already seen to it, but if you are in need of anything else,
let me know, and I shall do it for you with all zeal. And
would to God that I could do you some real good service. I
should gladly accomplish it, since I know how much you do
for me.

And I beg of you be patient with my debt, for I think
oftener of it than you do. As soon as God helps me to get
home I will pay you honourably, with many thanks; for I have
to paint a picture for the Germans, for which they are
giving me 110 Rhenish gulden, which will not cost me as much
as five. I shall have finished laying and scraping the
ground-work in eight days, then I shall at once begin to
paint, and if God will, it shall be in its place for the
altar a month after Easter.

[Editor note: This refers to the [altarpiece called the]
"Madonna of the Rose Garlands," painted for the chapel of S.
Bartolommeo, the burial-place of the German colony. About
the year 1600 it was bought for a high price by the Emperor
Rudolf II, who is said to have had it carried [over the
Alps] by four men all the way to Prague to avoid the risk of
damage in transport. [It suffered serious water damage
during the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, and many parts of
it had to be repainted to replace much of the original paint
that was lost, but] it still remains one of the most
important [and lavishly colored] of all Dürer's works.]

The money I hope, if God will, to put by; and from that I
will pay you: for I think that I need not send my mother and