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Fresco, Aquileia Basilica Crypt, Italy, c.1160-1180AD
Knight Chasing a Saracen
Aquileia. Basilica. Built in 313, destroyed by Attila in 452, rebuilt, given a Romanesque makeover in the 11thC and completed by the Venetians. The Crypt of Frescoes. Commissioned by Bishop Maxentius in early 9thC, modified by Patriarch Poppo in 1031, it is covered in a fresco cycle commissioned by Patriarch Ulrich in the 1160s and completed in c.1180.
Photo by David Bramhall
590A-I Wall-paintings Friuli, late 12th/early 13th centuries
(in situ crypt of Massenzio, Basilica, Aquileia, Italy)
The damaged wall-paintings in the crypt of Massenzio are made in imitation of decorative wall-hangings. They portray some unusual pieces of military equipment which, because of Aquileia’s geographical position, may shed light on otherwise obscure parts of 12th and 13th century Europe. The pictures have sometimes been regarded as illustrating combat between Italians and invading Hungarians, this part of Italy having suffered severely at the hands of raiding Magyars in the 10th century. If so, then the peculiarities of the armour might reflect the military equipment of a cultural frontier zone where Italian Friuli, Byzantinised Venice and its northern Adriatic possessions, German-ruled Slovenia, and Hungarian-ruled Croatia, all came together. The similarity between the brimmed chapel-de-fer war-hats at Aquileia (B and H) and some helmets seen in 12th and 13th century Byzantine and Balkan art is obvious. Other helmets include that of a presumed Italian horseman (B and E) which looks like a proto-salet as seen earlier at Modena (fig.582). An ordinary forward-angled conical helmet is worn by a possible Hungarian-Magyar horse-archer (A). Others wear ordinary round helmets (C and H). Mail hauberks are short-sleeved with coifs (B, C, F and G). The only shield fully visible (B) is an ordinary, flat-topped, kite-shaped cavalry shield with a rather old-fashioned boss. Most men are armed with ordinary cavalry spears, but one is being used in a most unusual two-handed technique (F). Such a style is virtually unknown elsewhere in Western Europe, although it was normal in the Middle East and Central Asia. It must therefore reflect an artist’s effort to indicate the different fighting technique of other nations, perhaps Hungarians or Balkan Slavs.
