DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0075
IV.] DURER AT VENICE. THE GREAT PICTURES.
55
A chamber must have more than four corners which is to contain the
gods of memory. I am not going to cram my head full of them;
that I leave to you; for I believe that however many chambers
there might be in the head, you would have something in each of
them. The Margrave would not grant an audience long enough !—a
hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred words, that
takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs which I have
not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the whole
at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
driveler.
I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot
find any broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However
I still look about every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you
his service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his son, the nicest lad
I ever saw.
I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh if only you were
here ! how you would like these fine Italian soldiers ! How often
I think of you ! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could
see them ! They have great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only
touch a man with them he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey !
I can do it well, I’ll be an Italian soldier. The Venetians as well
as the Pope and the King of France are collecting many men;
what will come of it I don’t know, but people ridicule our King very
much.
Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me, I don’t
wonder at his having taken a wife. Give my
greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our fair
friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister
girl, and thank that head-chamber of yours
alone for remembering her greeting; tell her
she’s a nasty one.
I sent you olive-wood from Venice to
Augsburg, where I directed it to be left, a full
10 hundredweight. She says she would not
wait for it; whence the stink.
My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you
to see it, it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned
much praise but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could
easily have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in
order that I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the
painters who used to say that I was good at engraving but, as to
painting, I did not know how to handle my colours. Now everyone
says that better colouring they have never seen.
My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes
me that there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out
even at this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting
you pretend not to be more than 25 years old—oh yes ! double that
and I’ll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who
look exactly like you; I don’t know how it happens !
55
A chamber must have more than four corners which is to contain the
gods of memory. I am not going to cram my head full of them;
that I leave to you; for I believe that however many chambers
there might be in the head, you would have something in each of
them. The Margrave would not grant an audience long enough !—a
hundred headings and to each heading, say, a hundred words, that
takes 9 days 7 hours 52 minutes, not counting the sighs which I have
not yet reckoned in. In fact you could not get through the whole
at one go; it would stretch itself out like the speech of some old
driveler.
I have taken all manner of trouble about the carpets but cannot
find any broad ones; they are all narrow and long. However
I still look about every day for them and so does Anton Kolb.
I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel your greeting and he sent you
his service. He is full of sorrow for the death of his son, the nicest lad
I ever saw.
I can get none of your foolish featherlets. Oh if only you were
here ! how you would like these fine Italian soldiers ! How often
I think of you ! Would to God that you and Kunz Kamerer could
see them ! They have great scythe-lances with 278 points, if they only
touch a man with them he dies, for they are all poisoned. Hey !
I can do it well, I’ll be an Italian soldier. The Venetians as well
as the Pope and the King of France are collecting many men;
what will come of it I don’t know, but people ridicule our King very
much.
Wish Stephan Paumgartner much happiness from me, I don’t
wonder at his having taken a wife. Give my
greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our fair
friends, as well as to your Rechenmeister
girl, and thank that head-chamber of yours
alone for remembering her greeting; tell her
she’s a nasty one.
I sent you olive-wood from Venice to
Augsburg, where I directed it to be left, a full
10 hundredweight. She says she would not
wait for it; whence the stink.
My picture, you must know, says it would give a ducat for you
to see it, it is well painted and beautifully coloured. I have earned
much praise but little profit by it. In the time it took to paint I could
easily have earned 220 ducats, and now I have declined much work, in
order that I may come home. I have stopped the mouths of all the
painters who used to say that I was good at engraving but, as to
painting, I did not know how to handle my colours. Now everyone
says that better colouring they have never seen.
My French mantle greets you and my Italian coat also. It strikes
me that there is an odour of gallantry about you; I can scent it out
even at this distance; and they tell me here that when you go a-courting
you pretend not to be more than 25 years old—oh yes ! double that
and I’ll believe it. My friend, there are so many Italians here who
look exactly like you; I don’t know how it happens !