File talk:Albrecht Dürer - Emperor Charlemagne.jpg
"Notes" presentation of (painted) text inside the frame, flanking the head, is incorrect. The word transliterated as "impaĭnt" is actually "imperavit" [1], Latin (perf. indic. act., 3rd pers. sing.) literally for "he commanded", but loosely "he has ruled as emperor" [2].
"Annis·14·" is Latin (abl.--or dat.--pl.) for "14 years". Its ablative case signifies a point of time, not a duration (which would instead require the accusative case ending "-os"). Could Dürer have simply erred in his Latin declension?[3] This is disconcerting, because although he did rule as Holy Roman Emperor from 800 to 814, it was only from his coronation by Pope Leo III on 25 Dec. 800 to 28 Jan. 814: By modern reckoning, only 13 years plus a month. Perhaps being a "Roman" empire, spans of years were reckoned as the Romans did, by counting both end-points, so that 25 December 813 began "14 years". And that count may be further confounded by the calendar date on which years began, whether for civil or religious purposes. Those are issues I haven't addressed.
As things stand, the ( (painted) text should instead be translated thus:
English: Charles the Great (Charlemagne) in the 14th year (that) he imperially ruled.
Deutsch: Karl der Große im 14. Jahr (daß) er hat kaiserlich regelen. (oder er regelte wie Kaiser?).[4]
References: [1] My correction: "impaĭnt" → "imperaĭnt" → "imperauit" → "imperavit". The letter that looks like a 'p' with a decoratively devout crossing stroke on the descender, is in fact a medieval abbreviation, now represented in Unicode version 5 Latin Extended-D (U+A720--A7FF) as U+A751 (ꝑ): 'Latin small letter P with stroke through descender' ('ꝑ'). Informallly, see Alan Wood’s Unicode Resources ... Test for Unicode support ... Latin Extended-D. In medieval times, it commonly abbreviated "per", either as a mere syllable, or as the Latin preposition meaning "through". Informally, see last bulleted paragraph in Manuscript Studies IV.vi. ... Scribal Abbreviations. I transliterated the following letter painted as a 'u' glyph into the 'v' glyph common for consonantal use. The faint apparent diacritical marks over the vowels in the words painted may be simply informal assistance to reading text with multiple bold vertical strokes, which is why the modern lower-case 'i' now has its dot.
[2] English is limited to a generic word "to rule" for exercising royal authority, and does not have a distinct one meaning "to rule as emperor". In classical Latin, "impero", in which the modern English words "imperial" & "emperor" originated, most literally means simply "to command" (e.g.: as an officer), eventually gaining the sense of autocratic rule.
[3] "Despite complaining of his lack of a formal classical education" Albrecht Dürer per Wikipedia. However, phrases auf Deutsch identifying a point in past time also use the accusative, including those introduced by "für". Alas, I was hoping to be reminded of a requirement for the dative.
[4] I consulted a college-intro Deutsch textbook for native speakers of English, plus a Deutsch/English pocket dictionary, but for finesse auf Deutsch, consult a native speaker.
