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And I must confess that if he has not quite done that, he seems to me to have very thoroughly discredited Pirkheimer's ungallant abuse. Sir Martin Conway bids us notice that Duerer speaks of his "dear father" and his "dear mother" and even of his "dear father-in-law," but that he never couples that adjective with his wife's name.
God grant you grace to persevere; the adversaries, indeed, are strong, but God is stronger, and is wont to help the sick who call upon Him and acknowledge Him. I want you, dear Herr Albrecht Duerer, to make a drawing for me of the instrument you saw at Herr Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure distances both far and wide. You told me about it at Antwerp.
Pirkheimer's velvet purse had been dipped into again and again. Commissions without number had been executed for him rings and stones and tapestries, carvings and stag-antlers, and cups and silks and velvet till the Pirkheimer mansion glowed with color from the South and delicate workmanship from the North. Other pictures from Dürer's brush adorned its walls grotesque monks and gentle Virgins.
And we learn from his son-in-law, Caspar Penker, that he often spoke of Duerer with affection and respect; he writes: Melanchthon was often, and many hours together, in Pirkheimer's company, at the time when they were advising together about the churches and schools at Nuernberg; and Duerer, the painter, used also to be invited to dinner with them.
Thus it was from, or out of, these two men aforesaid that I took my start, and thence, from day to day, have I followed up my search according to my own notions. The general acceptance of the gouty and irascible Pirkheimer's defamation of Frau Duerer as a miser and a shrew called forth a display of ingenuity on the part of Professor Thausing to prove the contrary.
Schmidt said testified to her humanity and her clear, serious, sympathetic insight. What a pity she had forgotten how to laugh! What a pity she was not Ratsherr Willibald Pirkheimer's stately, respected wife, surrounded by his healthy children! Her broad shoulders and hips, her long, thick hair required the soft curves of a body blooming in happiness, sunlight and wealth.
The man who continued to feel, after he had become a Lutheran, the beauty of the art that honoured the Virgin, the man who cannot help laughing at the most "lying, thievish rascals" whenever they talk to him because "they know that their knavery is no secret, but 'they don't mind," is affectionate; he is amused by monkeys and the rhinoceros; he can bear with Pirkheimer's bad temper; he looks out of kindly eyes that allow their perception of strangeness or oddity to redeem the impression that might otherwise have been produced by vice, or uncouthness, or sullen frowns.
Lastly, there were the Imhoffs, the merchant princes of Nuremberg, as the Fuggers were at Augsburg. A son of the family married Felicitas, Pirkheimer's favourite daughter, in 1515, and Duerer stood godfather to their little Hieronymus in 1518.
Rough drafts in Pirkheimer's handwriting were found among them, but of Duerer's work Sir Martin Conway tells us: The volumes contain upwards of seven hundred leaves and scraps of paper of various kinds, covered at different dates with more or less elaborate outline drawings, and more or less corrected drafts for works published or planned by Duerer.
"Nay!" rejoined Duerer, "but what you advance cannot be put into words or even figured to the mind." I remember hearing Melanchthon often tell this story, and in relating it he confessed his astonishment at the ingenuity and power manifested by a painter in arguing with a man of Pirkheimer's renown. Such scenes no doubt took place during the years after Duerer's return from the Netherlands.
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