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Author Topic: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (20/06 p3 - Militia Unit Complete)  (Read 13294 times)

Offline HappyChappy439

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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-riccardiano

There 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.html

Currently 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!
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 04:34:07 PM by HappyChappy439 »

Online OSHIROmodels

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2020, 12:01:54 PM »
A promising start  :)
cheers

James

https://www.oshiromodels.co.uk/

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Offline Atheling

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2020, 12:04:26 PM »
Yes!!!!  :-*

I'm so pleased that you have managed to get this project off the ground HappyChappy!  8)

I have to admit, I kind of gave up for the time being...... maybe you can hook me back into it? :)

Online OB

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2020, 01:13:04 PM »
Well done, they look great.

I'll follow your project with interest having often fancied doing it myself.  You might find the following reading of Runciman's Fall of Constantinople of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsmnj_WFB4&t=2739s

Offline gostgost

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2020, 07:22:42 PM »
A good start to an unusual period

Offline Captain Harlock

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2020, 10:35:16 PM »
Im going to follow this thread with great interest. This period is not represented enough. Loved the paramerion  :-* :-*

Offline Atheling

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2020, 11:05:20 PM »
Im going to follow this thread with great interest. This period is not represented enough. Loved the paramerion  :-* :-*

I'm going to follow and, I have to say it, probably nick stuff with permission of course :)

Offline Captain Harlock

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2020, 12:14:24 AM »
I'm going to follow and, I have to say it, probably nick stuff with permission of course :)
That goes without saying  lol lol
Im intending to sculpt some minis of the period at some point in the future, so this thread will be another source of inspiration  :-*

@HappyChappy439
as Im a native Greek, if I can offer any kind of help, dont hesitate to ask

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2020, 12:50:47 AM »
Thanks everyone!

You might find the following reading of Runciman's Fall of Constantinople of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsmnj_WFB4&t=2739s

Thanks for the link! I didn't realise there was an audiobook version!

I'm going to follow and, I have to say it, probably nick stuff with permission of course :)

 :D Granted, of course! The more the merrier!

Im going to follow this thread with great interest. This period is not represented enough. Loved the paramerion  :-* :-*

@HappyChappy439
as Im a native Greek, if I can offer any kind of help, dont hesitate to ask

Thanks for the offer! I've been taking Greek lessons but I'm still VERY much a novice, so I may have to take you up on that offer  :D And ironically the paramerion started life as a TAG Ottoman scimitar of all things!

Offline Hupp n at em

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2021, 03:52:07 AM »
Very interested to see where this goes!  A very under-represented period on the tabletop.  :)

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (24/01 - Stratio-tests!)
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2021, 05:48:36 PM »
Hi again!

Little bit of a delay from the last post...sort of a combination of indecisiveness and puzzling out how to convert each model!  lol

This time I've got an update with a couple more test figures, this time a few light cavalry!



Originally, these were intended to be the start of a specifically Pontic set of cavalry, for the Empire of Trebizond, based on the Trebizond Cassone painted by Apollonio di Giovanni, a Florentine artist, roughly around 1461:



I'd originally seen a description that the Cassone depicted the Conquest of Trebizond by the Ottomans, and showed a battle between the Trapezuntine forces (on the left), and the Ottomans (on the rights), where each army could be distinguished by their hats. So I started converting the cavalry based on this image...

However quite recently I found a very compelling article that suggests the Cassone does not depict the Conquest of Trebizond (though the city in the top-right is agreed to BE Trebizond), but instead, is an imaginary depiction of the Battle of Ankara in 1402. The argument is that the tall-hatted forces are not Trapezuntines, but are representing the Ottomans (with their Janissary hats), while the Turban-wearing force are the Turkmens of Timur's army.  I'm fairly convinced with this argument, where the hats are definitely consistent with contemporary depictions of Janissary hats, and the seated figure on the right is definitely labelled as Tamerlane. So this put me in a bit of a bind!

On a closer look, the only definitively Byzantine figure on the Cassone is this chap on the right:


There are also a few ambiguous people in the center, with slightly different hats to either side, who I think may actually represent local Byzantine soldiers. Their hats are consistent with other Western depictions of Byzantines of the era,...though I've got no confirmation on that unfortunately!



Here's a cropped image from Il Virgilio Riccardiano as a comparison, where the conquest of Troy is depicted through Byzantines-as-ancient-Greeks:


The outfits and equipment however are consistent with Pisanello's sketches of John VIII Palaiologos while he was in Florence, so I think I might be able to get away with something similar!

So with all that in mind, I figured, that the force might not necessarily be fully accurate to Constantinopolitan or Trapezuntine Greek soldiers (though the absence of concrete evidence either way means the opposite could also be true!), but they could very easily pass for Albanian or Turkish mercenaries. Both empires made heavy (and almost exclusive) use of mercenaries in their armies, and we know there was a large population of Albanians in the Despotate of the Morea so it's not a huge leap to assume that we'd see forces of Albanian or Turkish light cavalry being employed!

(Worst-case scenario, they can pass as Stradiots for my Italian Wars force!  lol )

Here's a more detailed view of the individual models:


The yellow-robed figure is almost a straight build of a Perry Stradiot, with a plume added to his hat





The green-robed cavalryman is a kitbash from a Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry figure, with a Perry Stradiot shield. The hair, hat-rim and most of the chest-part of the robe itself are green-stuff'd. His colour scheme and shield pattern are inspired by the Osprey "Trapezuntine Infantryman" illustration from "Byzantine Armies AD 1118–1461"






Hopefully they've turned out ok! Let me know if anyone's found any other interesting tidbits around how these would look!
« Last Edit: January 24, 2021, 05:52:35 PM by HappyChappy439 »

Offline Atheling

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (24/01 - Stratio-tests!)
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2021, 07:33:47 PM »
Excellent stuff HappyChappy  :-*

Oh, and thanks for doing the research  :)

Offline Anderson Collection

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (24/01 - Stratio-tests!)
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2021, 10:52:17 AM »
Those look great well done the addition of the feather in the cap totally changes the look of the Perry figure.
Like Atheling said thanks for the research and for posting the Il Virgilio Riccardiano image I hadn't seen that before love the colours.
Looking forward to more.

Willie

Offline HappyChappy439

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (24/01 - Stratio-tests!)
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2021, 11:59:23 AM »
Thanks both!

Like Atheling said thanks for the research and for posting the Il Virgilio Riccardiano image I hadn't seen that before love the colours.

I probably should point out that the Virgilio is also illustrated by Apollonio di Giovanni so there's always the risk of me putting all my eggs in one Florentine basket there!  lol

The Riccardian Library of Florence used to have the whole manuscript available online, but unfortunately it was Flash-based so it's pretty inaccessible now:

http://www.riccardiana.firenze.sbn.it/index.php/en/digital-collections/35-paper-parnass/77-il-virgilio-riccardiano-2

Offline Anderson Collection

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Re: A 15th Century Byzantine Project (24/01 - Stratio-tests!)
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2021, 04:39:32 PM »
I googled the artist quite a bit of imagery came up some great ideas there very colourful.

 

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