On his marriage Durer did not proceed to live in the house of his parents-in-law as was customary, but, for some reason, took up his abode in his father's house. It was his ambition to excel as a painter, but it is as an engraver that he won his hold on the world--and still retains it. Copperplate engraving had been practised as early as the first quarter of the fifteenth century. It had been developed out of the goldsmith's art, and perfected by the masters E. S. and Martin Schongauer. There was a great demand for engravings. Accordingly, with a view to earning the much needed money for his family, Durer at first devoted himself to this art. We can trace clearly enough the progress of the artist as he endeavoured to produce not merely the simple representation of a subject, but by the aid of landscape backgrounds, a picture, an artistic whole on the copper. For this purpose he turned to account his early studies of Nuremberg scenery and his charming drawings of Nuremberg, the Pegnitz, and the houses to which he was ever devoted. Piracy of his works soon followed on and proved his popularity. Literary piracy, it will be seen, if not yet respectable, is at any rate of some antiquity. Meantime he was busy painting the portraits of members of patrician families, of his father, of himself. For these we must not seek in Nuremberg, but an example of his painting at this period (_circa_ 1500), is to be found in the Pietà, now in the German Museum. In painting, it was Durer's rule to deal only with sacred subjects or portraits. The much damaged and inferior work, "Hercules with the Stymphalian Birds," in the same museum forms an interesting exception to this rule. But in his engravings Durer did not confine himself to any one subject: sacred and secular history, mythology, animals, satire, humour, architecture, land and water scapes, portraits, all formed material for his receptive and strenuous mind. His humour may be studied in his designs for Maximilian's "Book of Hours," and there, too, his mordant satire lashes the faults of vain women and the _gaucheries_ of proud and foolish peasants. We have already had occasion to refer to the circle in which Durer moved in these days; but special mention should here be made of Willibald Pirkheimer, his great friend and patron, the most generous Mæcenas of sciences and art in Nuremberg. Scholar and statesman, writer, orator, and soldier, his house and splendid library in the Herrenmarkt was the centre of intellectual activity in Germany, and the chief meeting-place of the Humanists. Maximilian I., Conrad Celtes, Eobanus Hesse, Luther and Melanchthon, and especially Ulrich von Hutten and Durer were among his most favoured and frequent guests. He was a constant correspondent [Illustration: ST. ANTHONY, FROM THE ENGRAVING BY ALBERT DURER. BACKGROUND OF NUREMBERG SCENERY]