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Karlmann the Bastard.

  • ARTIST:

  • PUBLISHER: Published by Bernardo Giunti, Venice.

  • MEDIUM: Engraving,

    DATE: 1588

  • EDITION SIZE: Image size 7 7/8 x 5 1/8" ( 20.2 x 13 cm)

  • DESCRIPTION: This portrait depicts Karlmann the Bastard, the illegitimate son of Louis the Stammerer, a marginal Carolingian figure whose presence in historical records is slight yet was incorporated by early modern compilers into their extended visual successions of French rulers. Published by Bernardo Giunti in Venice in 1588 within Cronica breue de i fatti illustri de’ re di Francia, the image follows the chronicle’s orderly bust-length format, placing Karlmann among the figures who represent the uncertain landscape of late 9th-century kingship. Though he exercised no recorded political authority, his appearance within the sequence reflects the compiler’s effort to acknowledge peripheral branches of the dynasty, situating him in the unsettled years following Louis’s death in 879 and on the eve of the pressures that culminated in the Viking siege of Paris in 885–886.

  • ADDITIONAL INFO:

  • CONDITION: Good condition, light scattered foxing.

  • REFERENCE:

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