"And I have seen King Charles's house at Brussels, with its fountains, labyrinth, and park. It gave me the greatest pleasure; and a more delightful thing, and more like a Paradise, I have never before seen.... At Brussels there is a very big and costly Town-hall, built of hewn stone, with a splendid transparent tower. I have seen in the Golden Hall the four painted matters which the great Meister Rudier [Roger van der Weyden] has done.... I have also been into the Nassau-house, which is built in such a costly style and so beautifully ornamented. And I saw the two beautiful large rooms and all the costly things in the house everywhere, and also the great bed in which fifty men might lie; and I have also seen the big stone which fell in a thunderstorm in the field close to the Count of Nassau. This house is very high, and there is a fine view from it, and it is much to be admired; and I do not think in all Germany there is any thing like it.... Also I have seen the thing which has been brought to the King from the new Golden Land [Mexico], a sun of gold a fathom broad, and a silver moon just as big. Likewise two rooms full of armor; likewise all kinds of arms, harness, and wonderful missiles, very strange clothing, bed-gear and all kinds of the most wonderful things for man's use, that are as beautiful to behold as they are wonderful. These things are all so costly, that they have been valued at 100,000 gulden. And I have never in all the days of my life seen any thing that has so much rejoiced my heart as these things. For I have seen among them wonderfully artistic things, and I have wondered at the subtle _Ingenia_ of men in foreign lands." While at Brussels Dürer was the guest of Conrad the sculptor, and Ebner the Nuremberg ambassador. He returned at length to Antwerp, where his Portuguese friends sent him several maiolica bowls and some Calcutta feathers, and his host gave also certain Indian and Turkish curiosities. The jovial dinners with Planckfelt and Tomasin were again begun, and were supplemented by feasts with the Von Rogendorffs and Fugger's agent. The master gave away hundreds of his engravings here, either to his friends or to influential courtiers; and all these details he faithfully records. He seems to have been an indefatigable investigator and collector of curiosities, imported trinkets, and china. With childlike delight he narrates the brilliant spectacles around him.