He (Giovanni Bellini) is very old, but is still the best painter of them all. The thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now no more; if I had not seen it for myself, I should never have believed any one who told me. You must know, too, that there are many better painters here than Master Jacob (Jacopo de' Barbari) is abroad; yet Anton Kolb would swear an oath that no better painter than Jacob lives. If "the thing that pleased so well eleven years before" was a picture or pictures by Master Jacob or by Andrea Mantegna, as is usually supposed, the phrase, "If I had not seen it for myself I should never have believed any one who told me" is extremely strange. It is not usual to expect to change one's opinion of a work of art by hearsay, or to imagine others, when they have not done so, predicting with assurance that we shall change a decided opinion upon the merits of a work of art; yet one of these two suppositions seems certainly to be implied. I do not say that it is impossible to conceive of either, only that such cursory reference to such conceptions is extremely strange. Again, if work by Jacopo de' Barbari is referred to, it might very well have been seen elsewhere than at Venice eleven years ago; and indeed the last sentence in the passage might be taken to imply as much. To me at least the truth appears to be that these hints, which we may well have misunderstood, point to something which the imagination is only too delighted to entertain. It is a charming dream--the young Dürer, just of age, trudging from town to town, designing wood-blocks for a printer here, questioning the brothers of the "admirable Martin" there, or again painting a sign in yet another place, such as Holbein painted for the schoolmaster at Basle; and at last arriving in Venice--Venice untouched as yet by the conflicting ideals that were even then being brought to birth anew: Mediaeval Venice, such as we see her in the pictures of Gentile Bellini and Carpaccio. One painting of real importance in the work of Dürer remains to us from this period: the greatest of modern critics has described it and its effect on him in a way which would make any second attempt impertinent.