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"Willibald Pirkheimer. Who was he?" she asked. "One of your ancestors." The old mouth waited grimly. "One of mamma's?" "Your father's." "He must have been a nice man," said the girl slowly. "But some of it is rather queer." The old woman leaned forward with a quick gesture. She straightened herself. "Nonsense!" she muttered. "Read it," she said aloud.
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.
At Nuremberg the preacher Wenzel Link soon formed a little reformed congregation, to which Duerer, Pirkheimer, Spengler, Nuetzel, Scheurl, Ebner, Holzschurher, and others belonged.
In all probability there would have been besides the learned protonotary of the supreme court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later, still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes, and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to be in vain.
Dürer wrote to Pirkheimer: "There is no better picture of the Virgin Mary in the land, because all the artists praise it, as well as the nobility. They say they have never seen a more sublime, a more charming painting."
The stories came about in this way: Durer had a life-long friend, Wilibald Pirkheimer, who in his old age became the most malicious and quarrelsome of old fellows. He lived longer than Durer did, and Durer's wife also outlived her husband.
To the honourable and venerable Herr Niklas Kratzer, servant to his Royal Majesty in England, my gracious Master and Friend. First my most willing service to you, dear Herr Niklas. I have received and read your letter with pleasure, and am glad to hear that things are going well with you. I have spoken for you to Herr Wilibald Pirkheimer about the instrument you wanted to have.
It seems difficult to imagine that a man who succeeded in charming so many different acquaintances, and in remaining life-long friends with the testy and inconsiderate Pirkheimer, should have altogether failed to create a relation kindly and even beautiful with his Agnes, whose portrait we surely have at her best in the drawing at Bremen.
My willing service, first of all, to you dear Master Pirkheimer! Know that I am in good health; I pray God far better things than that for you. As to those pearls and precious stones which you gave me commission to buy, you must know that I can find nothing good or even worth its price. Everything is snapped up by the Germans who hang about the Riva.
There had been a great change in Nuremburg, for the doctrines of the Reformation were accepted by many of its people, and it was the first free city that declared itself Protestant. The change, too, was quietly made; its convents and churches were saved from violence, and the art treasures of the city were not destroyed. Among the most important Lutherans was Pirkheimer, Dürer's friend.
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