The vanishing point was being used in Italian painting in the mid 1300s almost 150 years before Durer's time.Though earlier practitioners like Giotto, Duccio and the Lorenzettis used a separate vanishing point for each object (composed of straight lines), it took Masaccio painting in the early 1400's to apply the single vanishing point to the whole painting, as well as to break with tradition and apply it to figures and faces as well. Masaccio also extended the vistas to an appearance of great distances, rather than the previous practice of distance being halted by a flat background.

But Durer, along with others to come later, did have a hand in developing and documenting the principles of 1, 2 and 3 point perspective as we know them today. They were still being refined into the last century.

Of course the Chinese knew something about foreshortening and the effect of distance on scale back in the 5th century, but they didn't use drafting-like principles to illustrate it. Their techniques were more formulaic and philosophical, splitting the landscape scene into bottom/foreground, middle-distance and top/background areas.

Jeez, 3 years of art history stays stuck in there years later, doesn't it?