[Footnote 18: Prof. Thausing suggests that this "other _Quadro_" is the "Christ among the Doctors" in the Barberini Gallery at Rome--a picture containing seven life-size half-figures or heads, and dated 1506. The inscription states it to have been _opus quinque dierum_. At Brunswick there is an old copy of it. The original studies for the hands are likewise in existence. In Lorenzo Lotto's Madonna of 1508 in the Borghese Gallery at Rome, the head of St. Onuphrius is taken from the model who sat for the front Pharisee on the left in Dürer's picture.] [Footnote 19: A Nürnberg prison.] CHAPTER IV DÜRER AND HIS PATRONS AND FRIENDS I Dürer had hitherto occasionally enjoyed the patronage of the wise Elector, Frederick of Saxony, for whom he painted the brilliant _Adoration of the Magi_ in the Uffizi. He was soon to obtain that of Maximilian, but this genial and eccentric emperor proved a fussy patron, as quick to change his mind and to interfere with impossible demands and criticisms, as he was slow to pay and deficient in means for being truly generous. There are a certain number of letters which give a glimpse of Dürer's relations with his clients; they show him appealing always to the judgment of artists against the ignorant buyer, and giving more than he bargained to give, though thereby he eats up his legitimate profits; lastly, they show him vowing never again to enter upon work so unprofitable, but to give all his time to the creation of engravings and woodcuts. The first is written to Michael Behaim, who died in 1511, and had commissioned him to make a design for a woodcut of his coat of arms. DEAR MASTER MICHAEL BEHAIM,--I send you back the coat of arms again. Pray let it stay as it is. No one could improve it for you, for I made it artistically and with care. Those who see it and understand such matters will tell you so. If the leafwork on the helm were tossed up backward, it would hide the fillet. Your humble servant, ALBRECHT DÜRER. [Illustration: Photograph J. Lowy--THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY, 1511--From the painting at Vienna]