This paper analyses the modern reinterpretation and the dissemination mechanisms of Titian’s series of Twelve Caesars’, from their arrival at the old Alcázar of Madrid to the end of 17th century. Firstly, those Twelve Caesars’ representations that decorated palaces of the Spanish Monarchy, as well as the use of this iconography as a means of glorification of the Habsburg Emperors’ triumphal entries are analyzed.
Then, this collecting practices and the taste of the Spanish monarchs for the representations of Twelve Caesars’ would be emulated by the Spanish nobility of the time. The paper identifies representations of the Twelve Caesars in the inventories of contemporary art collections of the Spanish nobility and provides new documentary evidences relating to commissions of such series, as proofs of the remarkable diffusion reached by this classical Emperor’s images, which were transformed during the Spanish Golden Age into representation of the modern warrior.