violence, and the art treasures of
the city were not destroyed. Among the most important Lutherans was
Pirkheimer, Duerer's friend. We do not know that Duerer became a Lutheran,
but he wrote of his admiration for the great reformer in his diary, and it
is a meaning fact that during the last six years of his life Duerer made no
more pictures of the Madonna.

These last years were not as full of work as the earlier ones had been. A
few portraits and engravings and the pictures of the Four Apostles were
about all the works of this time. He gave much attention to the
arrangement and publication of his writings upon various subjects
connected with the arts. These books gave him much fame as a scholar, and
some of them were translated into several languages.

As an architect Duerer executed but little work; but his writings upon
architectural subjects prove that he was learned in its theories.

During several years his health was feeble, and he exerted himself to make
provision for his old age if he should live, or for his wife after his
death. He was saddened by the thought that he had never been rewarded as
he should have been for his hard, faithful labors, and his latest letters
were sad and touching. He died in April, 1528, after a brief illness, and
was buried in the cemetery of St. John, beyond the walls, where a simple
epitaph was inscribed upon his monument. This cemetery is an interesting
place, and contains the graves of many men noted in the chronicles of
Nuremburg.

On Easter Sunday in 1828, three hundred years after his death, a Duerer
celebration was held in Nuremburg. Artists came from all parts of Germany.
A solemn procession proceeded to his grave, where hymns were sung, and the
statue by Rauch, near Duerer's house, was dedicated.

I can give you no description of Duerer's many works, and although it is
true that he was a very great master, yet it is also true that his
pictures and engravings are not noted for their beauty so much as for
their strength and power. His subjects were often ugly and repulsive
rather than beautiful, and his imagination was full of weird, strange
fancies that can scarcely be understood. Indeed, some of them never have
been explained, and one of his most famous engravings, called "The Knight,
Death, and the Devil," has never yet been satisfactorily interpreted, and
many different theories have been made about it.

Many of the principal galleries of Europe have Duerer's paintin