The last letter congratulates Pirkheimer on his political successes, but expresses a fear lest "so great a man will never go about the streets again talking with the poor painter Dürer,--with a poltroon of a painter." In response to Pirkheimer's threat of making love to his wife if he remained away longer, he said that if such was done, he might keep Agnes until her death. He also tells how he had been attending a dancing-school, but could not learn the art, and retired in disgust after two lessons.
The picture which Dürer painted for the Fondaco de' Tedeschi was until recently supposed to be a "St. Bartholomew;" but it is now believed that it was the renowned "Feast of Rose Garlands," which is now at the Bohemian Monastery of Strahow. He worked hard on this picture for seven months, and was proud of its beauty and popularity. The Emperor Rudolph II. bought it from the church in which it was set up, and had it carried on men's shoulders all the way from Venice to Prague, to avoid the dangers attending other modes of conveyance. When Joseph II. sold his pictures, in 1782, this one was bought by the Abbey of Strahow, and remained buried in oblivion for three-quarters of a century. The picture shows the Virgin sitting under a canopy and a star-strewn crown held by flying cherubs, with the graceful Child in her lap. She is placing a crown of roses on the head of the Emperor Maximilian, while Jesus places another on the head of the Pope; and a monk on one side is similarly honored by St. Dominic, the founder of the Feast of the Rose Garlands. A multitude of kneeling men and women on either side are being crowned with roses by merry little child-angels, flying through the air; while on the extreme right, Dürer and Pirkheimer are seen standing by a tree.
Pirkheimer and Agnes had both been urging the master to return; but he seemed reluctant to exchange the radiance of Italy for the quietness of his home-circle, and mournfully exclaims, "Oh, how I shall freeze after this sunshine! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite!" A brilliant career was open before him at Venice, whose Government offered him a pension of 200 ducats; but his sense of duty compelled him to return to Germany, though in bitterness of spirit. Before turning Northward he rode to Bologna, "because some one there will teach me the secret art of perspective" (Francesco Francia); and met Christopher Scheurl, who greatly admired him. A year later Raphael also came to Bologna, and saw some works left there by Dürer, from which arose an intimate correspondence and exchanges of pictures between the artists. The master had been invited to visit the venerable Mantegna, at Mantua; but that Nestor of North-Italian art died before the plan was carried out. Dürer afterwards told Camerarius that this death "caused him more grief than any mischance that had befallen him during his life."