Today the postman brought me a surprise... A Christmas gift from a friend!
"Fashion ad Armour in Renaissance Europe", by Angus Patterson , a wonderful book published by the Victoria and Albert Museum ...
A rather unusual book, that analyses armours and weapons as clothing and accessories, because that was the role of the beautifully decorated suits of armour and carved weapons that noblemen were so often shown wearing in paintings, and now are exhibited in collections and museums... Armours and weapons meant to be used in battle were usually simpler as design and without many decorations.
The illustrations are almost equally divided between period paintings or miniatures, showing armours with an amazing level of detail, and photos of objects on display in the V&A Museum: as a whole, they give a very complete view of the topic...
Many of these items came from Milano! My city was once an important center for weapons and armours manufacturing, and Milanese suits of armours can be found in lots of museums around the world...Pity that so little remains here! A few things at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum (unfortunately it's the only museum I know to have a collection of weapons and armours without a _single_ note of what's on display, so it's difficult to guess exactly periods or origins of what one is seeing... ) and at the Castle ...
Obviously I haven't yet had the time to read the text (only the introduction!), but Angus Patterson is the Curator of European Mase Metals and Arms and Armour a the Victoria and Albert Museum, so I trust it will be excellent..
The only problem with V&A books is that the more I get of them , the more I would like... :-)
A rather unusual book, that analyses armours and weapons as clothing and accessories, because that was the role of the beautifully decorated suits of armour and carved weapons that noblemen were so often shown wearing in paintings, and now are exhibited in collections and museums... Armours and weapons meant to be used in battle were usually simpler as design and without many decorations.
The illustrations are almost equally divided between period paintings or miniatures, showing armours with an amazing level of detail, and photos of objects on display in the V&A Museum: as a whole, they give a very complete view of the topic...
Many of these items came from Milano! My city was once an important center for weapons and armours manufacturing, and Milanese suits of armours can be found in lots of museums around the world...Pity that so little remains here! A few things at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum (unfortunately it's the only museum I know to have a collection of weapons and armours without a _single_ note of what's on display, so it's difficult to guess exactly periods or origins of what one is seeing... ) and at the Castle ...
Obviously I haven't yet had the time to read the text (only the introduction!), but Angus Patterson is the Curator of European Mase Metals and Arms and Armour a the Victoria and Albert Museum, so I trust it will be excellent..
The only problem with V&A books is that the more I get of them , the more I would like... :-)
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