Hi everyone!
A few months ago @Atheling here on the forums had a thread looking for inspiration on the appearance of 15th century Byzantines, around the mid-century. Unfortunately where there aren't many surviving contemporary sources, it's a bit of a difficult search, but it got me inspired to have a go at tackling a project for those late-late-late Romans!
The aim is to have the project be able to represent Byzantine (and adjacent) forces from about the 1440s up to the 1480s, to cover the period between Constantine Palaiologos' campaigns in the 1440s, up to some alternate-history "what if?" takes on if the Palaiologan exiles in Italy actually attempted one of the abortive Papal expeditions against the Ottomans. I'm trying to integrate elements from both the Palaiologi in Constantinople (and the Morea), and the Empire of Trebizond, there's some definite differences between them (as a rule, Constantinople seems much more Italian-influenced), but enough overlap that in some cases things can be used interchangably.
There's unfortunately very few contemporary visual depictions (or even comprehensive textual ones) describing the 15th century Byzantine (or Trapezuntine) militaries, so I'll be needing to work off a lot of assumptions, but there are a few hints we can glean from
adjacent sources, such as church frescoes, early Renaissance artwork and small tidbits that were written down. The church frescoes and artwork are undoubtedly going to be victim to a bit of embellishment for aesthetic reasons, but they seem like a good start at the very least!
For this project I'll be drawing quite heavily on two particular pieces, the manuscript
Il Virgilio Riccardiano, a Florentine manuscript from 1460 depicting the conquest of Troy (with Greeks and Trojans swapped out for Byzantines), and a Cassone believed to depict the fall of Trebizond, made some time after the event (again, in Italy), which shows Trapezuntine soldiers consistent with descriptions made earlier in the century by Clavijo (particularly the hats!). Unfortunately, I've not been able to find any high-resolution images that aren't completely covered in watermarks for the Virgil, so I probably won't be able to share them here, but I'd encourage you to look them up, because they're quite nice illustrations!
http://www.riccardiana.firenze.sbn.it/index.php/it/raccolte-digitali/31-parnaso-di-carta/30-il-virgilio-riccardianoThere is of course the caveat that the Council of Florence in 1439 was very much in the public consciousness, and John Palaiologos and his retinue seem to have
very much captured the imagination of early renaissance painters, with most 'Romans' in religious (especially crucifixion) artwork being shown with the dress and equipment of the Byzantine delegation there, so it could be that these depictions are simply a subset of an elite diplomatic party rather than necessarily representative of the Byzantine military at large! You see consistent patterns across Burgundian and Italian depictions though (particularly when it comes to headgear), so I figure either things spread quite quickly by word of mouth, or there was some truth to the artwork!
As a general rule though, and the assumption I'm working off of, is that the Byzantine military (where it existed at all) was a combination of Italian-style (or outright Italian) infantry, Balkan, Caucasian or Turkish lighter infantry and cavalry, and contingents from assorted Western powers such as Burgundy and the Italian states.
So for a start for the project, I've put together an officer, and a standard bearer to kick things off!
The officer wears a suit of imported Italian plate armour (Theodore Palaiologos was known to have a set, and allegedly it was quite sought after by the upper echelons)
He has a curved Byzantine sword, and a fashionably pointy Byzantine hat as well
The hat is inspired by the one shown in almost every depiction of John Palaiologos, and later among other 'generic' Byzantines in other artwork. It shows up fairly often in Il Virgilio Riccardiano amongst both the higher officers and common infantry as well
The standard bearer is based on a fresco from Agios Ioannis Lampadistis monastery on Cyprus (many frescoes were painted shortly after the fall of Constantinople by refugees fleeing to Cyprus, however, some were only made in the 16th and 17th century), combined with depictions of foot-soldiers in Il Virgilio Riccardiano, which show very clear Italian equipment, such as barbutes in evidence. He could be either an elite household soldier with some imported Italian gear, or a mercenary fighting for the Byzantines. The fresco shows 'Roman' soldiers with very Western looking helmets and equipment, with long mail hauberks over the top of red tunics (in the Italian style), so that was something I decided to use here
For the standards themselves, I wanted to be able to swap out the banners depending on the context (so the force could represent Constantinopolitan Byzantines, Trapezuntines, Moriotes, etc.), so I used this idea in this post to attach the flags themselves to lengths of brass tube so they could be slotted over the banner pole as needed:
http://olicanalad.blogspot.com/2010/07/top-tip-flags.htmlCurrently I've painted up three flags, a Tetragrammatic Cross for the Palaiologi:
A two headed eagle (based on the Catalan Atlas) for Trebizond (traced from another image because eagles are NOT my strong suit!):
And though I've got doubts that it's strictly accurate, I do have a soft spot for the Trebizond zebra stripes in Europa Universalis IV, so I painted up a flag for that too:
This will probably be quite a slow project, where every figure needs a bit of converting and sculpting, but I hope this is good for a start! Let me know how they've turned out!