Page "Albrecht Dürer" Paragraph 44

Dürer's writings suggest that he may have been sympathetic to Martin Luther's ideas, though it is unclear if he ever left the Catholic Church.

Dürer wrote of his desire to draw Luther in his diary in 1520: " And God help me that I may go to Dr. Martin Luther ; thus I intend to make a portrait of him with great care and engrave him on a copper plate to create a lasting memorial of the Christian man who helped me overcome so many difficulties.

" In a letter to Nicholas Kratzer in 1524, Dürer wrote " because of our Christian faith we have to stand in scorn and danger, for we are reviled and called heretics.

" Most tellingly, Pirckheimer wrote in a letter to Johann Tscherte in 1530: " I confess that in the beginning I believed in Luther, like our Albert of blessed memory ... but as anyone can see, the situation has become worse.

" Dürer may even have contributed to the Nuremberg City Council's mandating Lutheran sermons and services in March 1525.

Notably, Dürer had contacts with various reformers, such as Zwingli, Andreas Karlstadt, Melanchthon, Erasmus and Cornelius Grapheus from whom Dürer received Luther's ' Babylonian Captivity ' in 1520.