Imperial Personalities

Maximillian I

Recently I received the latest batch of figures from Stephans excellent Pro Gloria miniatures, http://progloriaminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/. As I am still experimenting with the flags I recently purchased I thought it would be a good idea show the Characters from Pro Gloria with their respective banners behind them. First is the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I with a Hapsburg banner behind him on the left and the Imperial Banner to the right. A great figure, I love the armour and the face, have a look at Durers portrait of him, I reckon its a pretty good likeness!

Maximillian I by Albrecht Durer

Secondly, below, is Georg Von Frunsberg, the famous Imperial Landsknecht Captain. Again the figure is a close likeness to a contemporary portrait. I can see him at the head of a pike block leading the charge!



Georg Von Frunsberg



Georg Von Frunsberg

Lastly we have Götz von Berlichingen another sometime Imperial Captain and sometime trouble maker and rebel leader. Famed for having a metal mechanical hand after he lost his right one, depicted on the miniature below. A while back I read "Renaissance Military Memoirs: War, History and Identity, 1450-1600" by Yuval Noah Harari and found it an excellent study into the beliefs of some of the Renaissance military characters who wrote memoirs. Initially I was sceptical about the book as the author goes into a lot of detail about he is going to compare WW2 and Vietnam War memoires with those from 1450 to 1600. An unsual approach but it comes up with some interesting conclusions. The reason I am mentioning this here is that the author looks at Götz von Berlichingen in some detail. Apparently throughout his whole memoires he barely mentions that he only has one hand! If anyone knows if and where his memoires are available in English translation I would love to read them, but I think they are only in German.

Götz von Berlichingen

Of course all 3 figures of these contemporaries could be used as generic Imperial Commanders, which is probably how I will use them, but its great to see some of the personalities from this period brought to life in miniature, and they go very well with Petes cloth flags.