"The Black Bands of Giovanni" Topic

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to model/paint these? Are they referred to as the Bande Nere because of clothing, flags, or occupation?

Kyle

from Wikipedia:

"As a symbol of mourning for the death of Pope Leo X (December 1, 1521), Giovanni added black bands to his insignia, whence comes his nick-name, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (or Giovanni of the Black Bands)."

Blackened flags, black arm bands (scarves), that sort of thing.

Nothing uniform about these guys.

Quite possibly the black bands added to this insignia would be black ribbons or such attached to the top of standards.

They were mounted arqubusiers , large part foot arqubusiers and the rest men at arms.
As the other Lads stated , black ribbons, sashes possible but this Bande Noir concept was common for mercs of the period.
All the best,Clif

I just checked out a copy of Maurizio Arfaioli's "The Black Bands of Giovanni: Infantry and Diplomacy during the Italian Wars (1526-1528)" In his introduction he wrote that his original intent was to focus on Giovanni de Medici of the Black Band fame. However, once he began to review the 16th century sources he quickly discovered that the Black Bands of Giovanni were a myth that was born during the consolidation of the Italian state in the late 19th century.

As a result, he concluded that Giovanni delle Bande Nere did NOT exist and that his troops did not adopt black standards and become known as the "Black Bands" until AFTER his death in 1526. Perhaps you guys knew this but it was not clear to me and it eroded my desire to put together a "black band" since I was interested in Giovanni's participation in the wars. I will probably still do some of his units but I will not refer to them as Black Bands (thus splitting hair so to speak).

Kyle

Hmm.

Luigi Guicciardini wrote his "sacco di roma" shortly after the events and refers to Giovanniy and his black bands several times. I am not sure wether its a translational error (I use the edition by James H. Gregor) but this would be highly unusual.

According to the glossary of that book the "black bands" were adopted at the death of Leo X, a distant relative of Giovanni, and were worn in the form of black stripes on the armour and clothing. There are also several contemporary references to the Black Bands being at Pavia (actually, two Black Bands, the German Landsknecht formation of Francois that was virtually wiped out, and the Bande Nere of Giovanni di Medici – Chamberlin actually manages in his "Sack of Rome" to mix up these two and declare the destruction of Giovannis unit, which actually was only lightly involved in the fighting) and I fail to see how contemporary reports can be so misinterpreted.

Now I need to find a copy of Arfaiolis book…

Puster,

Well worth the effort to find a copy of Arfaiolis, it is part of the author's PhD work undertaken at the University of Warwick. It is available in both Italian and English editions and is fully footnoted as to be expected from an academic work. That said it is far from a dry or dull text and it is refreshing to have something new and well researched for the Italian Wars rather than having to rely on Taylor or Oman both of which are showing their age.

One of the most interesting aspects (and unexpected)of this book for me is the work that he did regarding the composition of the individual companies after Giovanni's death. Apparently Florence and the company commanders disputed the composition. The author did some fairly in-depth research on these "condottas" (sp?)or contracts. One of the things that I learned from this aspect of the text is that companies of arquebusiers also included a large number of melee armed troops. Based on this work, it seems that a company of arquebusiers consisted of around 70% firearm troops and 30% melee armed troops (corselets, pikes, spears, etc). The author indicated that this was the same for contemporary Spanish units (before the tercio) as well.

Well, an Amazon purchase won't happen this year = $278. USD

Rich