The Iconography of the Last World Emperor: A Study of a Late Fifteenth-Century Prophetic Image
Olga Vassilieva-Codognet
A complex allegorical late fifteenth-century picture of which the original is lost survives only in a series variously degraded copies, be they either German woodcuts or Italian engravings. This image has remained unsatisfactorily explained, no doubt because its unconventional iconography. Instead usual interpretation as satirical comment on contemporary political situation, we propose to understand it prophetic announcing imminent coming Second Charlemagne – French king who would become Last World Emperor turning thus an anachronistic journalistic into more convincing eschatological hope.
Ikon