Florentine Infantry

Florentine Infantry

Perry Miniatures Italian Infantry

 The last figures I have painted are from the excellent new Perrys European Armies, 1450-1500 range. As such they are for the very early part of the Italian Wars. I will probably mix them in with the TAG Italians I have already painted, some are pictured here http://camisado1500s.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/italian-crossbowmen-and-hail-shot.html to make them look a bit more suited for 1500-1510. There don't seem to be many pictures of Italian infantry from the Italian Wars but I have posted some interesting pictures below. Both are from frescoes in Italian Castles. The figures in the first are not soldiers but what is interesting is that although the fresco is from the 1520s they still look very similar to the Perry figures. Saying that the soldiers that are depicted in another fresco in the castle look like Landsknechts. The second picture is of garrison troops around 1500, you may recognise it from the Osprey book on Pavia. They look very much like the TAG Italians. I think when the two sets of figures are mixed in they will be great for the armies of the Venetians in the early Italian Wars, Cesare Borgia or Julius II. 

Fresco from Malpaga Castle c.1520-30



Fresco from Castello di Issogne c.1500

 I love the figures with the Swords and Shields shown below but I hated painting the shields! Some I had to redo about 4 times! I did not want them to be for a specific Italian faction, so they needed to be generic and I wanted to try and get them to look something like the designs on this site: http://www.ugopozzati.it/Rotelle-Milanesi.htm . The problem is the designs on the site are way too difficult for me to paint so I went for simplified designs that are similar or have similar patterns. I am quite pleased with them but they took ages. I hate painting designs like this free hand.
Another pet hate of mine is painting striped hose. I try and avoid painting them when I can but these figures are just crying out for them so I gave it ago and I am pleased with the results although there is still a lot of room for improvement.The Florentine Banners are by Pete: http://thegreatitalianwars.blogspot.co.uk/ . I made the standards interchangeable so the figures can be used as Papal Troops, Milanese, Florentines or Venetians, the flags just have to be changed. I am looking forward to see what the Perrys do next in this range.

Perry Miniatures Italian Light Infantry

Perry Miniatures Italian Light Infantry



Italian command with Florentine Banners



Italian Handgunners

Italian Crossbowmen