A winged woman, thoughtfully crouched down, surrounded by mysterious objects. The gloomy, saturnine look of the Melancholy I; the most famous and “contagious” of the engravings by Albrecht Durer. A small piece of paper with an incredible density as to symbols and details. The title is inscribed on the wings of a screeching bat. The influence of this minimal portion of engraved space is so powerful to reflect into the centuries through all Europe. It is part of a triptych and summarizes a precise philosophical vision. Scientific notions, esoteric motives and a vision of the artistic act associated with “divine fury”. This masterpiece made with a graver dates 1514 and can be seen in the exhibition at the Diocesano Museum in the Chiostro di Sant’Apollonia “Officina Durer”, until 30th June, together with other masterpieces and fundamental series of etchings by the genius of Nuremberg. Grown up as an apprentice in his father’s workshop, Durer soon goes beyond the lines of the Nordic late medieval workshop, to get in touch with the Italian art theories. He leaves painting almost immediately, to dedicate himself exclusively and with success to graphic arts, as he clearly states:”From now on, I will focus on engraving. If I would have always done like that, by now I would be a thousand fiorins richer”. And certainly it was not a purely material matter. As engraver and xylographer he is unequalled. A demanding humanist like Erasmus of Rotterdam praises him with hyperboles:” (…) he could express everything with his monocromes, that is to say his black lines! Light, shadow, splendour, reliefs, depth…”. In the exhibition in Venice there are exhaustive panels describing the different engraving techniques. Durer went to Venice twice. At that time, in the Sereníssima republic there was a brotherhood of the merchants of Nuremberg, “branch” of the compact German colony converging in a warehouse called Fondaco dei Tedeschi, that commissioned him the polyptych of the “Festa del Rosario”, to be placed in the left chapel of the San Bartolomeo church.

In 1494 he meets Jacopo de’ Barbari, and from him he takes the command of human and animal proportions, especially of horses. The duel between the two artists lasts long, with attributions and competitions. The critics have disagreed about the attribution of the renowned map of Venice by Correr. Surely the stays in the lagoon played an important role in the development of Durer’s work. Erwin Panofsky in the huge biography “Life and work of Albrecht Durer” (recently published by Abscondita, translation by Carlo Basso) informs about the several hints and spurs that came from the time he spent in Venice. It is enough to look at one engraving to notice the splendid making of the animal figures, a passion that he scrupulously cultivated for a long time. In Venice he focused on lions, crabs and “the mysterious sea creatures”. Besides Melancholy I, the convulsive dynamism of “Knight, death and devil”, the wonderful “Sant’Eustachio” where, as Panovsky says “the extreme solidity of the material and the accuracy of shapes mysteriously match the complete lightness and richness of the tone”, are exhibited the two series dedicated to Passion: the 36 scenes with pediment of the Small Passion, made between 1509 and 1510; reprint from the original blocks carved on pear wood and kept at the British Museum ( made in Venice in 1612 by Daniel Bissuccio). “The engraved Passion” (1507-1513); 16 engravings never published on a volume, with a nightly atmosphere. The domestic and tragic narrativity in the series about the “Life of the Virgin”, work that remained unfinished due to a sudden departure for Italy. J.W. Goethe pointed out Durer as an existential model: “(..) for you, the world should be as Durer saw it; with its strong life and virility, its inside force and immutability”.