elisz, also called
Ludwig Krug, who, though a most skilful engraver, was sometimes forced
to adopt the profession of a cook in order to support himself; and
Matthias Zagel, who was expert in both painting and engraving. Still
another was the Venetian Jacopo de' Barbari, or Jacob Walch, "the
master of the Caduceus," a dexterous engraver and designer, whom Duerer
alludes to in his Venetian and Netherland writings. The art of
engraving had been invented early in the fifteenth century, and was
developing rapidly and richly toward perfection. The day of versatile
artists had arrived, when men combined the fine and industrial arts in
one life, and devoted themselves to making masterpieces in each
department. The northern nations, unaided by classic models and
traditions, were developing a new and indigenous aesthetic life, slow
of growth, but bound to succeed in the long run.

The literary society of Duerer's epoch at Nuremberg was grouped in the
_Sodalitas Literaria Rhenana_, under the learned Conrad Celtes, who
published a book of Latin comedies, pure in Latinity and lax in
morals, which he mischievously attributed to the Abbess Roswitha.
Pirkheimer and the monk Chelidonius also belonged to this sodality.
Other contemporary literati of the city were Cochlaeus, Luther's
satirical opponent; the Hebraist Osiander; Venatorius, who united the
discordant professions of poetry and mathematics; the Provost
Pfinzing, for whose poem of _Tewrdannkh_, Duerer's pupil Schaeuffelein
made 118 illustrations; Baumgaertner, Melanchthon's friend; Veit
Dietrich, the reformer; and Joachim Camerarius, the Latinist. But the
most illustrious of Nuremberg's authors at that time was the
cobbler-poet, Hans Sachs, a radical in politics and religion, who
scourged the priests and the capitalists of his day in songs and
satires which were sung and recited by the workmen of all Germany. He
himself tells us that he wrote 4,200 master-songs, 208 comedies and
tragedies, 73 devotional and love songs, and 1,007 fables, tales, and
miscellaneous poems; and others say that his songs helped the
Reformation as much as Luther's preaching.

Thus the activities of mechanics, art, and literature pressed forward
with equal fervor in the quaint old Franconian city, while Albert
Duerer's life was passing on. "Abroad and far off still mightier things
were doing; Copernicus was writing in his observatory, Vasco di Gama
was on the Southern Seas."

"I, Albrecht Duerer the