Madeleine: We are looking at Albrecht Durer's Triumphal Arch of 1515.
The one that's currently on view at the library is complete but belongs to the third and last edition, which was reprinted in 1799.
Maximilian was Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death in 1519.
Albrecht Durer was a German print maker as well as a painter and an important theorist of the German renaissance.
The image of the art is complicated, but alludes to the emperor's ancestry, military exploits, alliances, virtues, and is based among other illustrious leaders from antiquity until his own day.
Maximilian was an astounding, and in many ways, very modern ruling personality who understood the power of visual propaganda.
But I think it's really enlivened by this wonderful wit of Albrecht Durer.
The teamwork that it involved to create this thing I think is still sort of a model for print making.