The late 15th century Florentine army on campaign

[Erpingham]

In a random moment, academia.edu served me up this paper :
"Supplying the army. 1498. The Florentine campaign in the Pisan countryside, «The Journal of Medieval Military History», 17 (2019)" by Fabrizio Ansani

It's a study of a Florentine campaign from a logistical and organisational point of view.  I found it fascinating but then I have an odd interest in logistics.  Right at the very end of our period but representative of the art of war in Italy in the late Middle Ages, which may interest some. At the end of the paper is a table of expenditure on the campaign by the Florentine government.  Interestingly little details, like they spent more than a dozen times as much on postal services as on spies.  Maintaining contact with the forces in the field was of great importance.

One passage I thought might appeal to those building an army of the time was this :

The Florentine government offered to its captains and its governors the square flag of the Commune: a four-and-a-half-meters-wide, red and white standard with the arms of the lily. The taffeta, the silk, and the manufacture came to 50 florins.  Other  banners  were used for the cavalry squads and the infantry units. 

Sir Cerbone, we are sending you six shields with six different liveries painted on them, along with an azure flag. You have to task a tailor with the making of six standards for the infantry as large as the azure one, and all of them have to be marked with the pictures  of  the  shields  and  the  numbers,  one,  two,  three,  etcetera.  You  have  also  to  order five other white banners for the men-at-arms, but larger than the azure one. The first has to depict a calf, the second a lion, the third a black horse, the fourth a red eagle. For the fifth use a purple fleur-de-lis, which represents the coat of arms of the king of France. The symbols have to be visible and apparent.

Considering the figures of the captain's condotta, under a single cavalry banner fought 40 men-at-arms, while every infantry banner corresponded to 250 infantrymen.

I followed up Ansani's other papers on academia - he's written a lot on early artillery and more on logistics.

[DougM]

In a random moment, academia.edu served me up this paper :
"Supplying the army. 1498. The Florentine campaign in the Pisan countryside, «The Journal of Medieval Military History», 17 (2019)" by Fabrizio Ansani

It's a study of a Florentine campaign from a logistical and organisational point of view.  I found it fascinating but then I have an odd interest in logistics.  Right at the very end of our period but representative of the art of war in Italy in the late Middle Ages, which may interest some. At the end of the paper is a table of expenditure on the campaign by the Florentine government.  Interestingly little details, like they spent more than a dozen times as much on postal services as on spies.  Maintaining contact with the forces in the field was of great importance.

One passage I thought might appeal to those building an army of the time was this :

The Florentine government offered to its captains and its governors the square flag of the Commune: a four-and-a-half-meters-wide, red and white standard with the arms of the lily. The taffeta, the silk, and the manufacture came to 50 florins.  Other  banners  were used for the cavalry squads and the infantry units. 

Sir Cerbone, we are sending you six shields with six different liveries painted on them, along with an azure flag. You have to task a tailor with the making of six standards for the infantry as large as the azure one, and all of them have to be marked with the pictures  of  the  shields  and  the  numbers,  one,  two,  three,  etcetera.  You  have  also  to  order five other white banners for the men-at-arms, but larger than the azure one. The first has to depict a calf, the second a lion, the third a black horse, the fourth a red eagle. For the fifth use a purple fleur-de-lis, which represents the coat of arms of the king of France. The symbols have to be visible and apparent.

Considering the figures of the captain's condotta, under a single cavalry banner fought 40 men-at-arms, while every infantry banner corresponded to 250 infantrymen.

I followed up Ansani's other papers on academia - he's written a lot on early artillery and more on logistics.

Whoo hoo! Every single DBM/M element gets a massive banner...

[Jim Webster]

Thanks for that 

[Duncan Head]

Excellent, thanks.