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| Alonso Sánchez Coello, 1567. Archduke Rudolf was then fifteen years old. | 
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| Martino Rota, circa 1570s. | 
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| Martino Rota, 1580. | 
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| Circle of Frans Pourbus the Youger, circa 1580s. | 
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| Joseph Heintz the Elder, 1594. | 
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| Studio of Hans von Aachen, circa 1590s. | 
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| Circle of Hans von Aachen, circa 1590s. | 
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| Hans von Aachen, circa 1590s. | 
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| Wax relief by Wenzel Maler, 1606. | 
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| As Vertumnus, by Guiseppe Arcimboldo, 1591. The Emperor was delighted with this whimsical portrait. | 
*
Rudolf II (18 July 1552, Vienna – 20 January 1612, Prague) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). A member of the House of Habsburg, he was withdrawn, depressive, intellectual, bisexual, distracted. The opening paragraph in his Wikipedia entry gets his place in history just about right:
Rudolf's legacy has traditionally been viewed in three ways: an ineffectual ruler whose mistakes led directly to the Thirty Years' War; a great and influential patron of Northern Mannerist art; and an intellectual devotee of occult arts and learning which helped seed what would be called the scientific revolution.
 
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