First my willing service to you, dear Master. If it is well
with you, I am as whole-heartedly glad as I should be for
myself. I wrote to you recently. I hope the letter reached
you. In the meantime my mother has written to me, chiding me
for not writing to you, and has given me to understand that
you are displeased with me because I do not write to you;
and that I must excuse myself to you fully. And she is much
worried about it, as is her wont. Now I do not know what
excuse to make, except that I am lazy about writing and that
you have not been at home. But as soon as I knew that you
were at home or were coming home, I wrote to you at once; I
also specially charged Castel (Fugger) to convey my service
to you. Therefore I most humbly beg you to forgive me, for I
have no other friend on earth but you; but I do not believe
you are angry with me, for I hold you as no other than a
father.
How I wish you were here at Venice, there are so many good
fellows among the Italians who seek my company more and more
every day--which is very gratifying to me--men of sense, and
scholarly, good lute-players, and pipers, connoisseurs in
painting, men of much noble sentiment and honest virtue, and
they show me much honour and friendship. On the other hand,
there are also amongst them the most faithless, lying,
thievish rascals; such as I scarcely believed could exist on
earth; and yet if one did not know them, one would think
that they were the nicest men on earth. I cannot help
laughing to myself when they talk to me: they know that
their villainy is well known, but that does not bother them.
I have many good friends among the Italians who warn me not
to eat and drink with their painters, for many of them are
my enemies and copy my work in the churches and wherever
they can find it; afterwards they criticize it and claim
that it is not done in the antique style and say it is no
good, but Giambellin (Giovanni Bellini) has praised me
highly to many gentlemen. He would willingly have something
of mine, and came himself to me and asked me to do something
for him, and said that he would pay well for it, and
everyone tells me what an upright man he is, so that I am
really friendly with him. He is very old and yet he is the
best painter of all.
[Editor's note: The character of Bellini agrees with all we
know of him. Camerarius tells an amusing story of the two
artists, to the effect that Bellini once asked Dürer for one
of the brushes with which he painted hairs. Dürer produced
several quite ordinary brushes and offered them to Bellini.
Bellini replied that he did not mean those, but some brush
with the hairs divided which would enable him to draw a
number of fine parallel lines such as Dürer did. Dürer
assured him that he used no special kind, and proceeded to
draw a number of long wavy lines like tresses with such
absolute regularity and parallelism that Bellini declared
that nothing but seeing it done would have convinced him
that such a feat of skill was possible.]
And the thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago
pleases me no longer, and if I had not seen it myself, I
would not have believed anyone who told me. And you must
know too that there are many better painters here than
Master Jacob (Jacopo de Barbari), though Antonio Kolb would
take an oath that there was no better painter on earth than
Jacob. Others sneer at him and say if he were any good, he
would stay here. I have only today begun the sketch of my
picture, for my hands are so scabby that I could not work,
but I have cured them.
And now be lenient with me and do not get angry so quickly,
but be gentile like me. You will not learn from me, I do not
know why. My dear, I should like to know whether any of your
loves is dead--that one close by the water, for instance, or
the one like [drawing of a flower] or [drawing of a brush]
or [drawing of a running dog]'s girl so that you might get
another in her stead.
Given at Venice at the ninth hour of the night on Saturday
after Candlemas in the year 1506. [Editor's note: Reckoning
from sunset, at this season [this] would be about 2:30 a.m.]
Give my service to Stephen Paumgartner and to Masters Hans
Harsdorfer and Volkamer.
--Albrecht Dürer