Imperial Landsknechts – Italian Wars

The first row of what is to become a Landsknecht pike block.
Figures and flags are all Pro Gloria.

As part of an on-going Italian War club project with fellow Stockholm historical wargamers Jonas and Michael, I left the year 1870 for a trip to the lace-clad pike blocks of the Renaissance, and finished this first line of my projected Landsknecht pike block.

The Imperial Eagle of Charles V.

Miniatures are all from the excellent Pro Gloria range, from which I also found some suitable flags. Pro Gloria offers a wide selection of really nice flags for the period, and as I'm painting for the imperial side, I naturally chose the classic Imperial Habsburg Eagle on the signal yellow, and perhaps more interesting, but certainly just as beautiful, the graphically attractive Fugger Family flag.

The Fugger banner.
Couldn't resist the beautiful graphics and colors.

Upon deciding on the flags, I set out to investigate the background of this interesting family of Imperial allegiance. 

Jakob Fugger 1459 - 1525.
The wealthiest and most powerful man of his time.
With both popes and emperors in his pocket, this man called the shots.

The Fuggers were based in the Imperial city of Augsburg – many times the seat of the Imperial Diet (The council for the Holy Roman Emperor and the electors of the German states) With a background in banking, not unlike that of the Medici, the Fugger family grew it’s wealth by combining strategically placed loans at the very top of Imperial/Papal society cleverly gaining political influence and a very lucrative range of mining monopolies as part of their loan interests. The Fugger Family is said to be both politically and financially behind the election of both Maximilian I and Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. Imagine that in Kick-Back-City. 

The Imperial Diet at Augsburg.

Interestingly, Jakob Fugger (a.k.a Jakob Fugger the Rich) played an unwilling role in what was to become the Reformation and religious fragmentation of the Empire.

The unit shot from the rear.
Red pikes makes the post battle clean up so much easier.

Jakob, accredited as the World’s richest man in his time, received a letter from Pope Leo X, enquiring about the possibility for the Papal State to attain a loan with the wealthy banker as creditor. The Pope had ambitious renovation plans in Rome, amongst other the Basilica of Saint Peter would ring a bell – and artist like Michelangelo didn’t come cheap. Only one problem, the Catholic Church was more or less broke.

Renaissance Augsburg. 

Taking a step closer to God, or perhaps divine power, Jakob happily wrote up a large loan for the Pope, only to put the holder of the divine office under further financial pressure. The Catholic Church had to increase their taxation, sell their German bishoprics and accelerate the collection of funds through the sale of Indulgences. 

The unit's Doppelsoldner captain.
A man of many tales and the clothes to prove it.

All the above was not too popular among the people of Germany, whom began to feel somewhat distant to the ambitious and costly projects in Rome, more resembling cardinal sin rather than divine guidance. This increase in taxation subsequently leads to the proclamations of Lutter, originally an Augustinian monk, thus sparking the Reformation.

City life as I image it in Renaissance Europe.

As an interesting note to these events, it was to the Fugger Family’s newly build residence in Augsburg that Lutter was called to meet with Cardinal Cajetan, and by order of the Pope recant his statements against the Catholic Church. Lutter rejected to do this, thus signalling the start of the Reformation in 1518. Perhaps not what Jakob Fugger, who died in Dec 1525 age 66, had in mind when he wrote out that loan to Leo X.

Thank you very much for reading!