The Four Apostles: Saints Mark and Paul

Johann Neudörffer, the Nuremberg writing master who lettered the inscriptions on these panels, recorded that the four figures stood for the four temperaments, the basic human characters in the medicine of the day, and he said he had it from Dürer himself. On this panel Paul stands in front with a sword and a closed book, the melancholic of the four, heavy and watchful. Behind him Mark, holding a scroll, is the choleric, the quick-tempered one. Strictly speaking Mark was no apostle, and the museum's own title calls him the evangelist. The way Dürer sets tall saints side by side in pairs has been linked to Giovanni Bellini's triptych in the Frari church in Venice, which he could have seen during his stay there in 1505 to 1507, and one of whose wings also shows Saint Mark. The verses at the foot of this panel come from Paul's warning that perilous times will come in the last days, and from Mark's gospel, against the scribes who like to walk about in long robes.