Memoirs of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries | Page 4

high art form, and was known for his fascination with
animals, which form the subjects of many of his graphical works. He
reveled in portraying men of learning and/or high stature as well as
peasants, believing that portraits of the latter could be as instructive as
those of the former. His marriage to his wife Agnes was childless and
banal, apparently because Drer was too preoccupied with intellectual
matters to be much interested in romantic pursuits.
In the letters below, this unusually modern thinker demonstrates his
noble, righteous utilitarian personal philosophy, and meticulously
records his personal and travel expenses, while journeying throughout
Venice and various other European cities and divided German states.
Numerous kings and laypeople sought to meet and host him, since he
was renowned and loved as a painter while still alive. He comments on
Martin Luther, Erasmus of Rotterdam and painting, and demonstrates
his curious, inquiring nature. He also describes his visit to Zeeland to
see a beached whale, which washed away before he got there; but
during this visit, Drer may have caught the disease from which he may
have died several years later. Like Rembrandt, he enjoyed collecting
things, and demonstrates this in his letters.
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BRIEF EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO THE 1913
EDITION, WRITTEN BY ROGER FRY (1866-1934):
Whatever one's final estimate of his art, Drer's personality is at once so
imposing and so attractive, and has been so endeared to us by
familiarity, that something of this personal attachment has been
transferred to our aesthetic judgment. The letters from Venice and the
Diary of his journey in the Netherlands, which form the contents of this
volume, are indeed the singularly fortunate means for this pleasant
intercourse with the man himself. They reveal Drer as one of the
distinctively modern men of the Renaissance: intensely, but not
arrogantly, conscious of his own personality; accepting with a pleasant
ease the universal admiration of his genius-a personal admiration, too,
of an altogether modern kind; careful of his fame as one who foresaw
its immortality. They show him as having, though in a far less degree,
something of Leonardo da Vinci's scientific interest, certainly as
possessing a quick, though naive curiosity about the world and a quite
modern freedom from superstition. It is clear that his dominating and
yet kindly personality, no less than his physical beauty and distinction,
made him the center of interest wherever he went. His easy and
humorous good- fellowship, of which the letters to Pirkheimer are
eloquent, won for him the admiring friendship of the best men of his
time.
To all these characteristics we must add a deep and sincere religious
feeling, which led him to side with the leaders of the Reformation, a
feeling which comes out in his passionate sense of loss when he thinks
that Luther is about to be put to death, and causes him to write a stirring
letter to Erasmus, urging him to continue the work of reform. For all
that, there is no trace in him of either Protestantism or Puritanism. He
was perhaps fortunate--certainly as an artist he was fortunate--to live at
a time when the line of cleavage between the reformers and the Church
was not yet so marked as to compel a decisive action.
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CAST OF [SOME OF THE] CHARACTERS:
Agnes: Drer's wife Wilibald Pirkheimer: Drer's best friend Wolgemut:
The master painter to whom Drer began formal training as an
apprentice. Later, Drer painted a richly detailed self-portrait of him.
Giovanni Bellini: Famous Renaissance painter and contemporary of

Drer. Jan van Eyk: Famous Renaissance painter. Imhof: Hans Imhof,
the elder, at Nuremberg; the younger Imhof was in Venice. Schott:
Kunz Schott, an enemy of the town of Nuremberg. Weisweber: A
Nuremberg general.
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FORMS OF MONEY REFERRED TO IN THE LETTERS:
Marcelli: A Venetian coin worth 10 soldi. Stiver: A Netherlandish coin
worth about 80 pfennigs. Philip's: A Netherlandish coin worth rather
less than a Rhenish florin. Crown: A Netherlandish coin worth 6.35
marks. Noble: The Rosennobel = 8 marks, 20 pfennigs. The Flemish
noble = 9 marks, 90 pfennigs. Blanke: A silver coin = 2 stivers. Angel:
An English coin = 2 florins, 2 stivers Netherlandish.
*************
PART 1: LETTERS FROM VENICE TO WILIBALD PIRKHEIMER
Venice, 6th January, 1506
To the Honourable and wise Wilibald Pirkheimer, in Nuremberg.
My dear Master, To you and all yours, many happy good New Years.
My willing service to you, dear Herr Pirkheimer. Know that I am in
good health; may God send you better even than that. Now as to what
you commissioned me, namely, to buy a few pearls and precious stones,
you must know that I can find nothing good enough or worth the
money: everything is snapped up by the Germans.
Those who go about on the Riva always expect