three voices. Many use plainsong as a basis, and complex
isorhythmic techniques are frequent. Some pieces are
more declamatory, and here the clear presentation of the
text becomes paramount. Dunstable’s style was dubbed
the contenance angloise (English sweetness) among Conti-
nental musicians, but he cannot be regarded as an innova-
tor. He wrote two complete Mass settings, often regarded
as the earliest musically unified approaches to the genre.
Though the song “O rosa bella” is well known, secular
music hardly figures in his output, in which votive an-
tiphons and motets predominate.
Duperron, Jacques Davy (1556–1618) Swiss-born
churchman and statesman
Duperron was born at Berne, the son of French Huguenot
refugees. In 1573 he went to Paris, and studied the Fathers
of the Church, the schoolmen, and Roman Catholic the-
ologians. He was received into the Roman Church by the
Jesuits (c. 1578). He became a friend of King Henry III
and after the king’s death (1589), he supported first Car-
dinal de Bourbon, then the Protestant Henry IV, whose
conversion he effected in 1593. In 1595 he obtained papal
absolution for the king. Duperron took part in the confer-
ence at Nantes, and in 1600 he had the advantage in a
theological disputation with the Protestant DU PLESSIS-
MORNAY. Since 1591 he had been bishop of Evreux, and he
was made cardinal in 1604 (when he went to Rome as the
king’s chargé d’affaires) and archbishop of Sens in 1606. In
1607 he reconciled Pope Paul V and the Venetians, whom
the pope had placed under an interdict on account of their
defiant assertion of secular control in matters affecting the
property and buildings of the Church. Duperron was a de-
fender of ultramontanism (the doctrine of centralized
papal authority) and corresponded with James I on the
question of the true church.
Du Plessis-Mornay, Philippe (1549–1623) French
politician and religious leader
Born at Buhi in the Vexin into one of France’s most dis-
tinguished families, he was converted by his mother to
Calvinism and after study in Germany he became attached
to the Huguenot leader COLIGNY. The MASSACRE OF ST.
BARTHOLOMEWforced him to take refuge in England. On
returning to France, he became an adviser to Henry of
Navarre and wrote extensively in favor of the Huguenots
and religious toleration; these works included his Traité de
la vérité de la religion chretienne (1581). He was employed
in many official roles—ambassador to Spain and Flanders,
governor of Saumur—and after Henry’s coronation as
HENRY IVhe acted as mediator between the Huguenots and
the king, being instrumental in the promulgation of the
Edict of NANTES. He lost favor after the publication of De
l’institution, usage, et doctrine du saint sacrement de
l’eucharistie en l’Eglise ancienne (1598). In 1611 he pub-
lished an overt attack on the Catholic Church. After
Henry’s death Marie de’ Medici restored him to favor be-
cause of his efforts to avert religious war, but following the
Huguenot uprising of 1620 he fell once more from grace.
His standing can be gauged from his nickname, “the Pope
of the Huguenots.”Dürer, Albrecht (1471–1528) German painter, draftsman,
print maker, and art theorist
Dürer was born at Nuremberg and initially trained as a
goldsmith under his father. However, he probably never
executed metalwork independently, and he began (1486)
a second apprenticeship with the Nuremberg painter and
woodcut designer Michael WOLGEMUT. Dürer had early
experience of printing through his godfather, Anton
Koberger, who printed illustrated books in collaboration
with Wolgemut. In 1490 Dürer traveled on the Upper
Rhine, becoming familiar with the work of the Housebook
Master, and in subsequent years worked, primarily as a
woodcut designer, in Strasbourg and Basle. In 1494 he re-
turned home, married, and set up on his own account.
Copying engravings by MANTEGNAseems to have moti-
vated him to visit Venice, via the Tyrol, before the year’s
end.
In Italy Dürer strengthened his acquaintance with
Mantegna’s work, studied the paintings of BELLINI, and en-
countered works by artists from other regions of Italy,
including POLLAIUOLO. His alpine views, executed in
1494–95, are the earliest topographical watercolors in ex-
istence. Other early drawings, such as the Berlin Lobster
(1495), reveal his interest in natural history. After his re-
turn to Nuremberg he executed the remarkable and ex-
pressive Apocalypse woodcuts (1498), the first book to be
conceived, executed, printed, and published by an artist.
This and later series of woodcuts, such as the Large Pas-
sion (1510), the Small Passion (1511), and The Life of the
Virgin (1511), abandoned the primitive formality of earlier
northern prints for new realms of naturalism. Between
1498 and about 1520, their example transformed the
woodcut as an illustrative medium.
From the beginning of his career, Dürer painted por-
traits. His most famous self-portraits are those of 1498
(Madrid) and 1500 (Munich). After his return from
Venice, Dürer refined his Italian experiences in numerous
drawings, prints, and paintings, but a work such as the
Paumgärtner altarpiece (c. 1500; Munich) remains essen-
tially a northern triptych, despite incorporating deep per-
spective and Italianate figure types. In 1500 Dürer became
acquainted with the itinerant Venetian painter and print
maker Jacopo de’ Barbari, then based in Nuremberg, and
his researches took a major step forward. He devoted a se-
ries of studies to the nude, which culminated in the en-
graved Fall of Man (1504), the first northern work to
embody the proportional theories of VITRUVIUS. Between
1503 and 1505 Dürer also became increasingly familiar
with the work of LEONARDO DA VINCI, presumably viaDDuuïï rreerr,, AAllbbrreecchhtt 1 15511