Triumphal Procession

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.

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.

Dürer ceased to receive the annual pension of 100 florins paid under Maximilian, and he published his Large Triumphal Carriage separately in 1522 (in the description below it is restored in its intended place as block 122 a-g); a smaller equivalent was substituted.

The woodcut series was sometimes hand-coloured, like other prints, but it is not to be confused with a different and much shorter illuminated manuscript Triumphs of Maximilian by Albrecht Altdorfer of 1513-1515 (now Albertina), with many similar scenes, but also many in which soldiers on foot carry banners containing representations of particular campaigns of the Emperor.