The drawing depicts Charlemagne with one of his most famous wives, Ermengarda. The monarch was an unrepentant womanizer
Charlemagne , king of the Franks and a highly skilled politician, had a rather turbulent private life and he was, as attested by the sources, an unrepentant womanizer .
To the large number of wives in fact, five, Imiltrude, Desiderata, the sweet Ermengarda of Manzonian memory, Fastrada and Liutgarda, added an incredible crowd of concubines, which gives a perfect idea of the monarch's fieryness.
In short, Charlemagne could not be without women and had an infinite number of lovers, even when their wives were pregnant and even after Liutgarda's death.
It is therefore not surprising that numerous children, were born from the aforementioned extramarital affairs. it seems at least twenty; some of them died before their father and he was sincerely saddened.
The chronicles of the time refer to a very close bond, perhaps too much, with his daughters, foreshadowing a possible incestuous relationship, but it could be mere chatter; what is certain, however, is that Charlemagne demanded from the girls that they remain single for her life, so as not to make them move away from him, tolerating their more or less lasting or fleeting loves, in order to always have them near.