Caligula, Emperor of Rome. Line engraving by A. Sadeler, 16--, after Titian.

[Venice?] : Marcus Sadeler excud, [between 1600 and 1699?]

1 print : line engraving ; sheet 34.7 x 24.7 cm

C. Caesar Caligula. IV. Laetitiam picto poteris cognoscere vultu Urbi olim quanta hoc regnum ineunte fuit. Venit ad imperium multo fumantibus aris Sanguine, et innumera per fora caede boum. Principio haud melior quisquam, quo denique peior Nemo fuit, cecidit cum sibi gentis amor. Unam Romani, te qui truncare cupisti Cervicem populi, factio caedit ovans. Aegidius Sadeler S.C.M. sculp. Titianus inventor. Marcus Sadeler exc. Lettering in four elegiac couplets below the portrait

"Titian's series of portraits of the Caesars was painted for the Duke of Mantua, Federico II Gonzaga, between 1536 and 1540. Sold to Charles I of Great Britain in 1628, and acquired for Philip IV of Spain in 1651, they were lost in the fire at the Alcazar, Madrid, in 1734. Their immense popularity spawned many painted, drawn and engraved copies throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. … Engravings made around 1620 by Aegidius Sadeler (c. 1570-1629) also helped to popularise the Caesars across Europe , but it is possible that they were taken not from Titian's originals but from a further set of copies" (Coulter, op. cit., p. 563)

Frances Coulter, 'Drawing Titian's "Caesars": a rediscovered album by Bernardino Campi', The Burlington magazine, July 2019, 161: 562-571

Wellcome Collection 730667i

One print in a set of twelve pairs of prints of Roman emperors and empresses