Emperor Charlemagne

By the time Dürer took up this panel around 1512, the man in it had been dead for nearly 700 years, and nobody knew what Charlemagne had actually looked like. It didn't matter. Since 1424 Nuremberg had guarded the imperial regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, the crown, sword and orb used at every coronation, and once a year the city showed them to the public. Dürer was painting a figurehead for the chamber where those treasures were stored, so he gave Charlemagne the real things. The crown on his head is the actual imperial crown kept a few steps away, though it was made roughly 150 years after he died. The sword is the coronation sword. On his robe the German eagle sits on one side and the French lilies on the other, marking him ruler of both realms; Dürer painted a companion emperor, Sigismund, to hang beside him.