Dear legoff,
If I can trust my studies of European culture in the time between the
late Roman Empire and the Renaissance, there are no surviving
equestrian statues from that time frame existing - with two
exceptions, which I will describe in the next paragraph. It is
doubtful whether any equestrian statues have been cast at all after
the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, since bronze works of such a
size and complexity require an amount of metallurgical knowledge,
skilled craftmanship, experience and organization that simply was not
available in Europe before the Renaissance.
However, there are two notable exceptions from this general statement.
The first exception is an almost life-size equestrian bronze statue
created by the brothers Márton and György Kolozsvári, two Hungarian
sculptors, in 1373. However, this statue is not a portrait of a ruler
or a general, as it was the case with Roman equestrian statues, but a
depiction of Saint George.
The statue still exists today; it is preserved in the Czech capital
Prague, in the National Gallery in Hradsin castle:
http://hungart.euroweb.hu/english/k/kolozsv/muvek/2gyorgy.html
The second example is a bronze statue in the Louvre museum in Paris
that does despict a ruler on horseback: Emperor Charlemagne. Common
opinion is that this work of art dates from the 9th century and may
have even been created during Charlemagne's life time. But it can
hardly stand comparison with the monument of Marcus Aurelius or the
Italian Renaissance statues: It is rather a statuette, only 23
centimeters high:
http://www.louvre.fr/anglais/collec/oa/oa8260/oa_f.htm
We can assume that after the famous statue of Marcus Aurelius was
cast, more similar equestrian bronze statues were created before the
end of the Western Roman Empire; but we don't have explicit sources.
Nevertheless, if these statues existed, they have surely been scrapped
for their valuable metal. Maybe not for weapons, since iron was the
better choice for making weapons before the first bronze guns were
cast at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the
Renaissance. But there was enough other use for bronze.
As for your second question: The brief answer is "yes". The siege of
Constantinople in 1453 was not the first use of cannon. The first
mentions of firearms in Europe date from the early 14th century
(Tuscany, Southern Germany), 1314 (Flanders), 1321-1326 (England and
France).
In the mid-14th century, huge iron siege cannon were commonly used in
European warfare. An English mortar from the year 1346, for example,
had a calibre of 56 centimeters. Artillery guns were used in the
Hundred Years' War between England and France, and the
Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna still today preserves a
gigantic 80-cm-mortar from ca. 1350, called "Pumhart von Steyr".
Sources:
Liliane and Fred Funcken: "Historische Waffen und Rüstungen - Ritter
und Landsknechte vom 8. bis 16. Jahrhundert". Orbis Verlag, 2001. ISBN
3-572-01308-9
Georg Ortenburg: "Waffen der Landsknechte". Bechtermünz, 2002. ISBN 3-8289-0521-8
I hope that this is useful information for you!
Regards,
Scriptor |
Request for Answer Clarification by
legoff-ga
on
29 Mar 2005 10:28 PST
Thank you Scriptor, for your reply to my question. Would you be so
kind as to instruct me how you found the answer so quickly, above and
beyond what knowledge you already possessed, so that I might try to
emulate your type of search for myself in other matters? For example,
what search engine and keywords were used, etc.
Many thanks
Legoff
|
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