Dürer was born into a family of goldsmiths and was first apprenticed to his father in Nuremberg. His work as a drawer and engraver -- more so than as an artist -- earned him fame throughout Europe. He learned to paint under Wolgemut and left Nuremberg in 1490 on a four-year journey, which took him to Colmar and Basle. After returning to Nuremberg , he set off on his first travels to Italy, notably Venice. On his return to the city of his birth he produced altarpieces and portraits with refinement and detail to rival the fullness of his construction. Dürer left for Venice again in 1505, where he studied the colouring used by painters such as Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci . Once back in Nuremberg, he found a patron in the person of Emperor Maximilian I, then in Charles V and spent almost a year in the Netherlands. He felt deeply about the Reformation and left behind his spiritual testament with the Four Apostles. Dürer was highly demanding of himself, and his art married the late Gothic style to the emerging principles of Humanism and the Renaissance .
