'Thejpurnal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies
'TheJPurnal of Medieval and Renaissance studies MANAGINGEDITOR:Mareel Tetel, Duke University AsSOCIATEEDITORS:Arthur B. Ferguson, Duke University Edmund Reiss, Duke University ADVISORYBOARD:Rino Avesani, Biblioteca Vaticana Hersehel Baker, Harvard University Andre Chastel, Unioersite de Paris Myron P. Gilmore, Villa I Tatti O. B. Hardison, Jr., Folger Shakespeare Library William S. Heckscher, Duke University Hans J. Hillerbrand, City University of New York Gordon Leff, University of York Franco Simone, Unioersitä di Torino R. W. Southern, Oxford University Eugene Vinaver, University of Manchester Bruee W. Wardropper, Duke University Volume 3 Durham, North Carolina Duke University Press 1973 Melanchthon and Dürer: the search for the simple style DONALD B.KUSPIT, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill I The intensity of the living tie between Albrecht Dürer and Philipp Mel- anchthon must have reached its climax in 1525-26, when Melanchthon was resident in Nuremberg and Dürer portrayed him," but at the time Me1anchthon had little to say that we know of about Dürer's signi- ficance for him. Even at Dürer's death (1528), apart from expressing shock," he had little response to Dürer's art or person. Instead of issuing encomiums, as Dürer's friend Willibald Pirckheimer and the humanist poet Helius Eobanus Hessus did," or participating with Joachim Camerarius in the translation of Dürer's works into Latin," Melanchthon remains peculiarly silent about Dürer; peculiarly, because it was the custom of the day to mark the death of a great man with eulogies, but more particularly because of Melanch- thon's known enthusiasm for Dürer as a great German." It was only in mid-career, in the 1540'S that Melanchthon, under the pressure of his own purposes, praised Dürer specifically in his capacity as an artist rather than for the reflected glory he gave his surroundings.
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