"I wish you were in Venice. There are many fine fellows among the painters, who get more and more friendly with me; it holds one's heart up. Well-brought-up folks, good lute-players, skilled pipers, and many noble and excellent people, are in the company, all wishing me very well, and being very friendly. On the other hand, here are the falsest, most lying, thievish villains in the whole world, appearing to the unwary the pleasantest possible fellows. I laugh to myself when they try it with me: the fact is, they know their rascality is public, though one says nothing. I have many good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat or drink with their painters; for many of them are my enemies, and copy my picture in the church, and others of mine wherever they meet with them; and yet, notwithstanding this, they abuse my works, and say that they are not according to ancient art, and therefore not good. But Gian Bellini has praised me highly before several gentlemen, and he wishes to have something of my painting. He came himself, and asked me to do something for him, saying that he would pay me well for it; and all the people here tell me what a good man he is, so that I also am greatly inclined to him." These sentences show the artist's pleasure at the kindly way in which the Italians received him, and also reveal the danger in which he stood of being poisoned by jealous rivals. Another ambiguous sentence has given rise to the belief that Dürer had visited Venice eleven years previously, during his _Wander-jahre_. Camerarius says that Bellini was so amazed and delighted at the exquisite fineness of Dürer's painting, especially of hair, that he begged him to give him the brush with which he had done such delicate work. The Nuremberger offered him any or all of his brushes, but Bellini asked again for the one with which he had painted the hair; upon which Dürer took one of his common brushes, and painted a long tress of woman's hair. Bellini reported that he would not have believed such marvellous work possible, if he had not seen it himself. The third letter describes the adventures of the inexpert artist in securing certain sapphires, amethysts, and emeralds for his "dear Herr Pirkheimer," and complains that the money earned by painting was all swallowed up by living expenses. The jealous Venetian painters had also forced him, by process of law, to pay money to their art-schools.