And what manner of man was he who lived in this house that nestles beneath the ancient castle? In the first place a singularly loveable man, a man of sweet and gentle spirit, whose life was one of high ideals and noble endeavor. In the second place an artist who, both for his achievements and for his influence on art, stands in the very front rank of artists, and of German artists is "facile princeps." At whatever point we may study Dürer and his works we are never conscious of disappointment. As painter, as author, as engraver, or simple citizen, the more we know of him the more we are morally and intellectually satisfied. Fortunately, through his letters and writings, his journals and autobiographical memoirs we know a good deal about his personal history and education. Dürer's grandfather came of a farmer race in the village of Eytas in Hungary. The grandfather turned goldsmith, and his eldest son, Albrecht Dürer the elder, came to Nuremberg in 1455 and settled in the Burgstrasse (No. 27). He became one of the leading goldsmiths of the town; married and had eighteen children, of whom only three, boys, grew up. Albrecht, or as we call him Albert Dürer, was the eldest of these. He was born May 21, 1471, in his father's house, and Anthoni Koberger, the printer and bookseller, the Stein of those days, stood godfather to him. The maintenance of so large a family involved the father, skilful artist as he was, in unremitting toil. His father, who was delighted with Albert's industry, took him from school as soon as he had learned to read and write and apprenticed him to a goldsmith. "But my taste drew me toward painting rather than toward goldsmithry. I explained this to my father, but he was not satisfied, for he regretted the time I had lost." Benvenuto Cellini has told us how his father, in like fashion, was eager that he should practise the "accurst art" of music. Dürer's father, however, soon gave in and in 1486 apprenticed the boy to Michael Wolgemut. That extraordinary beautiful, and, for a boy of that age, marvelously executed portrait of himself at the age of thirteen (now at Vienna) must have shown the father something of the power that lay undeveloped in his son. So "it was arranged that I should serve him for three years. During that time God gave me great industry so that I learned many things; but I had to suffer much at the hands of the other apprentices."