Triumphal Procession.

About Triumphal Procession

The Triumphal Procession or Triumphs of Maximilian is a monumental 16th-century series of woodcut prints by several artists, commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The composite image was printed from over 130 separate wood blocks; a total of 139 are known. Approximately 54 metres (177 ft) long, it is one of the largest prints ever produced. It was designed to be pasted to the walls in city halls or the palaces of princes to create a decorative frieze, an expression of the Emperor's power and magnificence: a pictorial form of the contemporaneous royal entry, which like many Renaissance entries looked back to the Roman triumph. Maximilian's papers show that he intended the procession to "grace the walls of council chambers and great halls of the empire, proclaiming for posterity the noble aims of their erstwhile ruler". It was one of several works of propaganda in literary and print form commissioned by Maximilian, who was always drastically short of money, and lacked the funds to actually stage such a ceremony, unlike his Habsburg descendants. It could also be bound as a book, and it is copies treated this way which have survived, as well as those from later reprints.