In raising a worthy monument to his rule, the Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519), following examples from Antiquity, revived the motifs of the triumphal arch and triumphal procession. He commissioned Albrecht Dürer, the greatest German artist of his age, and other important masters (including Albrecht Altdorfer and Hans Burgkmairt) to prepare an imposing and colossal memorial using the woodcut technique, widespread in Europe only a few decades before.