Imperial diptych offerings to the emperor. However, the fact that the Barberini ivory was almost certainly not a diptych, but some kind of imperial icon without a second panel is a serious argument against the existence of the imperial diptych type. The two panels representing the empress Ariadne, in the Bargello in Florence and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, also belong to the hypothesied imperial diptych type. They are the only central panels of such a diptych (other than the Barberini ivory) to survive, since all other fragments of such diptychs are from side panels. Imperial diptych In Late Antiquity, an imperial
Imperial Count By being seated and allowed to cast a shared vote on a Count's bench an imperial count obtained, the "seat and vote" within the Imperial Diet which, combined with Imperial immediacy, made of his chief land holding an Imperial estate ("Reichsstand") and conferred upon him and his family the status of "Landeshoheit", i.e. the semi-sovereignty which distinguished Germany and Austria's high nobility (the "Hochadel") from the lower nobility ("Niederadel"), who had no representation in the Diet and usually answered to an over-lord. Thus the "reichsständische" imperial counts pegged their interests and status to those of the imperial princes. In 1521