21. Albrecht Dürer as book illustrator. Aristotle: Opera omnia graece. Vol. IV. 1497

The German humanist, Nuremberg-patrician Willibald Pirckheimer, let his close friend Albrecht Dürer decorate a number of his Greek first editions. After his death his large library was scattered widely, and today 25 Pirckheimer books with Dürer illustrations are known, 16 of which are preserved and located, while the remaining 9 are only known by repute.

The Royal Library owns three Pirckheimer copies, all incunabula printed by the famous Aldus of Venice. They are Simplicius' comment on Aristotle's work on the categories (Venice 1499), and vols. IV and V of Aristotle's Opera omnia graece (Venice 1495-98). The ornamentations in the Simplicius copy and vol. IV of the Aristotle edition are considered to have been done by Dürer himself, while the ornamentations in vol. V are not attributed to Dürer, but to a brilliant miniaturist who had been working under supervision of the master.

The Dürer miniatures are considered to be among the library's greatest treasures.