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Imperator Caesar Divus Maximilianus Pius Felix Augustus

Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen

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Imperator Caesar Divus Maximilianus Pius Felix Augustus

Albrecht Dürer

1517
paper
height 413 mm x width 322 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

About This Work

The Emperor is depicted in three-quarter profile wearing a large, wide-brimmed hat adorned with a religious medallion. He wears a heavy, patterned robe and the ornate collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, featuring its characteristic ram's fleece pendant. A scrolled banner at the top of the print contains his imperial titles in formal Latin script.

Maximilian I was a central patron of the Northern Renaissance who fostered an intellectual court culture where humanism and esoteric interests met. He maintained close relationships with scholars such as Johannes Trithemius and commissioned complex works like the Triumphal Arch, which utilized symbolic and hieroglyphic languages to communicate imperial power and mystical lineage.

Maximilian IOrder of the Golden Fleece61B2(MAXIMILIAN I)48C16131A221

Inscriptions

Imperator Caesar Diuus Maximilianus
Pius Felix Augustus

Translation

Emperor Caesar Divine Maximilian
Pious Fortunate Augustus

Connected Texts

Johannes Trithemius

Maximilian was a patron of Trithemius, who dedicated his works on cryptography and angelic communication, such as 'Polygraphia', to the Emperor.

Hieroglyphica of Horapollo

Maximilian's commissions, including the Triumphal Arch also worked on by Dürer, incorporated 'hieroglyphs' based on this text to create a secret symbolic language for the court.

Provenance & Source

Object

Holding Institution

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Medium

paper

Dimensions

height 413 mm x width 322 mm

GenreAI

portrait

Digital Source

Source

Rijksmuseum · CC0 1.0

Original Resolution

3180 × 4096 px

Harvested

March 24, 2026

Linked Data

AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.

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