Triumphal Procession

The Triumphal Procession (in German, Triumphzug) 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.

The work is one of three huge prints created for Maximilian. The other two projects were largely designed by Albrecht Dürer: a Triumphal Arch (1512-5, 192 woodcut panels, 10 feet (3.0 m) high and 12 feet (3.7 m) wide), and a Large Triumphal Carriage (1522, 8 woodcut panels, 1.5 feet (0.46 m) high 8 feet (2.4 m) long) which was originally intended to form part of the Triumphal Procession but was published separately by Dürer in 1522. These monumental projects reflect Maximilian's position as Holy Roman Emperor, and link him to the triumphal arches and triumphs of Ancient Rome. Only the Triumphal Arch was completed before Maximilian's death in 1519, and distributed as Imperial propaganda as he intended. Other projects were the verse and print books Theuerdank, an allegorical chivalrous romance account of Maximilian's courtship of Mary of Burgundy, and Der Weisskunig.

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