Monday 16 April 2012

The Serene Republic

Venetian Cavalry
I have been experimenting with different styles of ready made flags for my collection and I thought I would show some shots of it being used to depict an early sixteenth century Venetian force. The flags are from Petes excellent cloth flag sheets: http://thegreatitalianwars.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/venetian-flags.html .
I have recently painted up a set of horsemen and infantry that I can swap the banners for. This has added a real flexibilty to the collection. By simply swapping the banners this army could be a Milanese or Florentine force. I have also downloaded some ready made flags and bought some Freezywater ones and I will show the results of these in future posts.
I am pleased with how these have turned out and will continue to paint up some more interchangeable standard bearers and flags. It no longer means that everytime I want to depict a certain standard or banner I have to paint a miniature specifically to carry it.

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Elmeti

Venetian Gendarmes

Venetian Gendarmes

Venetian Militia

Venetian Militia

Venetian Militia Pike Block

Venetian Infantry Command

Stradiots in Venetian service

Light guns


The Venetian Army

5 comments:

  1. The flags look great! Not sure the Venetians actually had any Cavalry in their employ that would quite make it to the Gendarme level (as opposed to the Elmeti and Lanze Spezati (? spelling), but who cares?

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    1. Cheers Gonsalvo, from what I recall the Venetians did have companies of heavy barded cavalry to defend the Terrafirma up until around 1550. Its been a few years since I read it but from what I recall John Hale and Michael Mallets enormous study of the Venetian army in this period explains how they had to keep them for prestige reasons even though they were extremely expensive and becoming less and less useful in the field. If they had the ferocity and elan of the French Gendarmes is a different matter altogether and the Venetian troops that defended the republics colonies would probably not have had heavy calvary like these.

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  2. Lovely stuff.You have made a great job on those Gendarmes.Like how you have used foundry and Eurekka Gendarmes in same unit,they seem to have mixed really well.

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  3. Really liked seeing this come togethar Oli looks fantastic!!

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