"early Italian wars gendarmes appearance" Topic

Interested in early part of wars (1495-1512)

I'm looking for a guide somewhere. I have some basic questions but would appreciate a published resource:
- how would the appearance of French and Italian gendarmes differ?
- I see lots of lances painted like barber shop poles, is this realistic? If not, how were they painted, if at all?
- did the French gendarmes have any kind of uniformity, or were they each in their own noble liveries?

Thanks

My understanding was that most of them were mercenaries.
If that's so then they were probably all pretty similar in dress and I believe they looked pretty much like a Cuirassier. Some (most) with blackened armor.
At least that's what mine look like.

thanks td. I thought blackened armor was a bit later?

Look at Olicana Lads blog. Plenty of accurately painted figures there in his refight of Cerignola 1503.

Yep just the ticket.

Here's a link.

olicanalad.blogspot.co.uk

No blackened armour for Gensdarmes in this era. More so, the "mercenaries" were still nobles, mainly professionals with pretty strict loyalities, and usually provide their own armour and livery. Exceptions exist, but you would usually get an individual mixture. Exceptions might include clothes provided by the captain or gensdarmes trying to go conform with a unit theme (black, white) or the livery of their captain, flag or liege.

Afaik there is no publication that covers this in any detail.

The Age of Chivalry by Liliane and Fred Funcken (Volumes 21 & 3) have a wealth of inspiring illustrations for the period and I am sure they include a few Gendarmes. Often these are available on amazon or ebay at reasonable prices.

Now that you mention the Funckens, their book indeed has a collection of Gensdarmes. The first blackened armour they show is from 1532. There is, however, nothing in this book that differs French from Italians. Chances are that these were hard to differ.

This contemporary should be the classic for Fornovo, so showing Italians and French:

I'm not sure I agree that there was no blackened armor yet but be that as it may…

I found this description…"somewhere".
ie.. I have long since lost the reference. So believe it to be accurate, or not, as you see fit.

Heavy cavalry
AT THE BEGINNING of the period the fully armoured cavalryman – the often aristocratic 'Gendarme' – still formed the main striking force of most European armies. Protected from head to toe by elaborate plate armour of 'Maximilian' or 'Italian' style, armed with a heavy lance and often riding a charger itself protected by an armoured 'bard', these ultra-heavy horsemen normally charged at the gallop 'en haie' (in line abreast) and, given open ground to charge over, could still smash most infantry other than solid formations of pikemen.
In the French and other forces such men still came to war with what amounted to a small retinue of servants and retainers – the French counted them by 'lances' each consisting of one gendarme and five lighter horsemen – and thus in the early 16th Century lighter and heavier cavalry charged together in mixed formation.
Heavy lancers remained in widespread use up to the end of the 16th Century, and in small numbers in, for example, Spanish service, up to the 30 Years War, and they were employed everywhere from England in the West to Poland and Hungary in the East. Their armour probably tended to become heavier during the 16th Century, since at least the main plates were made 'proof' (against firearms – by the 17th Century breastplates were supposed to be musket-proof and backplates pistol-proof). Certainly armour reached its greatest weight during this period – one Maximilian armour of 1520 weighed 42 lb, and an English armour of 1590 no less than 71 lb, while the armour for horse and man of the Count Palatine, 1530, totals about 120 lb.
Perhaps as compensation for this, horse armour seems to have largely disappeared after the first quarter of the 16th Century (German mercenaries in the service of Henry VIII refused to use horse bards, saying they were cumberous and only fit for show). Moreover, ¼ armour replaced full harness, heavy leather boots taking over the protection of the rider's lower leg. In the 17th Century the more heavily armoured cavalry usually wore a rather ugly type of ¾ armour, with a very short peaked breastplate and long laminated 'tassets' protecting them from waist to knee.
The invention of the pistol (probably in Germany in the 1530s) created an alternative type of heavy cavalryman, the pistolier, who gradually replaced the lancer in the second half of the 16th Century. Armoured similarly, or wearing half-armour, pistoliers formed up in close-packed square, wedge-shaped or column formation. They normally advanced at a ponderous trot, each rank loosing off their pistols when within range, then wheeling to a flank and proceeding to the rear to reload. This tactic, the 'caracole' or 'limangon' has been universally condemned by later military writers, and must certainly have been very difficult to carry out properly under battle conditions; moreover it was not very effective against other cavalry, especially if they were prepared to charge home.
However, it did give cavalry some chance of taking on the massive pike-blocks of the period, the pistol fire opening up gaps which could be exploited by a charge. I think this was probably why the pistolier was preferred to the Lancer in the later 16th Century. They must have been effective troops or their most famous exemplars, the mercenary German 'Reiters' would not have been in such demand for so long.
In the French Wars of Religion, Henry of Navarre began to train his Huguenot pistoliers to charge home with the sword, firing their pistols and then hurling them at the enemy at the last moment. This proved highly effective against other cavalry, and in the 17th Century cavalry operating in this way became very widespread and successful – the 'standard' type in fact. The charge finished at the gallop and there was a tendency toward the lightening of the armour of such horsemen, either to breast and back plate and open 'pot' helmet, or even to just a buff (leather) coat and plumed hat; in this period dealing with enemy cavalry had become the main cavalry task. Trotting pistoliers in heavier armour also survived, one example being the Parliamentarian cuirassiers or 'lobsters' of the English Civil War. Cavalry charging at the gallop were drawn up five or six ranks deep in the early 17th Century, later sometimes in three ranks. They were often supported by small groups of 'commanded' musketeers, interspersed chequer-board fashion between their squadrons.

The text is from Gush, and an overview that only touches the early period that the OP asked about – and contains a good deal of inaccuracies, eg. the French "lance" is described as it was in the (early) 15th century.