Customer Reviews

Italian Medieval Armies 1300-1500 (Men-at-Arms)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

'Italian Medieval Armies' is a detailed look at the endemic and savage warfare of late medieval Italy. Here the political scene was dominated by fierce mercenary generals, while the battlefield was ruled by the condottiere mercenaries. Indeed, while early medieval Italian armies were populated largely by patriotic citizens fighting for their homes and families, those of this period were known for their cruel and flamboyant mercenaries from Central Europe and England.

Towards the close of his book Nicolle looks at 8 important battles and campaigns of this era to give a summary of Italian battle tactics and leadership. All throughout the book are black-and-white photos of suits of armor, castles, and contemporary artwork that help flesh out some of these events and those that lived them. Gerry Embleton's color plates in this book are among his betters; they are pretty much on par with his great artwork in the 'Armies of Medieval Burgundy' title.

Shortly, this is a nice men-at-arms title and a good companion to the recently published 'Condottiere 1300-1500'.

"Italian Medieval Armies" is a typical Osprey Publishing book from the mid 1980's. The text by David Nicolle is mediocre at best. Nicolle's writing reminds me of reading someone's master's thesis. It is all very earnest but nevertheless clumsy and not very deep. The illustrations by G.A. Embleton are competent but appear flat and dull by comparison with the improved quality of illustration in recent Osprey publications. My advice is to avoid this book and instead purchase "Condottiere 1300-1500" by David Murphy. It is part of Osprey's Warrior Series and is a much better book.

There is a reason I'm trying to learn Italian. The reason is that as an armchair historian, I've discovered that few English titles are able to do justice to anything Italian. This is especially true with Renaissance era literary works as the Italian language is far less vulgar then that of English - which is considered a "power language". Although David Nicolle does a descent job, I feel the book is too small to really go into detail as the Italian political and social climate of the day was incredibly treacherous and even small aspects would cover volumes. Also some of his viewpoints lack credibility. One such viewpoint is that the French and English invaders were bigger in physical size. Perhaps Mr. Nicolle has seen one too many Joe Pesci movies? From the Armour pieces I've studied, there's certainly nothing to indicate Italians of the day were smaller in size. Today, if you look at the sports teams in Europe, Italians are among the tallest. Goes for both Rugby, Football(soccer), and fencing. Anyway I can't imagine why someone would make such a broad assumption. It's hard to imagine the Romans - the greatest empire known to man - being smaller people then the rest of Europe. Unless the Italians shrank during the Middle Ages? Hmmm not likely. Although it did remind me of Time Bandits when Napoleon says with great disappointment, "I wanted to invade Italy because I thought they were all small people". :)

Anyway decent book if you want some nice pics and a summary of events from the period.