While German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer is well known as an innovative artist on par with contemporaries Raphael and Michelangelo, less well known are his achievements in the areas of mathematics and artistic theory. Known for introducing Italian Renaissance innovations into northern Europe, Dürer himself melded the Renaissance style with a Germanic realism that had strong roots in the Middle Ages and created a unique style of his own; he also took advantage of advances in printing-press technology to promote, through sales agents, the wide distribution of his wood and copperplate engravings among members of Europe's upper middle classes. His engravings and woodcuts, signed with his easily identifiable "AD" monogram, are considered among the major influences of modern European art.

Dürer was born on May 21, 1471, in Nuremberg, a thriving city with a reputation for business, the arts, and scholarship. His father...