was
agreeable to others as well as to our Maker, so that we might become
good neighbors; and every day he talked to us of these things, the
love of God and the conduct of life."

Albert Duerer was the third child of Albert the Elder and Barbara
Hallerin, and was born on the morning of the 21st of May, 1471. The
house in which the Duerers then lived was a part of the great pile of
buildings owned and in part occupied by the wealthy Pirkheimer family,
and was called the _Pirkheimer Hinterhaus_. It fronted on the Winkler
Strasse of Nuremberg, and was an ambitious home for a craftsman like
Albert. The presence of Antonius Koberger, the famous book-printer, as
godfather to the new-born child, shows also that the Duerers occupied
an honorable position in the city.

The Pirkheimers were then prominent among the patrician families of
Southern Germany, renowned for antiquity, enormously wealthy through
successful commerce, and honored by important offices in the State.
The infant Willibald Pirkheimer was of about the same age as the young
Albert Duerer; and the two became close companions in all their
childish sports, despite the difference in the rank of their families.
When the goldsmith's family moved to another house, at the foot of the
castle-hill, five years later, the warm intimacy between the children
continued unchanged.

The instruction of Albert in the rudiments of learning was begun at an
early age, probably in the parochial school of St. Sebald, and was
conducted after the singular manner of the schools of that day, when
printed books were too costly to be intrusted to children. He lived
comfortably in his father's house, and daily received the wise
admonitions and moral teachings of the elder Albert. His friendship
for Willibald enabled him to learn certain elements of the higher
studies into which the young patrician was led by his tutors; and his
visits to the Pirkheimer mansion opened views of higher culture and
more refined modes of life.

Albert was enamoured with art from his earliest years, and spent many
of his leisure hours in making sketches and rude drawings, which he
gave to his schoolmates and friends. The Imhoff Collection had a
drawing of three heads, done in his eleventh year; the Posonyi
Collection claimed to possess a Madonna of his fifteenth year; and the
British Museum has a chalk-drawing of a woman holding a bird in her
hand, whose first owner wrote on it, "This was drawn for me by Albert