Albrecht Durer (; German: ['albRect 'dy:Ra]; 21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528) was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Durer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I. Durer is commemorated by both the Lutheran and Episcopal Churches.

Despite the regard in which he was held by the Venetians, Durer returned to Nuremberg by mid-1507, remaining in Germany until 1520. His reputation had spread throughout Europe and he was on friendly terms and in communication with most of the major artists including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and--mainly through Lorenzo di Credi--Leonardo da Vinci.  Between 1507 and 1511 Durer worked on some of his most celebrated paintings: Adam and Eve (1507), The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508, for Frederick of Saxony), Virgin with the Iris (1508), the altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin (1509, for Jacob Heller of Frankfurt), and Adoration of the Trinity (1511, for Matthaeus Landauer). During this period he also completed two woodcut series, the Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin, both published in 1511 together with a second edition of the Apocalypse series. The post-Venetian woodcuts show Durer's development of chiaroscuro modelling effects, creating a mid-tone throughout the print to which the highlights and shadows can be contrasted.  Other works from this period include the thirty-seven woodcut subjects of the Little Passion, published first in 1511, and a set of fifteen small engravings on the same theme in 1512. Indeed, complaining that painting did not make enough money to justify the time spent when compared to his prints, he produced no paintings from 1513 to 1516. However, in 1513 and 1514 Durer created his three most famous engravings: Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513, probably based on Erasmus's treatise Enchiridion militis Christiani), St. Jerome in his Study, and the much-debated Melencolia I (both 1514). Further outstanding pen and ink drawings of Durer's period of art work of 1513 were drafts for his friend Willibald Prickheimer. These drafts were later used to design the famous chandeliers lusterweibchen.  In 1515, he created his woodcut of a Rhinoceros which had arrived in Lisbon from a written description and sketch by another artist, without ever seeing the animal himself. An image of the Indian rhinoceros, the image has such force that it remains one of his best-known and was still used in some German school science text-books as late as last century. In the years leading to 1520 he produced a wide range of works, including the woodblocks for the first western printed star charts in 1515 and portraits in tempera on linen in 1516.

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