Mura di Bergamo: The Museum

This fresco depicts an encampment in preparation for a potential siege. It fully captures the innovations and the contradictions of military evolution in the early sixteenth century: traditional armour and cold weapons coexist with new firearms, and the cavalry, infantry and artillery are lined up together. The town is surrounded by walls that can ward off a siege carried out with ladders and catapults, but which certainly can’t withstand the impact of powerful new cannons. To resist to them, in Italy the “alla moderna” fortresses , as the fortified city of Bergamo, were invented.

The painting is the only know full-length portrait of one of the key figures in the construction of the Venetian Walls: Sforza Pallavicino. He proposed to the Venetian Senate the fortification of encircling only the upper city in the walls. The beton of command in his hands and the decorated armour testify his proven experience as a man of arms, accompanied by brilliant skill in the design and construction of defensive architectures.

Made in Brescia, where there was a robust supply chain for parade body armour, these corslets stood out for their etched decorations of smooth bands alternating with bands with groups of weapons and musical instruments. Cameos with facing male and female heads often appeared on the chest. These models were purchased for the bodyguards of the ruling families, or for palace guards. Between the 16^th and 17^th centuries, they were traded in Holland and Japan, where they were popular among samurai.