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I find that Durer sent a transparent painting to Raphael. I have seen it described as fine silk , cambric, and byssus. I have seen references that byssus back then could have had a more generic meaning than it does today. Thus, the different words used by Vasari to describe the painting don’t conflict.

Those who knew cloth would not have used the terms interchangeably. The costs were considerably different. Byssus today is over a $1000 a square foot! It was 100 times more costly than silk in medieval times, so a knowledgeable person would not confabulate silk, cambria, and Byssus! Byssus was essentially reserved for royalty.

The only source we have for the inability for paint to stick to Byssus, is the modern weaver lady... And frankly I doubt her. Raphael wrote about getting his best result on Byssus. . . with paint. If you can dye it, you can paint it. There is nothing magical about Byssus that would make it shed paint any more than any other organic substance. One can paint a pearl... One reason that few examples of Byssus cloth survive is that moths love to eat it! It is very fragile.

when I was researching the Manoppello Veronica in 2006, my recollection is that the Raphael/Dürer letters were quoted in an art book published in 1936 or so. . . I cannot comment on the accuracy of the translations as I have no expertise on sixteenth century German. I relied on the translations. However the art book was not discussing anything about Veronica's or the Manoppello veil, just the unique attempt at transparent art the two famous artists were attempting, with varying degrees of success. Raphael was not too pleased with the difficulty of working on the diaphonous cloth and it's tendency to stretch, making accuracy difficult. The translations had been actually done in he nineteenth century, IIRC.

Some people think the Manoppello veil is Dürer's self-portrait... But it just doesn't match his looks. Here is his own self-portrait from 1500:

Albrecht Dürer c. 1500

You can see his hair, beard, and mustache are much more pronounced than the image on the Manoppello image. He just does not look like it.

There are a lot of art historians who have discussed the exchange but so far I have found none that say raphael sent him a transparent painting.
The Durer painting in question is long gone but some examples of his work using the same method are still around
Moritz Thausing says the technique was often used by Durer on page 91 of his book and can been seen on what I think are these

These are examples of the technique. None of these appear to be done on what we now call byssus - or the fabric of Veronica's veil. It does not stand to reason to me that a transparent fabric so costly that basically only royalty could afford it would be sent to Durer.

I saw one historian claim that what was sent to Durer was actually drawings done by his student Romano. Giulio did complete unfinished works when Raphael died. One of the drawings sent to Durer ended up in the hands of Archduke Charles in Vienna.

As you can see in this translation:

http://books.google.com/books?id=f3xKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=vasari+durer+transparent+painting&source=bl&ots=tZeM59MMND&sig=R-sI1_xMsVBpTuqsN-A69KH3grk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eT33TpWwM4XqgAetyoGGAg&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=vasari%20durer%20transparent%20painting&f=false

Vasari called the fabric "exceedingly fine linen." Of course, it is a translation. But if you look at the other paintings using the same method that exist today - they do not look like byssus.

I am Still not discounting that it could have been done by Raphael or someone else . I just have doubts that it is the painting sent to Durer.