Also on the Saturday before Judicz, Rodrigo gave me six large Indian cocoanuts, a very fine piece of coral, and two large Portuguese florins, one of which weighs 10 ducats, and I gave the boy 15 stivers for a tip. I have bought a lode- stone for 16 stivers. I have changed an angel for expenses. Paid 6 stivers for packing. Sent Master Hugo at Brussels an engraved “Passion” and some other prints for his little porphyry stone. I have made for Tomasin a design drawn and tinted in half-colours, from which he means to have his house painted. I painted “Jerome” in oils with care and gave it to Rodrigo of Portugal, who gave Susanna a ducat for a tip. Have changed a Philip’s florin for expenses and gave 10 stivers to my Father Confessor. Gave 4 stivers for the little tortoise. I have dined with Herr Gilbert, who gave me a Calicut target made of a fish skin, and two gloves as they use them for fighting. I have given Peter 2 stivers. Gave 10 stivers for the fish fins, and 3 stivers for a tip. I have made a very good portrait in hard chalk of Cornelius, the secretary of Antwerp.
I have given 3 florins, 16 stivers, for the five silk girdles which I mean to give away, besides 20 stivers for an edging [lace?]. These six edgings I have sent as presents to the wives of Kasperi Nutzel, Franz Imhof, Straub, the two Spenglers, Loffelholz, besides a good pair of gloves to each. To Pirkheimer I have sent a large cap, a very handsome buffalo horn inkstand, a silver [medal of the] Emperor, a pound of pistachios, and three sugar canes. To Kasper Ntitzel I have sent a great elk’s foot, ten large fir cones with pine kernels. To Jacob Muffel I have sent a scarlet breast cloth of one ell; to Hans Imhof’s child an embroidered scarlet cap and pine kernels; to Kramer’s wife four ells of taffeta, worth 4 florins. To Lochinger’s wife one ell of taffeta, of 1 florin’s worth; to the two Spenglers, each a bag and three fine horns; to Herr Hieronimus Holzschuher, a very large horn.
Have eaten twice with the factor; dined with Master Adrian, the secretary of the town council of Antwerp, who gave me the small painted panel made by Master Joachim [de Patinir]: it is of “Lot and his Daughters.” Have taken 12 florins for prints, also I have sold some of Hans Baldung Grun’s works for 1 florin. Rudiger von Gelern has given me a piece of sandalwood; I gave his boy a stiver. I have painted the portrait of Bernhard of Brussels in oils; he gave me 8 florins for it, and gave my wife a crown, and Susanna a florin worth 24 stivers. I have given 3 stivers for the Swiss jug, and 2 stivers for the ship, also 3 stivers for the case and 4 stivers to the Father Confessor. I have changed an angel for expenses; have taken 4 florins, 10 stivers for works of art: paid 3 stivers for salve; gave 12 1/2 stivers for wood; changed 1 florin for expenses; have given 1 florin for 14 pieces of French wood. I gave Ambrozio Hochstutter a “Life of Our Lady,” and he gave me a model of his ship. Rodrigo gave my wife a little ring which is worth more than 5 florins. Have changed 1 florin for expenses.
I have done the portrait of Factor Brandon’s secretary in charcoal; I have done the portrait of his Moorish woman in silverpoint, and I have done Rodrigo’s portrait on a large sheet of paper with the brush, in black and white. I have given 16 florins for a piece of camlet measuring twenty-four ells, and it cost 1 stiver to bring home. Have paid 2 stivers for gloves. I have done Lucas of Dantzic’s portrait in charcoal. He gave me 1 florin for it, and a piece of sandalwood.
VISIT TO BRUGES AND GHENT (April 6-11, 1521)
On the Saturday after Easter, with Hans Luber and Master Jan Prevost, a good painter born at Bruges, I set out from Antwerp towards Bruges by way of the Scheldt and came to Beveren, a large village. From there to Vracene, also a big village; thence we passed through some villages and came to a fine large village, where the rich farmers live, and there we breakfasted. Thence we journeyed towards St. Paul’s, the rich abbey, and went through Caudenborn, a fine village; thence through the large village of Kalve, and thence to Ertvelde; there we lay the night and started early on Sunday morning and came from Ertvelde to a small town. From that we went to Ecloo, which is a mighty large village; it is plastered, and has a square; there we breakfasted. Thence we went to Maldegem, and then through other villages, and came to Bruges — which is a fine noble town. I paid 21 stivers for fare and other expenses. And arriving at Bruges, Jan Prevost took me into his house to lodge, and the same night prepared a costly meal, and asked much company to meet me.
The next day Marx, the goldsmith, invited me, and gave me a costly meal and asked many to meet me; afterwards they took me to see the Emperor’s house, which is large and splendid. There I saw the chapel which Roger painted, and some pictures by a great old artist. I gave the man who showed them to us 1 stiver; afterwards I bought two ivory combs for 30 stivers. Thence they took me to St. James’s and let me see the splendid paintings of Roger and Hugo, who are both great masters. Afterwards I saw the alabaster Madonna in Our Lady’s Church that Michelangelo of Rome made; afterwards they took me to many churches and let me see all the fine paintings, of which there is abundance there, and when I had seen the Jan [Van Eyck] and all the other things, we came at last to the Painters’ Chapel, in which there are good things. Then they prepared a banquet for me, and I went thence with them to their guildhall; there were many honourable men gathered together, goldsmiths, painters, and merchants, and they made me sup with them, and they gave me presents and sought my acquaintance and did me great honour; and the two brothers Jacob and Peter Mostaert, the town councilors, gave me twelve cans of wine, and the whole assembly, more than sixty persons, accompanied me home with many torches. I also saw in their shooting gallery the great fish tub from which they eat, which is 19 feet long, 7 high, and 7 broad.
Early on Tuesday we departed, but before that, I did Jan Prevost’s portrait in silverpoint, and gave his wife 10 stivers at parting. And so we traveled to Ursel; there we breakfasted. On the way there are three villages. Then we traveled towards Ghent, again through three villages, and I paid 4 stivers for the journey, and 4 stivers for expenses; and on my arrival at Ghent, there came to me the dean of the painters and brought with him the first masters in painting; they showed me great honour, received me most courteously, and commended to me their good-will and service, and supped with me. On Wednesday early they took me to the tower of St. John’s, whence I looked all over the great and wonderful town, where I had just been treated as a great person. Afterwards I saw the Jan [Van Eyck’s] picture, which is a very splendid, deeply studied painting, and especially the “Eve,” the “Mary,” and “God the Father” were extremely good.
Then I saw the lions and drew one of them in silverpoint; also I saw on the bridge, where men are beheaded, two pictures which were made as a sign that there a son had beheaded his father. Ghent is beautiful and a wonderful town; four great waters flow through it. I gave 3 stivers as a tip to the sacristan and the lions’ keeper. I saw many other remarkable things in Ghent, and the painters with their dean did not forget me, but ate with me morning and evening, and paid for everything, and were very friendly. I gave away 3 stivers at the inn on leaving. Then early on Thursday I set out from Ghent and came through various villages to the inn called “The Swan,” where we breakfasted; thence we passed through a beautiful village and came to Antwerp, and I paid 8 stivers for the fare.
AT ANTWERP (April 11-May 17, 1521)
I have taken 4 florins for works of art; changed one florin for expenses. Have taken the portrait of Hans Lieber of Ulm in charcoal; he wished to pay me 1 florin, but I would not take it. Gave 7 stivers for wood and 1 stiver for bringing it; changed 1 florin for expenses. In the third week after Easter a violent fever came upon me with great weakness, nausea, and headache; and before, when I was in Zeeland, a strange illness overcame me such as I never heard of from anyone, and this illness I have still. I paid 6 stivers for a case. The monk has bound two books for me for the prints which I gave him. I have given 10 florins, 8 stivers for a piece of arras for two mantles for my mother-in-law and my wife. I gave the doctor 8 stivers, and 3 stivers to the apothecary, also changed 1 florin for expenses and spent 3 stivers in company. Paid the doctor 10 stivers; a
gain paid the doctor 6 stivers.
During my illness Rodrigo sent me many sweetmeats; I gave the boy 4 stivers for a tip. I have drawn Master Joachim [Patinir] in silverpoint, and made him besides another likeness in silverpoint. Again changed a crown for expenses, and again 1 florin for expenses. Paid the doctor 6 stivers, and 7 stivers at the apothecary’s; changed 1 florin for expenses. For packing the third bale, which I sent from Antwerp to Nuremberg by a carrier called Hans Staber, I paid 13 stivers, and I paid the carrier 1 florin for it, and I agreed with him to take it from Antwerp to Nuremberg for 1 florin, I ort, per cwt., and this bale is to be taken to Herr Hans Imhof, the elder. I have paid the doctor, the apothecary, and the barber 14 stivers. I gave Master Jacob, the surgeon, 4 florins’ worth of prints. I have made a portrait in charcoal of Thomas Polonius of Rome.
My camlet cloak came to twenty-one Brabant ells, which are three finger-breadths longer than the Nuremberg ells. I have also bought four black Spanish skins, which cost 3 stivers each, and they come to 34, that makes 10 florins, 2 stivers; I paid the skinner [furrier] 1 florin to make them up, then there were two ells of velvet for trimming, 5 florins; also for silk cord and thread, 34 stivers; then the tailor’s wage, 30 stivers; the camlet which is in the cloak cost 14 1/2 florins, and the boy 5 stivers for a tip.
Cross Sunday after Easter; from this I start a fresh account. Again paid the doctor 6 stivers; I have gained 53 stivers for works of art, and have taken them for expenses. On Sunday before Holy Cross Week, Master Joachim [Patinir], the good landscape painter, asked me to his wedding, and showed me all honour; there I saw two beautiful plays, the first was especially pious and devout. I again paid the doctor 6 stivers, and have changed 1 florin for expenses.
On Sunday after Our Lord’s Ascension, Master Dietrich, the glass painter of Antwerp, invited me and asked many other people to meet me, and especially among them Alexander, the goldsmith, a rich, stately man, and we had a splendid dinner, and they did me great honour. I have done in charcoal the portrait of Master Marx, the goldsmith, who lives at Bruges. I bought a broad cap for 36 stivers. I paid Paul Geiger 1 florin to take my little chest to Nuremberg, and 4 stivers for the letter. I have taken the portrait of Ambrosius Hochstatter in charcoal, and I dined with him: I have dined at least six times with Tomasin. I bought some wooden dishes and platters for 3 stivers. I have given the apothecary 12 stivers. I have given two books of the “Life of Our Lady,” one to the foreign surgeon, the other to Marx’s house servant; I also paid the doctor 8 stivers, and gave 4 stivers for cleaning an old cap. Lost 4 stivers at play; have given 2 florins for a new cap. I have changed the old cap because it was clumsy, and have given 6 stivers more for another.
Painted a portrait of the duke in oils: have made a very fine and careful portrait in oils of the treasurer, Lorenz Sterk; it was worth 25 florins. I presented it to him, and in return he gave me 20 florins, and to Susanna 1 florin for a tip. Likewise I painted the portrait of Jobst, my host, very well and carefully in oils; he has now given me [the portrait I did of him before?] and I have done his wife again and painted her portrait in oils.
On the Friday before Whitsuntide, 1521, tidings came to me at Antwerp that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken prisoner, for he trusted the Emperor Charles’s herald, who had been granted to him with the Imperial safe conduct, but as soon as the herald had brought him near Eisenach, to an unfriendly place, he said that he would not need him any more and rode away. Immediately there appeared ten knights, who treacherously carried off the pious man, who had been betrayed; a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, a follower of Christ and of the true Christian faith, and whether he lives yet or whether they have put him to death, I know not. If he has suffered, it is for the sake of Christian truth and because he has fought with the un-Christlike papacy, which strives with its heavy load of human laws against the redemption of Christ; and if so, it is that we may be again robbed and stripped of the fruit of our blood and sweat, that the same may be shamelessly and scandalously squandered while poor and sick men must therefore die of hunger. And this is above all most grievous to me, that God perhaps will let us remain yet under their false, blind doctrine, invented and set forth by the men whom they call “Fathers,” through whom the Word of God is in many places falsely expounded or not taught at all.
[Editor’s note: This form of abduction was the usual idea at the time. But Luther was really taken by the order of Frederick the Wise in order to protect him].
O God of Heaven, have pity on us, O Lord Jesus Christ, pray for Thy people. Deliver us in due time, uphold in us the right and true Christian Faith. Gather together Thy far scattered sheep by Thy voice, in the Scripture called Thy godly Word. Help us that we may know this Thy voice and may follow no other deceiving call of human error, that we may not, Lord Jesus Christ, fall away from Thee. Call together again the sheep of Thy pasture, who are still in part found in the Roman Church, and with them, too, the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who have been thus cut off by the oppression and pride of the pope and by false appearance of holiness.
O God, redeem thy poor folk constrained by heavy ban and edict which it no wise willingly obeys, whereby it is bound continually to sin against its conscience if it disobeys them. O God, never hast Thou so heavily burdened a people under human laws as us poor ones beneath the Roman chair, who daily long to be free Christians ransomed by Thy blood.
O Highest Heavenly Father, pour into our hearts through Thy Son Jesus Christ such a light, that we may know thereby which messenger we are to obey, so that with good conscience we may lay aside the burdens of others, and may serve Thee, Eternal Heavenly Father, with free and joyful heart.
And if we lose this man, who has written more clearly than anyone in a hundred and forty years, and to whom Thou hast given such an evangelic spirit, we pray Thee, O Heavenly Father, that Thou give again Thy spirit to another, that he may gather together anew from all parts the holy Christian Church, that we may all live again in a pure and Christian manner, so that from our good works all unbelievers, with Turks, heathens, and Calicuts, may turn themselves to us and embrace the Christian faith.
But, Lord, Thou willest, ere Thou judgest, that as Thy Son Jesus Christ was constrained to die by the hands of the priests and rise from the dead and after to ascend to heaven, that so too, in like manner, it should be with Thy follower, Martin Luther, whose life the pope compasses, with money, treacherously towards God, him, Thou wilt quicken again. And as Thou, Lord, ordainedst that Jerusalem should be destroyed, so wilt Thou also destroy this self-assumed authority of the Roman chair. O lord, give us thereafter the new beautified Jerusalem, which descends from heaven, whereof the Apocalypse writes, the holy pure gospel which is not darkened by human doctrine.
Whoever reads Martin Luther’s books may see how clear and transparent his doctrine is, for he teaches the Holy Gospel. Wherefore his writings are to be held in the greatest honour, and not to be burned; unless, indeed, his opponents, who always fight against the truth, were also cast into the fire with all their opinions, they who would make gods out of men, but then only if there were printed new Lutheran books.
“O God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound the Holy Gospel so clearly to us! Ah, God, what might he not have written for us in the next ten or twenty years!” Oh, all ye pious Christian men, help me to lament this God- inspired man and pray to Him that He will send us another enlightened man.
Oh, Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stay? Dost thou see how the unjust tyranny of worldly power and the might of darkness prevail? Hear, thou knight of Christ, ride on beside the Lord Jesus; guard the truth, win the martyr’s crown! Thou art already only a little old man, and I have heard thee say that thou givest thyself but two years more in which thou mayest avail to accomplish something. Lay out the same now well for the gospel and the true Christian Faith and make thyself heard, so shall the gates of hell, the Roman Chair, as Christ says, in no wise prevail against thee: and if here, like thy Master Christ
, thou were to suffer shame at the hands of the liars of this time and therefore were to die a little sooner, the sooner wouldst thou come from death into life and be glorified through Christ. For if thou drinkest out of the cup whereof He drank, with Him thou shalt reign, and judge with justice those who have dealt unrighteously.
Oh, Erasmus, hold to this, that God may be thy praise, even as it is written of David, for verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath. For God stands by the Holy Christian Church, as He only upholds the Romish Church according to His Godly will [text here corrupt]. May He help us to everlasting happiness, Who is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God, Amen.
Oh, ye Christian men, pray God for help, for His judgment draws near and His justice shall appear. Then shall we behold the innocent blood which the pope, priests, bishops, and monks have shed, judged and condemned.
Apocalypse: “These are the slain who lie beneath the altar of God and cry for vengeance, to whom the voice of God answers, Await the full number of the innocent slain, then will I judge.”
Again changed 1 florin for expenses, and gave the doctor 8 stivers; dined twice with Rodrigo; dined with the rich canon; changed 1 florin for expenses. I had Master Conrad, the sculptor of Mechlin, as a guest on Whitsunday; paid 18 stivers for Italian prints: again 6 stivers to the doctor. For Master Joachim I have drawn four “St. Christophers” on gray paper, heightened with white.
On the last day of Whitsuntide I was at Antwerp at the great yearly horsefair; there I saw a great number of beautiful stallions ridden, and two stallions in particular were sold for 700 florins. I have taken 1 florin, 3 ort, for prints and used the money for expenses; 4 stivers to the doctor, 3 stivers for two little books. I have dined thrice with Tomasin. I have designed three dagger grips for him, and he gave me a small alabaster bowl. I have taken the portrait in charcoal of an English nobleman, who gave me 1 florin which I changed for expenses. Master Gerhardt, the miniature painter, has a daughter about eighteen years old, called Susanna, who has illuminated a little page with a Saviour, for which I gave her 1 florin. It is very wonderful that a woman’s picture should be so good. Have lost 6 stivers at play. I saw the great procession at Antwerp on Holy Trinity Day. Master Conrad has given me a beautiful pair of knives, and so I gave his little old man a “Life of Our Lady” in return. I have taken the portrait in charcoal of Johann, the Brussels goldsmith, likewise his wife’s. I have received 2 florins for prints, also Master Johann, the Brussels goldsmith, paid me 3 Philip’s florins for what I did for him, namely, the drawing for the seal and the two portraits.
Masters of Art - Albrecht Dürer Page 12