic exchange and Durer's statement “Im sein Hand zu weisen” been contemplated in light of the obvious fact that Raphael had firsthand knowledge only of Durer's prints, and Durer had seen Raphael's works only through Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings.

More generally, in the literature, speculation on the nature of representation and stylistic change in painting, as from Early to High Renaissance, is usually confined to a notion of refinement of the medium through the contributions of its practitioners or, perhaps, through the ambitions and imagination of certain patrons, when one might also explore the possibility that changes at the beginning of the sixteenth century in painters’ modes of representation usually explained in formal terms (composition, light, and so on), and concomitant transformation in viewers’ capacities of perception, fhay involve new cognitive modes partly dependent on the shift to printed transmission of evidence at this time.

19 Several scholars have called attention to this aspect of Erasmus’ career: P. S. Allen, “Erasmus’ Relations with his Printers,” Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 13 (1913—1915), 297-323. Harris Harbison, E., The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation (New York, 1956), pp. 69–102 Google Scholar. Trevor-Roper, Hugh R., “Desiderius Erasmus,” Men and Events (New York, 1957), pp. 35–60 Google Scholar. See also a parallel study by Kline, Michael B., “Rabelais and the Age of Printing,” Études Rabelaisiennes IV, Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 60 (Geneva, 1963), 1–59.Google Scholar.

20 Olin, J. C., ed., “The Compendium Vitae of Erasmus of Rotterdam,” Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus (New York, 1976), pp. 22–30 Google Scholar. Opus Epistolarum, I (Oxford, 1906), 47: “Illic scribendo, nam turn nondum erat ars typographorum, rem affatim paravit … .“

21 F. M. Nichols, ed., The Epistles of Erasmus, I (New York, 1962), 300, no. 139, to James Batt. See also The Correspondence of Erasmus, vols. I-VI of The Collected Works of Erasmus, trans, by R. A. B. Mynors and D. F. S. Thomson, ed. W. K. Ferguson (Toronto, 1974). Furthermore, concern for the future impact of his own production expressed itself in the notion, as early as 1523, of a posthumous edition of his collected works, something that he stipulated in his first will of 22 January 1527. Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, I (Amsterdam, 1969), general introduction, p. VII. Opus Epistolarum, I, no. 1, Erasmus to John Botzheim, Basle, 30 January 1523, and VI, 503ff, Appendix XIX.

22 Margaret Mann Phillips, ed., “Festina Lente,” Erasmus on his Times (Cambridge, England, 1980), pp. 3-17, at p. 10.

23 Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, III, 448; contract between Albrecht Dürer and Contz Sweytzer, 8 July 1497, Nürnberg. A lively account of Dürer's struggle with Marcantonio appears in Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, V2 (Florence, 1880), 405-406. Of course, the notion of plagiarism and intellectual property comes to the fore in a new way with the advent of printing; these were to become parallel concerns for Durer and Erasmus throughout their careers. In The Praise of Folly, Erasmus makes ironic reference to these issues when, at one point in the text, Folly interrupts herself, saying, “But I will stop propounding apothegms lest I seem to have rifled the commentaries of my friend Erasmus.” (Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, ed. C. H. Miller [New Haven, 1979], p. 116.) In a more serious tone, Dürer closes his treatise on painting by admonishing the reader, “At the same time, I wish to earnestly warn anyone not to copy this book I have published because I intend to print it again and publish it with several substantial additions to what is written here. Let everyone be guided by this … .” Albrecht Dürer, The Painter's Manual, ed. Walter L. Strauss (New York, 1977), p. 393.

24 The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, III (New York, 1974), 1290, no. 1511/20. This pen drawing was originally sent by Dürer as a New Year's greeting to Lazarus Spengler, City Clerk of Nuremberg. See also its separate publication by Ray Nash, Dürer's i$n Drawing of a Press and Printer (Cambridge, 1947).

25 Nash makes the point that the artist was born “with printer's ink in his veins” (Dürer's 1511 Drawing, p. 2). See also Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, 4ff.

26 Dürer, Schrijilkher Nachlass, I, 55, no. 8. Letter from Venice, 8 September 1506, ”… vnd jch hab awch dy moler all geschtilt, dy do sagten, jm stechen wer jch gut, aber jm molen west jch nit mit farben vm zw gen. Jtz spricht jder man, sy haben schoner farben niegesehen.”

27 Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, I, 72, no. 19; letter to Jacob Heller in Frankfort from Dürer in Nuremberg, 26 August 1509: “ Aber das fleisig Kleiblen gehet nit von statten. Darumb will ich meines stechens aus warten. Vnd hette ichs bisshero gethan, so wollte ich vf den heitigen tag 1000 fl. reicher sein.“

28 Goldschmidt, E. P., The Printed Book of the Renaissance (Amsterdam, 1966), p. 54 Google Scholar.

29 The Epistles of Erasmus, III, 41, no. 624, letter from Erasmus in Antwerp to More in England, 8 September 1517. Opus Epistolarum, III (Oxford, 1913), 76, no. 654.

30 Lotte Brand Philip, “The Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents,” Simiolus, 10, no. 1 (1978/79), 5-18; also, “Das Neu Entdecte Bildnis von Dürers Mutter,” Renaissance Vorträge, 7 (Nürnberg, 1981).

31 Dürer, Schriftlicher Nachlass, II, 131. “Nit vnpillich beschreib jch etwas tzu gemell dinstlich. Dan dy gemell werden geprawcht jm dinst der Kÿrchen vnd dardurch angetzeigt das leÿden Crÿstÿ, behelt awch dy gestalt der menschen nachjrem absterben.” See Peter Strieder, “La Signification du Portrait chez Albrecht Dürer,” La Gloire du Dürer, Collection actes et colloques, 13 (Paris, 1974), pp. 45-56.

32 See Panofsky, Erwin, “Conrad Celtes and Kunz von der Rosen: Two Problems in Portrait Identification,” The Art Bulletin, 24 (1942), 39–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are isolated examples before this time, such as the double portrait of Israhel van Meckenem and his wife, which Panofsky dates to about 1480, and the portrait of Frederick III by the Master B. R. But starting with Dürer's engraved portrait of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg of 1519, it was to be Germany in general and Dürer in particular that dominated the rapid development of this type. A conspicuous Italian example, however, is Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving of Pietro Aretino; but its precise date continues to be debated: see The Engravings of Marcantonio Raimondi (The Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, 1981), pp. 50ff., no. 46).

33 An important study of Dürer's late portraits, centering on the engravings, is Donald B. Kuspit, “Melanchthon and Dürer: the search for the Simple Style,” The Journal of Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies, 3 (1973), 177-202. See also this author's “Dürer and the Lutheran Image,” Art in America, 63 (1975), 56-61. Kuspit argues that the change to the use of the engraved portrait in Durer's later work is part of a formal distillation based on the spiritual cleansing accompanying his growing commitment to Protestant values as well as that of certain key sitters like Melanchthon.

In this context, the Erasmus portrait, with its greater number of details of setting, is judged to be regressive. In Kuspit's earlier Dürer and the Northern Critics 1505-1572, Diss., University of Michigan, 1971 (University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, 1982), pp. 32-37, the Erasmus engraving is evaluated in more positive terms and characterized provocatively as a brilliant humanistic conceit.

If not a source for specific motifs, an important overall precedent for Dürer in this regard is, of course, Hans Burgkmair's 1507 woodcut of Conrad Celtes (F. W. H. Hollstein, German Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts, V [Amsterdam, 1954], 102) with the depiction of several of the humanist's books in the foreground and including inscriptions reassuring the viewer that Celtes would live on through his writings. This socalled “Sterbebild,” apparently conceived as a funerary monument by Celtes himself, elucidates more precisely the commemorative function suggested by elements like the epitaphic inscriptions in Durer's portrait engravings. In a broader sense it also points to what must have been preceived as a connection between mechanical reproduction and the perpetuation of immortal fame. On the meaning of the Celtes woodcut, see Panofsky, “Conrad Celtes” and Kuspit, Dürer and the Northern Critics 1505-1572, Chap. 2.

34 Paul Ganz, La Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne, 67 (1935), 3-24; Haarhaus, Julius B., “Die Bildnisse des Erasmus von Rotterdam,” Zeitschrifi für Bildende Kunst, 10, N. F. (1898/99), 44–56 Google Scholar. Both authors address the question of variants of the Holbein and Matsys portraits. Lome Campbell, Margaret Mann Phillips, Hubertus Schulte Herbrüggen, and Trapp, J. B., The Burlington Magazine, 120 (1978), 716–724 Google Scholar, compare the Hampton Court Erasmus by Matsys to the version, previously taken to be the “original,” in the Galleria Nazionale, Rome.

35 Opus Epistolarum, VI, 2, no. 1536, letter from Erasmus in Basel to Pirckheimer, 8 January 1525. Translated in The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer, IV, 2271, ”… He began my portrait in charcoal at Brussels but I imagine that I have long been put aside. Perhaps he can do something after my medal or from memory … .” “

36 For Erasmus’ own discussion of this device and its place on the medal, see his letter to Alfonso Valdes of August 1528, in Opus Epistolarum, VII, 430ff., no. 2018. Translated in Johan Huizinga, Erasmus (1924; rpt. New York, 1957), pp. 246ff. See also Wind, Edgar, “Aenigma Termini,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1 (1937-38), 66–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 See Schreiber, W. L., “Die Kräuterbücher des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts,” in Hortus Sanitatis/Deutsch (Mainz, 1485), facsimile ed. (Munich, 1924)Google Scholar. The Illustrated Bartsch; Herbals, 1484-1300, XC, ed. F. J. Anderson (New York, 1983).

38 See facsimile of 1525 edition, Dürer, Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheit (Zurich, 1966). Also Dürer, Albrecht, The Painter's Manual (New York, 1977), pp. 258–313.Google Scholar

39 For example, A Newly Discovered Treatise on Classic Letter Design, facsimile ed., S. Morison (Paris, 1927), on the treatise printed at Parma around 1480 by Damianus Moyllus. Also, Fra Luca de Pacioli ofBorgo S. Sepolcro, ed. S. Morison (New York, 1933).

40 Volkmann, L., Bilder Schriften der Renaissance (Stuttgart, 1923)Google Scholar. Covi, Dario, “Lettering in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painting,” The Art Bulletin, 45 (1963), 1–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mardersteig, G., “L. B. Alberti e la rinàscita del carattere lapidario romano nel Quattrocento,” Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2 (1959), 285–307 Google Scholar. Meiss, Millard, “Toward a More Comprehensive Renaissance Paleography,” The Art Bulletin, 42 (1960), 97–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 While the Triumphal Arch Dürer designed for Maximilian was in fact monumental in scale, it was a tour deforce precisely in that it remained a work “on paper.” Erwin Panofsky (The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer, 174-175) was on the mark in singling out this important feature of Maximilian's commissions to Dürer. In this vein, I would reorient slightly an interesting recent attempt at understanding the place of Dürer's plans for commemorative monuments that appear in Die Unterweisung. (See Albrecht Dürer, The Painter's Manual, pp. 227-236.) In Stephen Greenblatt's “Murdering Peasants: Status, Genre, and the Representation of Rebellion,” Representations, 1, no. 1 (February 1983), 1-29, the author rightly questions whether these illustrations of memorial columns, to commemorate a victory, a drunkard, a triumph over rebellious peasants, with their strange conglomeration of components (animal, vegetable, and mineral) could ever have been carried out as actual architectural structures. But in attempting to explain the designs here presented by Dürer, Greenblatt overlooks what I take to be a central determinant of their condition, namely that these monuments have already reached their final, indeed ideal, destination, the printed page itself. The irony that Greenblatt sees expressed in Die Unterweisung through the position of these projected monuments at an ideological or generic crossroads appears to me to lie more in a tension (exemplified here, as well as in the section on lettering) between the declared purpose of Durer's treatise—to address significant problems and procedures for the artist—and its strategies of self-referential celebration of the properties and qualities associated specifically with printed manuals and texts. Hence, too, in the context of what I have characterized as a typographic orientation in Durer's treatise on lettering, the fact that he illustrates a descriptive text with “pictures” of letters could be seen as a pointed analysis of the expected relationship between explanation and demonstration in handbooks of the time—and thus as a commentary on the state of the art of the printed book.

42 Harris Harbison, E., The Christian Scholar in the Age of the Reformation, p. 81. Preserved Smith, Erasmus (New York, 1923), p. 190 Google Scholar.

43 The Epistles of Erasmus, I, 288, no. 134, to Greverad, Advocate. ”… I have long jirdently wished to illustrate with a commentary the Epistles of St. Jerome, and in daring to conceive so great a design, which no one has hitherto attempted, my heart is inflamed and directed by some divine power.” This mission came to realization when, in 1514, Erasmus was appointed editor-in-chief of the Froben publication of Jerome's works. Smith, Erasmus, p. 192.

44 The Intaglio Prints of Albrecht Dürer (New York, 1977), pp. 36-37, no. 8; 164-165, no. 56; 202-213, no. 77. Albrecht Dürer, Woodcuts and Wood Blocks (New York, 1980), 458-59, no. 159; 478-79, no. 167.

45 Dürer, Woodcuts, pp. 37-40, no. 10.

46 Hugh R. Trevor-Roper, Men and Events, pp. 41-42. Harbison, The Christian Scholar, p. 81.

47 That Dürer perceived the book to be the common attribute in picturing St. Jerome and Erasmus is evident when we note that a rendering of open and closed books as elaborate and concentrated as the one in the foreground of the Erasmus engraving is his preparatory drawing for the Lisbon painting of St. Jerome. The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Durer, IV, 2010, no. 1521/7, Vienna, Albertina.

48 Tor a discussion of the use of parallel symbols in the representation of St. Jerome in his Study and the Annunciation and a treatment of the tradition behind this association, see Penny Howell Jolly, “Antonello da Messina's St. Jerome in his Study: An Iconographic Analysis,” The Art Bulletin, 65, no. 2 (June 1983), 238-253.

The two most conspicuous types of flowers in the small vase are the lilies of the valley, symbol of Mary's Immaculate Conception and of the Advent of Christ, and the violets, whose attribute of humility was seen to be personified in Mary. See George Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York, 1966).

49 I have studied first-hand several impressions of this engraving, especially the ones at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. I would like to thank the staffs of these print rooms for making Dürer's Erasmus available to me, sometimes at short notice. The Metropolitan Museum also provided me with photographic enlargements of the opened book, as well as with a copy of this section printed in reverse. With magnifying glass and with the kind assistance of Laura Slatkin, classicist and connoisseur, I have been able to conclude that the writing on the book's pages appears to be facing Erasmus, not the viewer, that there is the suggestion of Greek lettering as well as Roman script (as in the framed capitals), that when this section is seen in reverse (i. e. reflecting the way the incisions were made in the plate), isolated words may be intelligible (Causa, Qui, Doctrina), but this is not the case overall and it is not the case even with single words when one examins the book according to the proper orientation of the final print.

50 See Christensen, Carl, “Patterns of Iconoclasm in the Early Reformation: Strasbourg and Basel,” The Image and the Word, ed. J. Gutman (Montana, 1977), pp. 75–164 Google Scholar, and Art and Reformation in Germany (Athens, Ohio, 1979), pp. l65fF.

51 Erasmus had already expressed his views in The Praise of Folly, when he comments on the then-popular worship of St. Christopher: “Closely related to such men are those who have adopted the very foolish (but nevertheless quite agreeable) belief that if they look at a painting or a statue of that huge Polyphemus Christopher, they will not die on that day; or, if they address a statue of Barbara with the prescribed words, they will return from battle unharmed; or, if they accost Erasmus on certain days, with certain wax tapers, and in certain little formulas of prayer, they will soon become rich.” Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly, ed. & trans. Clarence H. Miller (New Haven, 1979), p. 63. Dürer reveals his deeply felt disapproval of cultic worship in an inscription on a print in his possession by Michael Ostendorfer, depicting a pilgrimage to the church of the Schöne Maria in Regensburg: “This spectre has risen against the Holy Scripture in Regensburg and is permitted by the Bishop because it is useful for now. God help us that we do not dishonor the worthy Mother of Christ in this way but [honor] her in His name. Amen.” From a Mighty Fortress: Prints, Drawings, and Books in the Age of Luther 1483-1546, The Detroit Institute of Arts (1983), p. 323, no. 184, fig. 325.

52 For example, there is a long letter to Pirckheimer from Freiburg, 9 May 1529 (Opus Epistolarum, VIII [Oxford, 1934], 161ff., no. 2158) in which Erasmus writes with obvious bitterness about his departure from Basel, describing countless offenses against religious images and ceremonies. In one paragraph he concludes, “They al charlowed nothing to remain of the statues, either in churches or halls or under portals or in monasteries. All paintings were covered with whitewash. What was flammable was thrown on a pyre; what was not was reduced to bits …” And then, ”… To finish, he tried to dissuade me from leaving Basel. I responded that I regretted leaving a city that had been so dear to me on many grounds, but that I could no longer stand the hostility I was submitting to there; and because I would seem to be approving all that happened there officially.” For his part, Dürer's dedicatory remarks to Pirckheimer in the Unterweisung der Messung (Dürer, The Painter's Manual, p. 37) are essentially a defense of painting against the growing criticism of iconoclasts: ”… Notwithstanding the fact that at the present time the art of painting is viewed with disdain in certain quarters, and is said to serve idolatry. A Christian will no more be led to superstition by a painting or a portrait than a devout man to commit murder because he carries a weapon by his side. It must be an ignorant man who would worship a painting, a piece of wood, or a block of stone. Therefore, well-made, artistic, and straightforward painting gives pleasure rather than vexation.“

53 From a Mighty Fortress: Prints, Drawings, and Books in the Age of Luther, no. 203. In this regard, Luther was to see printing as “God's highest and extremest act of grace, whereby the business of the Gospels is driven forward.” Cited by Black, M. H., “The Printed Bible,” Cambridge History of the Bible, III, ed. S. L. Greenslade (Cambridge, 1963), p. 432 Google Scholar.

Given the context I have outlined for understanding Dürer's Erasmus, one of my students, Edwin Ripepi, sensitively observed that here the artist's monogram, prominently placed on the central axis of the tablet and aligned with the spine of the opened book, also doubles as an abbreviation for Anno Domini; this would stress the notion of a new era sanctified by the spread of the Holy Word through printing.

54 In a letter to Pirckheimer (Basel, 20 March 1528), Erasmus expresses concern for Dürer's illness and adds: “Dureri vicem vehementer doleo. Arbitror te legisse locum, in quo mentionem illius facio. Totum opus nunc absolutum est. Fortasse dices esse coactus; fateor, sed non dabatur alia occasio, et arbitror eum libellum, qualis qualis est, maxime volitaturum per manus hominum.” (Opus Epistolarum, VII, 364ff., at p. 367, no. 1977). On April 24, eighteen days after Dürer's death, Erasmus writes again to Pirckheimer: “Quid attinet Dureri mortem deplorare, quum simus mortales omnes? Epitaphium illi paratum est in libello meo.” (p. 382, no. 1991).

55 Panofsky, Erwin, “Nebulae in Pariete: Notes on Erasmus’ Eulogy on Dürer,“ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 14 (1951), 34–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Erasmus and the Visual Arts,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 32 (1969), 200-227.

56 More recently, J. J. Fraenkel, “Dürers ets en Erasmus’ Eulogium,” Hermeneus, 35, no. 4 (December 1965), 85-89, sees the eulogy as referring to the Erasmus engraving by capturing in its verbal form certain of the representational skills shown by Dürer in the print. I would like to thank Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann for calling my attention to this article and Celeste Brusati for taking the time to go over its translation with me. One scholar who does attempt to assess the context of the dialogue is Donald Kuspit, Dürer and the Northern Critics; see especially chap. 3.

57 De recta latini graecique sermonis pronuntiatione, first ed.,. Basel, 1528. Opera Omnia, I, 4 (Amsterdam, 1973), 40, lines 872-903.

58 See critical introduction to the dialogue by M. Cytowska, pp. 3-9.

59 De recta … pronuntiatione, 40, lines 877-886. English translation from Panofsky, “Nebulae in Pariete,” pp. 40-41.

60 De recta … pronuntiatione, p. 40, lines 894-903.

61 See Tolnay, Charles de, Michelangelo, The Medici Chapel, III (Princeton, 1948), 68 Google Scholar. The letter in Il primo libro delle lettere di Niccolò Martelli (Florence, 1546), 49 recto; to Rugasso, 28 July 1544.