Eleven Caesars

rdf:langString Eleven Caesars

rdf:langString The Eleven Caesars was a series of eleven painted half-length portraits of Roman emperors made by Titian in 1536-40 for Federico II, Duke of Mantua. They were among his best-known works, inspired by the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius. Titian's paintings were originally housed in a new room inside the Palazzo Ducale di Mantova. Bernardino Campi added a twelfth portrait in 1562. The portraits were copied by Flemish engravers in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who added engravings of twelve Roman Empresses. Between 1627 and 1628 the paintings were sold to Charles I of England by Vincenzo II Gonzaga, and when the Royal Collection of Charles I was broken up and sold after his execution by the English Commonwealth, the Eleven Caesars passed in 1651 into the collection of Philip IV of Spain. They were all destroyed in a catastrophic fire at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid in 1734, and are now only known from copies and engravings.