The Funerary Armor of Ludovico Giovanni “delle Bande Nere” de Medici
Born Ludovico de Medici, Giovanni of the Black Bands was widely regarded as one of the best military commanders of his day. He commanded the love of his men and the respect and fear of his enemies. As a condotierro, Giovanni made his living as a sword for hire, the commander of a formidable mercenary band which saw action in the wars which rocked the Italian peninsula from 1494 until 1559. Giovanni himself got his start as a commander for the Papal forces in the 1516 War of Urbino. From 1521 until 1524, hired by Emperor Chalres V, Giovanni would defeat the French armies invading Italy time and time again until finally, under Papal order, the Medici was forced to switch sides and fight with the French. Shortly thereafter, Giovanni was wounded by an arquebus shot to his right leg, which would require months to heal.
In 1526 war once again broke out, this time seeing France allied with a coalition of the major Italian states against the Imperial and Spanish crowns. Once again, Giovanni found success against the Imperial troops, but it was not to last. On the 25th of November that same year, at the battle of Governolo, Giovanni was once again shot in the right leg, this time by a falconetta, a piece of small artillery. An account written by Pietro Aretino, a friend to Giovanni, tells of how the condotierro was rushed to the nearby city of Mantua, where the court physician of the Lord Luigi Gonzaga amputated the leg just below the knee. In the ensuing days, the wound became gangrenous, and five days after he had received the wound, on November 30th 1526, the great Giovanni delle Bande Nere died.
Ever the soldier, the condotierro was buried in his armor. To date, his body has been exhumed from its resting place three times: once in 1857, again in 1946-7 when the armor was recovered, and finally in 2012, when an extensive paleopathological study was conducted on the remains. This study corroborated the story of Giovanni’s amputation, finding that his right leg was indeed amputated just below the knee shortly before his death.
Giovanni’s armor is now on display at the Museo Stibbert in Florence, Italy. A high end piece made from solid steel, Giovanni’s armor reflects the standards of the armor of his day very well. A smooth, globose breastplate provides a glancing surface for not only lances and pikes, but also the gunfire a military man would face on the early 16th century battlefield. Low-profile, well articulated spaulders protect the outer shoulder and upper arm while providing a great deal of mobility, and long, articulated tassets come down to the knee to provide the characteristic three-quarter appearance of many armors of the period.
Seeing this armor on display, one might find it in a remarkable state of preservation for a piece which encased a corpse for over 400 years, however the viewer would be missing an important and unfortunate piece of the story. The armor as it appears today is heavily restored.
The book l’Arte dell’Armatura in Italia by Lionello Boccia provides an important look at what the armor looked like prior to its restoration. Published in 1967, the images contained in the work show the armor as it had been recovered 20 years earlier. Unfortunately very little of the armor actually survived, and much of what is today on view is modern guesswork.
The helmet currently displayed with the armor is original, however it did not belong to Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Instead it is a helmet of German manufacture, and became associated with the surviving elements of the armor when it was displayed at the Stibbert in the mid 20th century. Additionally the long articulated tassets, the gauntlets, the backplate, and the articulated gorget which protects the neck are all modern fabrications aged to match the armor. The only elements of the armor which are original are the breastplate and some elements of the left arm, all of which were heavily corroded.
Many of the thinner elements of the breastplate were pockmarked with holes. The lower lames were heavily corroded, and the right armscye was barely holding itself together.
The upper left portion of the breastplate’s top edge was also missing.
The left arm spaulder survived relatively intact, with some damage to its lower lames, a missing chunk on the upper upper anterior portion, and a narrow strip corroded away where a flute had decorated the piece. The left couter (the piece which protected the elbow) survived in remarkably good condition. These pieces served as the basis for which the right arm harness was reconstructed, however as the lower cannons did not survive, their form on the reconstructed piece had to be inferred from other surviving pieces.
As no portraits depicting Giovanni wearing this armor seem to have survived, it is impossible to know how the armor looked in its working life. In its present state, the armor seems rather plain, particularly in comparison with other armors of the same style from this period. Having belonged to a man from a wealthy family who had a successful military career, it is quite possible that this piece may have been etched and gilded in the fabulous style of the day, however after being corroded for over 400 years, all trace of any embellishment has vanished. Additionally the actual form of the missing elements may never be known for certain, however the reconstruction as it stands today is well researched, and pulled heavily from other sources, and so remains a plausible reconstruction.
