Don Sebastian | 29 Jul 2014 3:53 p.m. PST |
Does anyone know how would italian infantrymen look like during the 1520s? Would they still wear the characteristic dress of the late XV century, with tight leggings and shirts, or would "landsknecht" fashions have caught them already? |
Daniel S | 29 Jul 2014 4:20 p.m. PST |
Italy evolved it's own styles of military clothing that were quite distinct from that worn by the Landsknechts and Swiss. (What today is considered Landsknecht style clothing was never adopted on a large scale outside Germany and Switzerland though you had limited adoption in areas heavily influenced by German fashion) While the Italian fashion came to include some elements of the "Landsknecht" style such as decorative slashing it did so in a way that the end result was notably diffrent from the German style in apperance. This image shows Landsknecht arquebusiers together with as single arquebusier dressed in an Spanish style
While both styles have slashed details one owuld not mistake the Germans for Spanish. The same applied to Italian clothing. |
Don Sebastian | 29 Jul 2014 5:18 p.m. PST |
Got it! And would the italian dress also look different from the spanish? (P.S.:Daniel, you mentioned that the true landsknecht fashion was somewhat adopted in areas of German influencie. Were Denmark and Sweden such areas?) |
Druzhina | 30 Jul 2014 5:18 a.m. PST |
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Don Sebastian | 30 Jul 2014 11:14 a.m. PST |
Thank you, druzhina! The dress really seems to be italian, with the addition of some "puffy" and "german-like" elements. Do you know any depiction of italian soldiers from the 1525 – 1530 period? |
Druzhina | 31 Jul 2014 1:56 a.m. PST |
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Daniel S | 31 Jul 2014 2:59 a.m. PST |
The Guards are labled as the Emperors guard according to the label you quote with the image. Could be the Archers who formed a part of the Guard of Karl V. |
Druzhina | 31 Jul 2014 5:34 a.m. PST |
The Rijksmuseum calls them Keizerlijke garde, but there is no Latin caption to plate 26 to support this and these escort both the Pope and the Emperor, so I chose not to translate this to English. If they are the emperor's troops, they are still probably Italian (in Sajones) as his cavalry & landsknechts & Spanish Infantry are at the rear of the procession and on plates 21-23. As there are no others that seem to be Papal infantry, these seem more likely to be them. I would expect archers to be wearing helmets, see The Entry of Emperor Charles V into Augsburg, 1530, by Jörg Breu Druzhina 16th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers |
Daniel S | 31 Jul 2014 11:36 a.m. PST |
That close to the Emperor you are only likely to find his own bodyguards, his holiness the Pope would in this case find his security provivded by the secular ruler rather than being allowed to include some of his Swiss in the procession Charles V had two units which served as bodyguards, the German Trabanten and 'Spanish' Hartschiere (German mangling of the Italian "Arciere"), the later carried the glaive ("Kuse" in German aka "Gusy") when serving on foot, for example on cermonial duties. The weapon had been inherited from guards of Philip of Castille and would not only be used by later Habsburg guards such of Archduke (later King/Emperor Fredinand's own unit of Hartschiere but also spread to Bavaria where the Ducal Hartschiere carried the glaive on cermonial duties until the end of the unit in 1918. The Bavarian Hartschiere had their origin in an unit of Spanish Hartschiere given to Duke Wilhelm by Charles. V. The glaives and their proximity to the Emperor all points to the Guardsmen being his Hartschiere. The Trabanten usually carried halberds which can be seen in the Breu images at your website. The halberd armed Trabanten can also be seen in Vermeyen's Tunis paintings were they stand next to Charles V as the army is mustered.
In the field the Hartschiere fought mounted as lancers and they appear in another painting by Vermeyen. The coats worn by the Guardsmen are not an unique Italian style but a garment found all over Europe under diffrent names and with slight variations. The Yeomen of the Guard wore them as "Jakettes" and they can be seen worn as liveries by other members of the Tudor court in artwork, "jerkins" in similar style was are descibed being worn by the Scots Archers of the French Royal Guard and even in far away Finland paintings from the 1530's found in Åbo castle show such coats worn by courtiers. Similar coats are worn by the halberdies (Trabanten) guarding the Emperor in Jörg Breu's engraving as well. |
Daniel S | 31 Jul 2014 2:45 p.m. PST |
Got it! And would the italian dress also look different from the spanish? (P.S.:Daniel, you mentioned that the true landsknecht fashion was somewhat adopted in areas of German influencie. Were Denmark and Sweden such areas?)
It's hard to say for certain due to the lack of reliable detailed sources. In Germany and Switzerland there developed a "school" of very detailed military artwork with drawings and engravings in several cases being made by men who had served as or alongside Landsknechts & Reislaufers. But in Spain and Italy there never developed the same interest in making detailed artwork showing the common soldier "warts and all". So there are far fewer good pictorial sources available. The exception are the huge "cartoons" made by Vermeyen showing events of the Tunis campaign. Two have been lost but 10 still survive in Vienna. Massive in size (each is almost 4 meters tall and a bit over 8 meters long) they show renaissance soldiers in unprecendented detail. Many figures are basicly life size which creates a stunning impact that photos simply won't convey. Vermeyen took part in the campaign and made extensive sketches of events, these sketches became the fundation for his work 10 years later with the cartoons and is one reason why troops are shown in the fashion of 1535 rather than 1545. He also captured the diffrent styles in use but it is not easy to correctly indentify a particular style with a nationality. German landsknechts are of course easy to spot as are the Albanians and Spanish light cavalry. But for the Spanish and Italian troops there are 2-3 styles seen but which is which? It seems like Vermeyen not only distinguished between German and non-German but also between Spanish veterans, Spanish recruits and Italians. And of course the sailors present are dressed diffrently from the landlubbers as are the civilians. I took a lot of pics of Vermeyen's paintings while in Vienna but the way the "kartoons" are displayed make many parts impossible to photograph due to intense reflections in the protective glass. Not to mention that you need a ladder to reach the upper parts. One of the parts I was simply unable to get photos are ones with troops which are expressly labled as Italians. Both Denmark and Sweden was heavily influenced by German civilian fashion and there was some influence on military dress as well but at least in Sweden the adaption of Landsknecht style clothing was limited to small groups of non-Germans due to the expense involved. |
olicana | 01 Aug 2014 5:17 a.m. PST |
I am slowly coming to the opinion that military dress became much the same, with varying degrees of flamboyance, for all nationalities during the Italian Wars – it became the 'slashed style' initially favoured by the Germans. It was 'what soldiers wore' and varied them from the national civilian populations of the time. However, having said that, I prefer my figures to have a national variance of look for easy table-top recognition. |
Puster | 02 Aug 2014 2:24 a.m. PST |
I would definitely not go so far to say that the dress became the same… Not more so then the piked helmet became staple for the European armies around 1900 (well, perhaps a bit more). I am quite sure that soldiers would recognize their nationality, allegiance and even current status by the outfit, its just that the differences are not well recorded. Styles of haircut and beard, headgear, knifes & daggers, footgear and especially clothing will certainly differ. I am just lost at WHERE Italian, French or Spanish style differs – at least its hard to define, even when you have an inkling whos who. The fact that style changed even within the armies within a decade or shorter does not help, too, but makes things interesting. A good point to thank Druzhina for his monumental work on collecting and classfying the available sources. :-) |
Thomas Mante | 02 Aug 2014 11:15 a.m. PST |
Daniel S Whereabouts are the Vermeyen 'kartoons' displayed in Vienna? |
Daniel S | 02 Aug 2014 11:34 a.m. PST |
They are displayed in the Kunsthistorichesmuseum as part of the "Emperor Charles V Captures Tunis" exhibition. link The entry ticket for the KHM is also valid at the Hofjagd und Rustkammer located in the Neue Burg which have a very impressive collection of arms & armour on display. |
Druzhina | 02 Aug 2014 8:02 p.m. PST |
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Daniel S | 03 Aug 2014 2:21 a.m. PST |
Ah, so there are even more copies of the work. The KHM only mentioned the originals artwork, i.e the cartoons by Vermeyen and the "Edition Principes" tapestries made by Willem de Pannemaker, as well as the copies made by Jodocus de Vos 1712-1721 for Karl VI. The missing cartoons are those for the 1st tapestry which is a huge map of Tunis and the mediterranean and that for the 9th tapestry titled "The Siege of Tunis". In both cases the Willem de Pannemaker tapestries survive. From a historical perspective the loss of the "Siege of Tunis" cartoon is the worst since it would have provided additonal highly detailed images of the various soldiers in the Emperor's army. |
Don Sebastian | 03 Aug 2014 12:44 p.m. PST |
Daniel, Druzhina and Puster, thank you all very much for all those answers! As always, you were amazingly helpful ((: |
Daniel S | 03 Aug 2014 3:13 p.m. PST |
I agree with Puster, there is little evidence that the dress became the same while there is a considerable body of evidence that suggests that national styles flourished side by side. There is more to the "landsknecht style" than slashing, the cut and shape of the garments are important as ther other parts of clothing in use. And slashed garments could have a very varied apperance depending on how the slashing was used to decorate the clothes.
All of the 3 soldiers above wear slashes clothes but even the pikeman in his elaborately slashes garments does not look much like a landsknecht. (Landsknechts below for comparison)
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Druzhina | 06 Aug 2014 12:06 a.m. PST |
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YogiBearMinis | 06 Aug 2014 3:00 p.m. PST |
Foundry HAD a line for this but it is no longer available. |
Puster | 07 Aug 2014 10:20 p.m. PST |
That was Foundrys recent "Renaissance" line – intended to replace the Perry Landsknecht & Gensdarmes included some Italian sets, but also some pretty bad sculpts and ahistorical equipment. They withdraw that range when the management changed, but offer to sell it (along with all old ranges) to anybody who still wants them – though as yet you have to know what you want and call them as they do not have them listed in their web catalogue. Imho these line was not worth it. BTW: The Museum in Vienna has published a pretty good coverage of the "Tunis campaign" art: "Der Kriegszug Kaiser Karls V. gegen Tunis" by Wilfried Seipel. For around 15 EUR you get pretty good pictures of the cartoons and many paintings and tapestries made from these (often the same scene on a double page in three version), so you can see firsthand what is lost and changed in the transition. German text only, but the text is secondary anyway, so imho well worth the buy if you are interested in the campaign or contemporary art. From a military aspect you can learn a lot about naval logistical operations, land lubbing artillery, on the equipment of the North African forces (shooting arquebus and crossbows from horse) and uniforms, though you really need the cartoons to fully benefit. |
Thomas Mante | 10 Aug 2014 8:58 a.m. PST |
Daniel S Thanks for the information – now down on the list of places to visit in Vienna! |
Capt Flash | 12 Aug 2014 10:20 a.m. PST |
So, what manufacturers make reasonable correct infantry for Soanish and Italian forces? I know Old Glory has a line is Soanish and Italian troops, but who else? -Edgar |
infdiv197 | 12 Aug 2014 2:56 p.m. PST |
Edgar, TAG – The Assault Group makes excellent miniatures for the entire Renaissance period. They make Italian, Spanish, German, Ottoman, etc. figures. theassaultgroup.com - Thomas |
Don Sebastian | 22 Aug 2014 11:12 p.m. PST |
Just found those frescos from the 1520s who might be of interest to others here: picture picture |
The Beast Rampant | 11 Sep 2014 7:12 p.m. PST |
The Assault Group makes excellent miniatures for the entire Renaissance period. Excellent, yes. And extensive, but the entire period? Hardly. |