in getting two finished and produced during his lifetime, that on geometry and perspective or measurement, to use his own title—which was published at Nuremberg in 1525, and that on fortification, published in 1527; the work on human proportions was brought out shortly after his death in 1528. His labours, whether artistic or theoretic, had for some time been carried on in the face of failing health. In the canals of the Low Countries he had caught a fever, of which he never shook off the effects. We have the evidence of this in his own written words, as well as in a sketch which he drew to indicate the seat of his suffering to some physician with whom he was in correspondence, and again in the record of his physical aspect which is preserved by a portrait engraved on wood just after his death, from a drawing made no doubt not long before in this portrait we see his shoulders already bent, the features somewhat gaunt, the old pride of the abundant locks shorn away. The end came on the night of the 6th of April 1528, so suddenly that there was no time to call his dearest friends to his bedside. He was buried in a vault which belonged to his wife’s family, but was afterwards disturbed, in the cemetery of St John at Nuremberg. An appropriate Requiescat is contained in the words of Luther, in a letter written to their common friend Eoban Hesse:—“As for Dürer, assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the best of men, yet you may well hold him happy that he has made so good an end, and that Christ has taken him from the midst of this time of trouble and from greater troubles in store, lest he, that deserved to behold nothing but the best, should be compelled to behold the worst. Therefore may he rest in peace with his fathers: Amen.”
The principal extant paintings of Dürer, with the places where they are to be found, have been mentioned above. Of his drawings, which for students are the most vitally interesting part of his works, the richest collections are in the Albertina at Vienna, the Berlin Museum and the British Museum. The Louvre also possesses some good examples, and many others are dispersed in various public collections, as in the Musée Bonnat at Bayonne, at Munich, Hamburg, Bremen, Frankfort, Dresden, Basel, Milan, Florence and Oxford, as well as in private hands all over Europe.
The principal editions of Dürer’s theoretical writings are these:—
Geometry and Perspective.—Underweysung der Messung mit dem Zirckel und Richtscheyt, in Linien, Ebnen und ganzen Corporen (Nuremberg, 1525, 1533, 1538). A Latin translation of the same, with a long title (Paris, Weichel, 1532) and another ed. in 1535. Again in Latin, with the title Institutionum geometricarum libri quatuor (Arnheim, 1605).
Fortification.—Etliche Underricht zu Befestigung der Stett, Schloss und Flecken (Nuremberg, 1527), and other editions in 1530, 1538 and 1603 (Arnheim). A Latin translation, with the title De urbibus, arcibus, castellisque muniendis ac condendis (Paris, Weichel, 1535). See the article Fortification.
Human Proportion.—Hierinnen sind begriffen vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (Nuremberg, 1582, and Arnheim, 1603). Latin translation: De symetria partium in rectis formis humanorum corporum libri in latinum conversi, de varietate figurarum, &c. libri ii. (Nuremberg, 1528, 1532 and 1534); (Paris, 1535, 1537, 1557). French translation (Paris, 1557, Arnheim, 1613, 1614). Italian translation (Venice, 1591, 1594); Portuguese translation (1599); Dutch translation (Arnheim, 1622, 1662).
The private literary remains of Dürer, his diary, letters, &c., were first published, partially in Von Murr’s Journal zur Kunstgeschichte (Nuremberg, 1785–1787); afterwards in Campe’s Reliquien von A. Dürer (Nuremberg, 1827); again edited by Thausing, in the Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik (Vienna, 1872), but most completely in Lange and Fuhse’s Dürers schriftlicher Nachlass (Halle, 1893); W. M. Conway’s Literary Remains of A. Dürer (London, 1889) contains extensive transcripts from the MSS. in the British Museum.
The principal remaining literature of the subject will be found in the following books and treatises—Johann Neudörfer, Schreib- und Rechenmeister zu Nürnberg, Nachrichten über Künstlern und Werkleuten daselbst (Nuremberg, 1547); republished in the Vienna Quellenschrift (1875); C. Scheurl, Vita Antonii Kressen (1515, reprinted in the collection of Pirkheimer’s works, Frankfort 1610); Wimpheling, Epitome rerum Germanicarum, ch. 68 (Strassburg, 1565); Joachim von Sandrart, Deutsche Academie (Nuremberg, 1675); Doppelmayr, Historische Nachricht von den nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern (Nuremberg, 1730); C. G. von Murr, Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, as above; Adam Bartsch, Le Peintre-Graveur, vol. vii. (Vienna, 1808); J. P. Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, vol. iii. (Leipzig, 1842); J. F. Roth, Leben Albrecht Dürers (Leipzig, 1791); Heller, Das Leben und die Werke Albrecht Dürers, vol. ii. (Bamberg, 1827–1831); B. Hausmann, Dürers Kupferstiche, Radirungen, Holzschnitte und Zeichnungen (Hanover, 1861); R. von Rettberg, Dürers Kupferstiche und Holzschnitte (Munich, 1876); M. Thausing, Dürer, Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Kunst (Leipzig, 1876, 2nd ed., 1884), English translation (from the 1st ed. by F. A. Eaton, London, 1882); W. Schmidt in Dohme’s Kunst und Künstler des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1877); Œuvre de Albert Dürer reproduit et publié par Amand-Durand, texte par Georges Duplessis (Paris, 1877); C. Ephrussi, A. Dürer et ses dessins (Paris, 1882); F. Lippmann, Zeichnungen von A. Dürer in Nachbildungen (5 vols. Berlin, 1883–1905); A. Springer, Albrecht Dürer (Berlin, 1892); D. Burckhardt, Dürers Aufenthalt in Basel, 1492–1494 (Munich, 1892); G. von Terey, A Dürers venezianischer Aufenthalt, 1494–1495 (Strassburg, 1892); S. R. Koehler, A Chronological Catalogue of the Engravings, Dry Points and Etchings of A. Dürer (New York, 1894); L. Cust, A. Dürer, a Study of his Life and Works (London, 1897); Dürer Society’s Publications (10 vols., 1898–1907), edited by C. Dodgson and S. M. Peartree; H. Knackfuss, Dürer (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 6th ed., 1899), English translation, 1900; B. Haendcke, Die Chronologie der Landschaften A. Dürers (Strassburg, 1899); M. Zucker, Albrecht Dürer (Halle, 1899–1900); L. Justi, Konstruierte Figuren und Köpfe unter den Werken Albrecht Dürers (Leipzig, 1902); A. Pelzer, A. Dürer und Friedrich II. von der Pfalz (Strassburg, 1905); H. Wölfflin, Die Kunst A. Dürers (Munich, 1905); W. Weisbach, Der junge Dürer (Leipzig, 1906); V. Scherer, A. Dürer (Klassiker der Kunst, iv.), (2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1906).
Apart from books, a large and important amount of the literature on Dürer is contained in articles scattered through the leading art periodicals of Germany, such as the Jahrbücher of the Berlin and Vienna museums, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, &c. A comprehensive survey of this literature is afforded by Prof. H. W. Singer’s Versuch einer Dürer-Bibliographie (Strassburg, 1903); articles published more recently will be found completely enumerated in A. Jellinek’s Internationale Bibliographie der Kunstwissenschaft (Berlin). (S. C.)
DURESS (through Fr. from Lat. duritia, harshness, severity, durus, hard), in law, constraint or compulsion. Duress may be of two kinds. It may consist in personal restraint or actual violence or imprisonment; or it may be by threats (per minas), as where a person is compelled to an act by threats of immediate death or grievous bodily harm. Duress, in certain cases, may be pleaded as a defence of an act which would otherwise be a crime, but the extent to which the plea of duress can be urged is unascertained. At common law a contract entered into under duress is voidable at the option of one of the parties. See Coercion, Contract.
D’URFEY, THOMAS (1653–1723), better known as Tom d’Urfey, English song-writer and dramatist, belonged to a Huguenot family settled at Exeter, where he was born in 1653. Honoré d’Urfé, the author of Astrée, was his uncle. His first play, The Siege of Memphis, or the Ambitious Queen, a bombastic rhymed tragedy, was produced at the Theatre Royal in 1676. He was much more successful with his comedies, which had brisk, complicated plots carried out in lively dialogue. He had a light touch for fitting words on current topics to popular airs; moreover, many of his songs were set to music by his friends Dr John Blow, Henry Purcell and Thomas Farmer. Many of these songs were introduced into his plays. Addison in the Guardian (No. 67) relates that he remembered to have seen Charles II. leaning on Tom d’Urfey’s shoulder and humming a song with him. Even William III. liked to hear him sing his songs, and as a strong Tory he was sure of the favour of Princess Anne, who is said to have given Tom fifty guineas for a song on the Electress Sophia, the next heir in succession to the crown. “The crown’s far too weighty, for shoulders of eighty,” said d’Urfey, with an indirect compliment to the princess, “So Providence kept her away,—poor old Dowager Sophy.” Pope, in an amusing letter to Henry Cromwell (Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vi. 91) describes him as “the only poet of tolerable reputation in this country.” In spite of the success of his numerous comedies he was poor in his old age. But his gaiety and invincible good humour had made him friends in the craft, and by the influence of Addison his Fond Husband, or The Plotting Sisters was revived for d’Urfey’s benefit at Drury Lane on the 15th of June 1713. This performance, for which Pope wrote a prologue full of rather faint praise, seems to have eased the
