"Links to Pictures of Late 15th Century Italian Soldiers?" Topic

Been searching for pictures of Late 15th Century Italian soldiers available on the internet.

Seen lots of French, Swiss, and Germans, yet only a few for the Italians, and those have mostly been for Venice. I'd like to see more for Milan (got one), and some of the other cities like Napels, Florence, Mantova, Modena, Siena, Savoy, Genova, and the Papal States.

Don't know how to upload pictures here so I did a post at my blog: link
Unfortunately the pictures are small and I can't recall where I found them.

So those pictures are from WRGs Armies and Enemies of Medieval Europe volume 2 I think.

A suggestion for finding such on the internet, might be to search for re-enactment groups. There are a few Italian ones out there "doing" that period.

Phillius -- I updated my blog-post with that information so interested readers can find the original source with better pictures.

Here is a selection of pictures of late 14th to early 16th century Italian soldiers.

Druzhina

While there will be some variation between different regions, most soldiers in Italy during the late 15th century looked very similar. There were very little, if any, real regional variations. Remember almost all the armor in Europe came from a small number of armorers, most of which were located in Italy during this period (I think something like 75%). The differences would be in the colors worn.

Here are some examples I have taken off the internet over the years, and some I scanned from a book of illustrations taken from period artwork.

Nice pics thanks for sharing!

FlowerofBattle: Good to see those pictures you showed as well as your figures. When you mentioned on your site that the figures are more uniform than historically seen, what did you mean by this?

Druzhina: Thanks for that link!

El Duderino: Appreciate all those pictures. Where were the pen and ink drawings from? Do you know where the heraldry on the spearsmen shields is from? You mentioned there were differences in the colors worn, are you familiar with what those were? And regarding the two paintings that have large numbers of soldiers in them, do you know who did those?

Also, found it interesting there were feathers shown on those pictures. I've seen pictures of Swiss soldiers wearing feathers, yet hadn't seen any on Italians before.

GamesPoet: By "too uniform" I was referring to the paintjob on my miniatures. I went with red and white for most fabric, with some black for the brigandines. The leather has the same color on all guys (I think). In reality the colours would probably not be as standardised.

I guess that Italians around the time I'm into (ca 1450) could wear some matching livery, but probably not to the extent I have had it done with mathing legs as well as matching upper bodies and helmet decorations. I would assume that in real life most fighters would have worn brigandines and leather details of different colours and the pants/hosen would probably be of colors that are different than their livery.

I just want my company to look nice and that's why I went "too uniform" with the colors matching the captains personal heraldry.

I forgot to mention the sources that I use when researching armour: Effigiesandbrasses.com and manuscriptminiatures.com.

For the first, here is a search: link

For the second there are still too few sources but here are some examples slightly outside your period of interest: link

I have mainly looked into German armours using these sources but there should be some relevant Italian stuff there to.

Perhaps those that had a wealthy leader or belonged to some standard unit, maybe they had more uniformity in dress or color, but I'm speculating. I've seen miniatures where the element of dress is the same, and those where the colors used are the same while in different combinations of what is the same color, and others where different colors were used across a unit as well. Perhaps in reality different units were dressed in any number of different ways.

Part of the pay of condottieri bands was often in bolts of cloth. These would be distributed to the individual companies for soldiers to have made into suits of clothing, so companies may often have worn the same combination of colours but in different cuts or styles – stripes, parti-coloured, solid colour, etc.

The flag bearer in El Duderino's 1st picture is wearing a Sajone.
See Gush Italians & Swiss for examples.

El Duderino's 6th picture (with lots of soldiers) is:
la cacciata dei bonacolsi da mantova – Domenico Morone

Druzhina

Thanks Druzhina. Beat me to it.

Colors depended on many factors. Were the troops militia, provisonati (city state raised and maintained troops), mercenaries, foreign, ducal guards, etc., etc., etc.? I'd follow color schemes for each base or unit (in Impetus) to make them appear more unit-like. I would also base the color schemes on (for example) ducal livery colors, or colors from the city's flag, or leading condottieri banners, etc.

A real good source for information is Hale's Artists and Warfare in the Renaissance. One can usually pick the book up used for a reasonable price:
link

Cheers,

John

PS-"Saio" in Italian which translates to priest's vestment or habit. "Saione" probably means longer or larger vestment.

PS-The illustrations are from: Armi E Armati nell'Italia dei Secoli XV-XVI (trans.: "Arms and Armor in Italy from the 15th and 16ht centuries").

Not sure the source of the hearaldry on the shield of the reenactor. The round shield in the illustration is the Florentine Fleur di Lis which of course is red.

The third illustration depicts infantry in the service of Federico I d'Aragona, this dude:

Druzhina: Thanks for the links to info provided by Gush. Very good reads! It appears from that, the Italians didn't use pikes as much as say the Swiss and Germans, yet this does lead me to wonder as to what extent some Italians used pikes more than other Italians in the second half of the 14th century.

Also, I'm going to see if I can find larger pictures of those paintings, particularly Morones, to see more detail, so thanks for the info on that as well.

- – -

El Duderino: Thanks for the suggestion to Hale's book!

Familiar with the Florentine fleur de lis, but was not familiar with the heraldry in the picture below that, where it is shown on the shields of 2 spearmen and a swordsman, the crossed Roman numeral one's in two quarters, with the vertical bars in the other two quarters.

It appears from that picture above that there were quite a mix of colors for Federicus' (Frederick IV's) troops from Naples, and it seems they are mostly carrying spears. It is interesting to see the more armored figure carrying the polearm, and the swordsman with the large shield, although a couple of the spearsmen have sheilds, too.

And I am intrigued by learning the black and white illustrations are from an Italian book on arms and armor for the 15th & 16th century, yet wondering if the feathers were more of a 16th century thing or not.

'Google Images' can be used to find different sizes of pictures on the web. The image of Morone's above seems to be the largest at 1100 x 572 (save it if it is shrunk to a smaller size by TMP on your screen, then view it). It can also be found at wga.hu/art/m/morone/ battle.jpg {Edit:space inserted in address so that TMP doesn't display the image}
So, books may be the place to go for a better image.

Druzhina

It appears from that, the Italians didn't use pikes as much as say the Swiss and Germans, yet this does lead me to wonder as to what extent some Italians used pikes more than other Italians in the second half of the 14th century.

The Florentine Republic used a lot of pikemen.
There is a pikeman illustrated in 'Armies of the Middle Ages, Volume 1' by Ian Heath. The source is The Rout of San Romano 1432 series by Paolo Uccello (painted in the 1450s) {the one with the checked hat}.
'Italian Medieval Armies 1300-1500' by D.Nicolle and G.A.Embleton also uses this series link & link
As well as 'Life of St. Ursula' by Carpaccio, 1490-93, 'Portrait of Federigo de Montefeltro' by Della Francesca, 'Siege of Perugia', by Benedetto Di Bonfiglio, c.1455-70, Galeria nazionale, Perugia and 'St. Florian', by Zaganelli, c.1480, Uffizi, Florence.

Druzhina

El Duderino: could you, please, provide a description for the three pictures from "Armi e armati nell'Italia dei Secoli XV-XVI"?

From top to bottom:

Upper right corner man at arms and foot soldier of Cesare Borgia 1501-03. The foot soldier being from the Romagna. On the upper right troops in the service of Gonzaga. Lower left foot soldier in the service of Venice 1515. The lower right papal standard bearer at Ravenna 1512. Some of these figures can be seen on "The Assault Group" website, for instance: link

Next illustration depicts a standard bearer in the service of Giovanni Bentivoglio 1493. The infantry in the lower portion include the two handed swordsman in the service of Venice, spearmen and sword & shield troops in the service of Francesco II Gonzaga. ANd, of course the stradiot in the back of the foot troops in the service of Venice. All are from around 1495.

The third illustration depicts troops in the service of Federico I d'Aragona 1496-1500, including swordsmen with shields, spearmen, javelin-armed foot with round shields, and musicians, and of course a pikeman.

Thank you, El Duderino.

By the way, I've thought that troops in the third picture were from Papal States and not from Naples and that the spearman with the shield in the second picture was Florentine.

El Duderino's 4th picture:
Young Knight in a Landscape (also known as Portrait of a Knight); 1510; by Vittore Carpaccio; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

El Duderino's 7th picture:
a detail from: Delivery of the keys, Sistine Chapel (1481-1483) by Pietro Perugino

Druzhina
sites of wargaming interest

Thanks Druzhina. Sergio (I think) was asking about the three line drawings. There is more information in the book from which they come, but it would take me sometime to translate from Italian into English.

Sergio (I think) was asking about the three line drawings.

Yes, I was just adding more answers to an earlier question.

Don't worry El Duderino. I'm Italian :)

Thanks for all the additional information, much appreciated. Some great stuff provided here!

And thank you for the list of those sites, as well. Intend to take a closer look at those soon.

I've started 6 Perry Euro Mercs so far. Made three arm and chest armored pikes, along with a drummer, leader, and standard bearer. Gave basinet style helmets for the troops and muscian, T-shaped barbuta for the leader, and Greek-nosed barbuta fr the standard bearer.

I find it interesting that so many of the figures in the drawings have feathers, because previously my impression was this was more of a Swiss thing. Might need to cut some from the other helmet styles, and make some additions to the ones being used.

The look of Italian early renaissance soldiers is one I'm really starting to like. Suspect I'll be seeing what else can be created with some more combinations, and as I begin doing some more of the pikes, I'm interested in seeing some pictures of Italian crossbowmen and handgunners … next?

Feathers were used by just about everyone.

Handgunners and crossbowmen would look pretty much like all the other foot troops less that shields and spears, of course.