rkheimer's portrait was engraved in 1524, showing a gross and heavy
face, obese to the last degree, and verifying in its physiognomy the
probability that the playful innuendoes in Duerer's Venetian letters
were well grounded. It is not easy to see how such a spirit, learned
in all the sciences of the age, and in close communion with Erasmus,
Melanchthon, and Ulrich von Hutten, could have worn such a drooping
mask of flesh. In the same year, Duerer published an engraved portrait
of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the supporter of Luther and
the political leader of the Reformation. The head is admirably drawn
and full of character, with firmness plainly indicated by strongly
compressed lips.

The following letter to the Council of Nuremberg was written in the
year 1524:--

"Provident, Honorable, Wise, and Most Favorable Lords,--By my
works and with the help of God, I have acquired 1,000 florins
of the Rhine, and I would now willingly lay them by for my
support. Although I know that it is not the custom with your
Wisdoms to pay high interest, and that you have refused to
give one florin in twenty; yet I am moved by my necessity, by
the particularly favorable regard which your Wisdoms have
ever shown towards me, and also by the following causes, to
beg this thing of your Honors. Your Wisdoms know that I have
always been obedient, willing, and diligent in all things
done for your Wisdoms, and for the common State, and for
other persons of the Rath, and that the State has always had
my help, art, and work, whenever they were needed, and that
without payment rather than for money; for I can write with
truth, that, during the thirty years that I have had a house
in this town, I have not had 500 guldens' worth of work from
it, and what I have had has been poor and mean, and I have
not gained the fifth part for it that it was worth; but all
that I have earned, which God knows has only been by hard
toil, has been from princes, lords, and other foreign
persons. Also I have expended all my earnings from foreigners
in this town. Also your Honors doubtless know that, on
account of the many works I had done for him, the late
Emperor Maximilian, of praiseworthy memory, out of his own
imperial liberality granted me an exemption from the rates
and taxes of this town, which, however, I voluntarily gave