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THE house in which Martin Behaim was born has undergone many alterations since the fifteenth century, but its windows still look out upon the spacious market-square, the scene of sports and tournaments in Behaim's day, and the eyes dwell with delight upon the richly-carved front of St. Mary's Chapel, the brightly-coloured "Beautiful Fountain," (1) and quite a number of gabled houses. Illustrated inscriptions in German inform the beholder that "Martin Behaim the Navigator, and Maker of the famous globe, was born in this house about the year 1459," and that "In front of this house were exhibited to the people, on the second Friday after Easter, from 1425 to 1520, the Imperial Crown Jewels and relics." (2) These Crown Jewels had been entrusted to the keeping of Nuremberg by the Emperor Sigismund of Brandenburg, and up to 1796 were kept in the Church of the Holy Spirit,(3) when they were appropriated by the Emperor Franz II. and carried to Vienna, where they still are.

Young Martin was intended to follow a commercial career, and he received, no doubt, the most perfect education suitable to his future which the Nuremberg of those days afforded. We might thus assume him to have attended the best of the four grammar schools connected with the parish churches, namely, that of St. Sebald, where the scholars spent four hours daily in learning reading, writing, Latin, and Logic, and two in choir practice.(4) It is possible, however, that like other boys of "good" family, he attended a select private school, and may even have been allowed the luxury of a Hofmeister, or tutor, who accompanied him to school and superintended his lessons and general conduct when away from it.(5) His commercial training he received, as a matter of course, in his father's business, after whose death, in 1474, the interests of the youth were looked after by his uncle Leonard, and by Bartels (Bartholomew) von Eyb, a friend of the family and one of the executors of the last will and testament of his mother.

As a result of this course of instruction young Martin gained a competent knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic, as also a fair acquaintance with Latin, and, as a matter of course, with commercial affairs, but if he really and truthfully boasted at Lisbon, as asserted by João de Barros,(6) of having been a pupil of Regiomontanus, we should expect him to have been likewise a good mathematician and astronomer. Johannes or Hans Mueller of Königsberg in Franconia, according to Conrad Celtes,(7) facile princeps among the mathematicians and astronomers of his age, resided at Nuremberg from the spring of 1471 to July 1475, when, unhappily, he accepted an invitation to go to Rome in order that he might advise on the proposed reform of the Calendar.(8) Martin, at that time, was between twelve and sixteen years of age, and might well have profited from the instructions of so gifted a teacher. But as Regiomontanus never taught or lectured in public whilst at Nuremberg,(9) such knowledge as Behaim is assumed to have possessed can only have been obtained by private intercourse, or in the course of occasional visits which he paid to the observatory and workshop which the great astronomer owed to the liberality of his wealthy patron and pupil Bernhardt Walther.(10) At all events it may be granted that Martin Behaim personally knew Regiomontanus, for that astronomer was a popular figure in Nuremberg of whose residence among them the citizens were not a little proud. We doubt, however, whether Behaim was justified when he spoke of himself as a "disciple" of the great master. At all events, even if there was the slightest claim to such a distinction he profited little by the instruction received, as will appear in the course of our essay.


3. The house in which Behaim was born. From a photograph by F. Schmidt

Footnotes

(1) The "Schöne Brunnen" with its numerous statuettes is stated to have been erected between 1385 and 1396. It has recently been restored and regilt. back

(2) Martin Behaim der Seefahrer und Verfertiger des berühmten Globus wurde in diesem Hause geboren um das Jahr 1459.

Vor diesem Hause wurden von 1425 bis 1520 am 2 Freitag nach Ostern die Reichskleinodien und Heiligthümer dem Volke gezeigt.

The illustrative designs are plainly visible in our illustration. For an illustrated description of the Crown jewels see Murr, `Beschreibung der sämtlichen Reichskleinodien oder Heiligthümer welche in Nürnberg aufbewahrt werden,' Nürnberg, 1790. back

(3) The Heilige Geist or Spitalkirche was built 1333-41. back

(4) According to Heerwagen (`Zur Geschichte der Nürnberger Gelehrtenschulen,' Nürnberg, 1860) the four grammar schools attached to the churches of S. Sebald, St. Lorenz, St. Egidia, and Holy Trinity were attended, about 1485, by 245 paying pupils, and there were 4 schoolmasters, 4 cantori, 7 baccalaurei, and 3 locati or caretakers. In 1485 the Town Council reformed these schools. The fees were reduced and the choir practices restricted to Sunday. back

(5) Dr. Günther refers for authority for such a statement to the autobiography of Christoph Scheurl, a contemporary of Behaim, published by Prof. Chr. G. A. von Scheurl (b. 1811, d. ), one of his descendants, in the `Mitth. d. Vereins für die Geschichte Nürnberg's,' Heft V., p. 13. back

(6) `Da Asia' (Lisbon, 1778), t. I., P. I., p. 282. back

(7) `De origine, situ, moribus et institutis Norimbergae libellus,' Norimb., 1492, c. vi. See p. 2, Note 8. back

(8) He died at Rome, July 6, 1476. See Günther's Biography in the `Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie.' back

(9) It was Pierre de la Ramée (Petrus Ramus), the great French scholar and opponent of Aristotelian dialectics, who in his `Scholae mathematicae,' 1569, mistakenly credited the Town Council of Nuremberg with having engaged Regiomontanus to deliver public lectures both in Latin and in German. G. H. Schubert, `Peurbach und Regiomontanus' (Erlangen, 1840), p. 35, speaks of this as a `well-authenticated tradition,' but F. C. Hagen, `Programm der Handelsschule, 1888-9,' proves that the first public teacher was only appointed in 1477. On this subject consult S. Günther, `Geschichte des mathem. Unterrichts im deutschen Mittelalter,' Berlin, 1887. Petrus Ramus was born 1515, and died one of the victims on the night of St. Bartholomew, August 24,1572. back

(10) Bernhardt Walther (b. 1430, d. 1504), fitted up for his friend an observatory, a workshop for making astronomical instruments and globes, and a printing office from which were issued the famous `Ephemerides' (1474) and other works. back

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