Part 12 (2/2)
I reckoned up with Jobst and found myself thirty-one fl. in his debt, which I paid him; therein were charged and deducted the two portrait heads which I painted in oils, for which he gave five pounds of borax Netherlands weight. In all my doings, spendings, sales, and other dealings, in all my connections with high and low, I have suffered loss in the Netherlands; and Lady Margaret in particular gave me nothing for what I made and presented to her. And this settlement with Jobst was made on St. Peter and Paul's day.
On our Lady's Visitation, as I was just about to leave Antwerp, the King of Denmark sent to me to come to him at once, and take his portrait, which I did in charcoal. I also did that of his servant Anton, and I was made to dine with the King, and he behaved graciously towards me. I have entrusted my bale to Leonhard Tucher and given over my white cloth to him. The carrier with whom I bargained did not take me; I fell out with him. Gerhard gave me some Italian seeds. I gave the new carrier (_Vicarius_) the great turtle sh.e.l.l, the fish-s.h.i.+eld, the long pipe, the long weapon, the fish-fins, and the two little casks of lemons and capers to take home for me, on the day of our Lady's Visitation, 1521.
BRUSSELS, _July_ 3-12, 1521.
I noticed how the people of Antwerp marvelled greatly when they saw the King of Denmark, to find him such a manly, handsome man and come hither through his enemy's land with only two attendants. I saw, too, how the Emperor rode forth from Brussels to meet him, and received him honourably with great pomp. Then I saw the n.o.ble, costly banquet, which the Emperor and Lady Margaret held next day in his honour.
Thomas Bologna has given me an Italian work of art; I have also bought a work for one st.
A few days later when the Durers arrived at Cologne the journal breaks off abruptly, as the last few leaves are missing: but there is every reason to suppose that they got back safely to Nuremberg two or three weeks later.
II
This journal shows us how the influence of a greater centre of civilisation strengthened the spirit of the Renascence in Durer: it is marked by his having again taken up the paint brushes to do the best sort of work, by a new out-break of the collector's acquisitiveness, lastly by the tone of such a pa.s.sage as that wherein the procession on the Sunday after our Lady's a.s.sumption (p. 145) is spoken of with admiration. ”Twenty persons bore the image of the Virgin Mary with the Lord Jesus, adorned in the costliest manner, to the honour of the Lord G.o.d.” Such a spectacle has a very different significance to his mind from that of another procession in honour of the Virgin, depicted in a woodcut by Michael Ostendorfer, which presents a large s.p.a.ce in front of a temporary church; in the midst is a gaudy statue of the Virgin set upon a pillar, around whose base seven or eight persons of both s.e.xes, whom one might suppose from their att.i.tudes to be drunk, are seen writhing, while a procession headed by huge cierges and a cardinal's hat on a pole encircles the whole building; those in the procession carrying offerings or else candles, two men being naked save for scanty hair s.h.i.+rts. On the margin of the copy now at Coburg Durer has written: ”1523, this Spectre, contrary to Holy Scripture, has set itself up at Regensburg and has been dressed out by the Bishop. G.o.d help us that we should not so dishonour His precious mother but (honour her?) in Christ Jesus. Amen.” Indeed, it would be difficult to distinguish between the kind of honour done the Virgin in many of Durer's pictures and etchings and that done her in the Antwerp procession; but both are infinitely removed from the degradation of emotion produced by an orgy of superst.i.tion such as that depicted in Ostendorfer's print, which is truly nearer akin to the scenes that occasionally occur in Salvation Army or Methodist revivals, and is even more repugnant to the spirit of the Renascence than to that of the Reformation as Luther and Durer conceived of it. It is well to remind ourselves, by reading such a pa.s.sage and by gazing at Durer's Virgins enthroned and crowned with stars, that the att.i.tude of later Protestants in regard to the wors.h.i.+p of the Virgin was in no sense shared by Durer. And we touch the very pulse of the Renaissance in the phrase, ”Being a painter, I looked about me a little more boldly,”--by which Durer explains that the beautiful maidens, almost naked, who figured in the mythological groups along the route of Charles V.'s triumphal entry into Antwerp received a very different reward, in his attentive gaze, to that which was meted to them by the young, austere, and unreformed Charles. One might almost be listening to Vasari when Durer says: ”I saw out behind the King's house at Brussels the fountains, labyrinth and Beast-garden; anything more beautiful and pleasing to me and more like Paradise I have never seen.”
Durer's admiration for Luther was like Michael Angelo's for Savonarola, and he never doubted that fiery indignation was directed against the abuse of wealth, force, and beauty, not against their use; though perhaps both the Italian and the German reformer occasionally confused the two.
III
Duress journey was successful in that he obtained from Charles V. what he sought--the confirmation of his privilegium.
CHARLES, by G.o.d's grace, Roman Emperor Elect, etc.
Honourable, trusty, and well-beloved,
Whereas the most ill.u.s.trious Prince, Emperor Maximilian, our dear lord and grandfather of praiseworthy memory, appointed and a.s.signed unto our and the Empire's trusty and well-beloved Albrecht Durer the sum of 100 florins Rhenish every year of his life to be paid from and out of our and the Empire's customary town contributions, which you are bound to render yearly into our Imperial Treasury; and whereas we, as Roman Emperor, have graciously agreed thereto, and have granted anew this life pension unto him according to the terms of the above letter; we therefore earnestly command you, and it is our will, that you render and give unto the said Albrecht Durer henceforward every year of his life, from and out of the said town contributions and in return for his proper quittance, the said life pension of 100 florins Rhenish, together with whatever part of it stands over unpaid since the Emperor Maximilian's grant; etc.
Given at our and the Holy Empire's town Koln on the fourth day of the month November (1520), etc.
(Signed) KARL.
(Signed) ALBRECHT, Cardinal, Archbishop of Mainz, Chancellor.
Besides, he got back to Nuremberg without falling in with highwaymen, though the following little letter shows us that in this he was fortunate.
Dear Master Wolf Stromer,--My most gracious lord of Salzburg has sent me a letter by the hand of his gla.s.s-painter. I shall be glad to do anything I can to help him. He is to buy gla.s.s and materials here. He tells me that near Freistadtlein he was robbed and had twenty florins taken from him. He has asked me to send him to you, for his gracious lord told him if he wanted anything to let you know. I send him, therefore, to your Wisdom with my apprentice. Your Wisdom's,
ALBRECHT DuRER.
No doubt he had enriched his mind and cheered his heart in the company of prosperous, go-ahead, and earnest men; but as he says, ”when I was in Zeeland, a wondrous sickness overcame me, such as I never heard of from any man, and this sickness remains with me” (see p. 156). And, alas! it was to remain with him till he died of it. So that his journey cannot be considered as altogether fortunate.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 24: He was one of the leading Humanists of the time. The Madonna referred to was still at Bamberg, at the beginning of the present century.]
[Footnote 25: Owing to the existence of some rudimentary form of Zollverein, Durer's pa.s.s not only freed him of dues in the Bamberg district but as far down the Rhine as Koln.]
[Footnote 26: Hans Wolf, successor to Hans Wolfgang Katzheimer.]
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