Nineteenth-century German historians portrayed Maximilian I as a fascinating but enigmatic dignitary - the first modern ruler and the last medieval knight, the model humanist, a true Renaissance man. He has since been ridiculed as a spineless misadventurer, a Don Quixote whose head was full of magnificent fantasies and unattainable ambitions. Here, in this essay by the acclaimed British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, is Maximilian's extraordinary story.