Produced by Ben Courtney, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [ Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. No changes have been made to the printed text. ] OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS BY ALBRECHT DÜRER TRANSLATED BY R. T. NICHOL FROM THE LATIN TEXT OF THE EDITION OF MDXXXV OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS FROM THE APPLIED GEOMETRY OF ALBRECHT DÜRER BOOK JJJ DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. NEW YORK ALBRECHT DÜRER TO WILIBALD PIRCKHEIMER HIS PATRON AND VERY GOOD FRIEND GREETING: [Illustration] In our Germany, most excellent Wilibald, are to be found at the present day many young men of a happy talent for the Art Pictorial, who without any artistic training whatever, but taught only by their daily exercise of it, have run riot like an unpruned tree, so that unhesitatingly and without compunction they turn out their works, purely according to their own judgment. But when great and ingenious artists behold their so inept performances, not undeservedly do they ridicule the blindness of such men; since sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence. Now the sole reason why painters of this sort are not aware of their own error is that they have not learnt Geometry, without which no one can either be or become an absolute artist; but the blame for this should be laid upon their masters, who themselves are ignorant of this art. Since this is in very truth the foundation of the whole graphic art, it seems to me a good thing to set down for studious beginners a few rudiments, in which I might, as it were, furnish them with a handle for using the compass and the rule, and thence, by seeing Truth itself before their eyes, they might become not only zealous of the arts, but even arrive at a great and true understanding of them. Now, although in our own time, and amongst ourselves, the Art Pictorial is in ill repute with some, as being held to minister incitement to idolatry, yet a Christian man is no more enticed to superstition by pictures or images, than is an honest man girt with a sword to highway robbery. Certes he would be a witless creature who would willingly adore either pictures or images of wood or stone. On the contrary, a picture is the rather edifying and agreeable to Christian religion and duty, if only it be fairly, artificially, and correctly painted.