Wish Stephen Paumgartner much happiness from me. I can't wonder at his having taken a taken wife. My greeting to Borsch, Herr Lorenz, and our fair friend, as well as to your Rechenmeister girl, and thank your Club for its greeting; says it's a dirty one. I sent you olive-wood from Venice to Augsburg, where I let it stay, a full ten hundred weight. But it says it won't wait, hence the stink.
My picture [the self-portrait Dürer painted?], you must know, says it would give a ducat for you to see it. It is well painted and finely coloured. I have got much praise but little profit by it. I could have easily earned 200 ducats in the time, and I have had to decline big commissions in order to come home.
I have shut up all the painters, who used to say that I was good at engraving, but that in painting I didn't know how to handle my colours. Now they all say they never saw better colouring.
My French mantle greets you, and so does my Italian coat. It seems to me that you smell of gallantry. I can scent it from here; and they say here, that when you go courting, you pretend to be no more than 25 years old. Oh, yes! Multiply that and I`ll believe it. My friend, there `s a devil of a lot of Italians here who are just like you. I don't know how it is!
The Doge and the Patriarch have seen my picture. Herewith let me commend myself as your servant. I really must sleep, for it's striking seven at night, and I have already written to the Prior of the Augustines, to my father-in-law, to Mistress Dietrich, and to my wife, and they are all sheets cram full. So I have had to hurry over this. Read according to the sense. You would do it better if you were writing to princes. Many good nights to you, and days too. Given at Venice on Our Lady's Day in September.
You needn't lend my wife and mother anything. They have got money enough.
—Albert Dürer
23 Sept. 1506
Your letter telling me of the overflowing praise that you received from princes and nobles gave me great allegrezza. [Editor's note: Allegrezza means "joy;" in Venetian in original]. You must have changed completely to have become so gentle; I must do likewise when I meet you again. Know also that my picture is finished, likewise another quadro, [Editor's note: quadro is Venetian for "painting">[ the like of which I never made before. And as you are so pleased with yourself, let me tell you now that there is no better Madonna picture in all the land, for all the painters praise it as the nobles do you. They say that they have never seen a nobler, more charming painting.
The oil for which you wrote I am sending by Kannengiesser. And burnt glass that I sent you by Farber—tell me if it reached you safely. As for the carpets, I have not bought any yet, for I cannot find any square ones. They are all narrow and long. If you would like any of these, I will willingly buy them; let me know about it.