A pioneer in virtual reality technology, that Maximilian.

The OG NFT.

Considering how much more expensive woodcutting and printing were in the early 1500s… couldn’t he have just built an actual tirumphal arch (albeit simplified) with that money?

Part of the point was to hand out copies to wealthy allies as a visible sign of favor. Physical arches are a little bit harder to dole out that way, or distribute around the nation. It was also cutting edge technology in a way simple arches weren't.

Probably. But you would only have one of those in your empire and your populace wasn't super mobile back then, so the audience would be limited.

This on the other hand, you could put up all over the place.

I guess part of the point is that it's not subject to the constraints of what you could actually do, so you can make it even more impressive. It's propaganda, after all.

Seriously, wow.

> the origins of Fraktur, that typeface having been commissioned by Maximilian I

It’s interesting to learn that Fraktur itself only dates back to the 16th century — the broader blackletter family of scripts goes back 400 years earlier than that, and was once used across the whole of western Europe.