Albrecht Durer: a biography

Abstract

Albrecht Drer (1471-1528) was one of the world's great artistic geniuses, unique among his contemporaries in his ability to translate the basic principles of the Italian Renaissance into the northern European style to which he was born. In addition, he was an exemplary figure of the early Reformation: one of the first people to become interested in Martin Luther's writings, he also counted most of Germany's leading humanists among his friends. This major biography links Drer's artistic development to his personal life and to the turbulent history of pre-Reformation Europe. An informative and engrossing narrative.--Ellen Shultz, The New York Times Book Review . . this masterful tabulation of the known facts of Drer's life is both readable and authoritative, and it provides the fullest assortment of well-translated documents since William Martin Conway. Hutchison has long been acknowledged as a leading scholar of German prints and their makers, and her text extends its biographical mission to provide instructive asides about the intellectual and cultural milieu of Drer's Nuremberg.--Larry Silver, Sixteenth Century Journal