Durer's Record of Journeys to Venice and the Low Countries

Albrecht Dürer was an incredible person and an amazing artist, and this book provides us with the chance to look into some of his thoughts. The first half of the book consists of Dürer's letters to Wilibald Pirkheimer, written while Dürer was in Venice (1506). These are fascinating, Dürer's description of the Venetians and of his artwork completed during his Venetian stay are especially of interest. The second half of this book is a record of Dürer's journey to the Netherlands (1520-1521). It is quite dull when he is merely recording how much money he has spent on what and where he has eaten. But he does describe things such as the great procession of Our Lady's Church in Antwerp, and he writes about his fears after Martin Luther is taken prisoner, which makes having to read the dull bits worth it.

In these days of superstars you fight to read everything you can about the person of interest. In my opinion, Albrecht Durer WAS the quintessential superstar of Rennaisance Germany, and here are letters written in his own hand. Sometimes funny, but always interesting, you learn of the ways barter was used to pay off debts, how copies of his many fine works were spread throughout Germany and the accounting of each "stiver" spent of Willibald Pirckheimer's money (his benefactor). Even the fateful journey to Zeeland to see the corpse of a whale, which lead to his death, is chronicled here. When you think in terms of the current speed of information gathering--it's hard to believe we are talking about 1514 and not 1998.