In the Osprey Man-at-Arms series Italian Medieval Armies 1300-1500 there is an illustration of a knight wearing leather armor. He is described as a "Central Italian Horseman, early 14th C". The sources are supposedly from effigies from the 1300-25 in the Salerno and Lucera Cathedrals, frescoes from San Gimignano from 1290-1300, and a bas-relief in Bargello, Florence from 1320-25.

Does anyone know of online places to find any of these sources that inspired the illustration? I've always really liked the harness, but I want to look more into the historical sources to see how much is spot on and how much is artistic license.

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The image from the Osprey title.

http://www.villaggiomedievale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2057

try this link, at the top of the page you can find some historical examples

Here is the Bas relief at least.

Funny--I've been looking at this book again this week and noting--again--that there are problems with some details in these illustrations. IIRC these were done in the early 1980s, and don't hold up to what GE has done since then.

Great site w/great pics Gabriele...thanks for posting it.

another picture from the tomb of Guillame du Durfort, the french commander of the Florentine army at the battle of Campaldino 1289,

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The line drawings from Nicoles Arms and Armour of the crusading era give some sources in english. There is the translated information for those paintings in Gabrieles thread.

Here´s another one, the arm harness is quite close.

Sorry to resurrect this topic, but I thought it was pretty interesting. The images that Gabrielle put up seem to be very good sources.Bill did you ever end up doing anything with this idea?

I found that master armoruer Chris Dobson of the UK does some incredible cuir bouilli work: http://www.masterarmourer.com/13th_century.html

Bill,

Are you interpreting the illustration as an armoured surcoat under a cuir bouilli breasplate, or something else?

-Alex