Albert Dürer 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 Dürers 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 Dürers 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 Dürer; 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.