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But that armillary sphere he had so ably made for himself out of twisted rods had undone him: his grandmother, terrified by the child's interest in these mystic convolutions, had betrayed the magical instrument to his father. Other episodes of the long pursuit of Knowledge not to be impeded even by flogging pedagogues, diverted but slightly by marriage at the age of eleven, crossed his mind.

And in a later letter he speaks "of the armillary spheres drawn by our common friend Albert Duerer." He was one of those who helped Duerer in his mathematical and geometrical studies; and he, like Pirkheimer, dedicated books to him.

On one side this oval is supported by Self-knowledge, who has about her compasses, armillary spheres, quadrants, and books, and is gazing at herself in a mirror; and, on the other side, by Fraud, a hideous old hag, lean and toothless, who is mocking at Self-knowledge, and in the act of covering her face with a smooth and beautiful mask.

In general, never show the representation of a thing unless it be impossible to show the thing itself; for the sign absorbs the child's attention, and makes him lose sight of the thing signified. The armillary sphere seems to me poorly designed and in bad proportion. Its confused circles and odd figures, giving it the look of a conjurer's apparatus, are enough to frighten a child.

Immediately after this event the Queen, Dona Maria, died at Rio, and the Prince Regent delayed the ceremony of his succession until the expiration of a year of mourning. The arms of the new King consisted of an armillary sphere of gold, in field azure, and in a scutcheon containing the quinas of Portugal and the seven castles of Algarves. The sphere was surmounted by the royal crown.

In the two corners between the trefoils and the framing are circles enclosing shields, one charged with the Cross of the Order of Christ, the other with the armillary sphere. The inner side of the trefoil is cusped, crockets and finials enrich the outer moulding of the opening, while beyond the jambs are niches, now empty.

The space between the arch and the top moulding is filled with intricate but shallow panelling, among which, between two armillary spheres, are set, on the right, a blank shield crowned probably prepared for the royal arms and on the left the town arms a galley with all sails set.

It may be that Duerer then met for the first time too the Imperial architect, Johannes Tscherte, for whom he afterwards drew two armillary spheres, to take the place of those on which he had cast ridicule; for Pirkheimer wrote to Tscherte: "I wish you could have heard how Albert Duerer spoke to me about your plate, in which there is not one good stroke, and laughed at me.

Higher up there is a round window heavily moulded and the whole gable ends in a queer little round pediment set between two armillary spheres. Inside the piers are eight-sided with octagonal bases and caps, and with a band of ornament half-way up the shaft. The arches are simply chamfered but are each crossed by three carved voussoirs.

Clad in white, and wearing a shining mitre, Hermodorus meditated beneath a sacred persea, which bore, instead of flowers, small heads of pure profile, wearing, like the Egyptian goddesses, vultures, hawks, or the shining disk of the moon; whilst in the background, by the side of a fountain, Nicias studied, on an armillary sphere, the harmonious movements of the stars.