The most superficial acquaintance with Durer's drawings will have prepared us for the sight of his simple, unpretentious house and its contents. In his "Birth of the Virgin" he gives us a picture of the German home of his day, where there were few superfluous knick-knacks, but everything which served for daily use was well and strongly made and of good design. Ceilings, windows, doors and door-handles, chests, locks, candlesticks, banisters, waterpots, the very cooking utensils, all betray the fine taste and skilled labour, the personal interest of the man who made them. So in Durer's house, as it is preserved to-day, we can still see and admire the careful simplicity of domestic furniture, which distinguishes that in the "Birth of the Virgin." The carved coffers, the solid tables, the spacious window-seats, the well-fitting cabinets let into the walls, the carefully wrought metal-work we see there are not luxurious; their merit is quite other than that. In workmanship as in design, how utterly do they put to shame the contents of the ordinary "luxuriously furnished apartments" of the present day! _Simplex munditiis_ is the note struck here. The artists of those days gave themselves no airs: they were content to regard themselves merely as successful workmen. The same hands that carved the most splendid cathedral stalls were ready to lavish equal care on the most insignificant domestic utensil: whilst the simplest artisan was filled with the ambition to turn out work truly artistic. He aimed at perfection, sharing in his master's toil and triumphs, and hoping, no doubt, to produce some day a masterpiece himself. 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 endeavour.[41] 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 Durer 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.