Almost 500 years after the firearm- and pike-wielding Habsburg infantry decimated the heavily armored French cavalry at the 1525 Battle of Pavia in northern Italy, seven gargantuan tapestries celebrating the occasion are visiting the United States for the first time, from their home in Naples, Italy. Joined by a selection of weapons and armor dating to the same period, they will be at the Kimbell Art Museum all summer before going to San Francisco and Houston.
The Battle of Pavia cemented the rise of the Holy Roman Empire as the dominant power in Europe’s game of thrones, at the expense of France. Emperor Charles V commissioned the tapestries in honor of his victory, which took place on his 25th birthday. His defeated opponent, King Francis I, was captured on the field of battle and held in prison for the following year as a treaty was negotiated.
In the longer term, the battle signaled the eclipse of knighthood by gunpowder. On the same battlefield at Pavia (more specifically, Visconti Park, just outside the city gates) were armored lancers on horseback who would have been at home among medieval Crusaders, alongside infantry bearing long guns who would be at home in George Washington’s Continental Army.
Since the Capodimonte Museum in Naples is home to the superb Farnese arms collection as well as the tapestries, viewers at the Kimbell can compare what they see on the walls with examples of period suits of armor, as well as a gorgeous arquebus (a predecessor to the musket and rifle) and a 6-foot-long broadsword built for a giant.
The scale of the tapestries has to be seen to be believed. At about 14 feet high by 29 feet wide, each of the seven works barely fits on a museum wall. No photos can do them justice. They’re woven from silk and wool with gold and silver highlights, taking years to produce. Richly detailed, they were much more expensive than paintings at the time, and only the very wealthiest patrons could have commissioned such works.
As regards the challenge of making the chaotic battleground intelligible to viewers, a tapestry designer’s task might be contrasted with that of a movie director staging a battle scene. Unlike a war movie, a still tapestry allows for deliberate close study as the viewer’s eye wanders across the broad surface at leisure; but in both media, scenes are composed so that a viewer can concentrate on a few key figures in the foreground, while the numberless clashing hordes in the background dissolve into anonymity.
Noble officers are prominent among the foreground figures, as in the tapestry devoted to the surrender of the French king, where the nobility is presented as solemn and dignified in victory and defeat. While Francis is pulled off his dying horse, an enemy soldier grabs the king’s sword and raises it high. At the same time, the Duke of Bourbon, a French rival of the king’s who had switched allegiances to fight on the side of the Holy Roman Empire, raises his victorious sword in triumph with his comrades.
And while the German commander Georg von Frundsberg suavely gestures that the French artillery has been captured, a pike-wielding French captain stares down a mounted attacker with his jaw set, stoically choosing to face his doom with honor, rather than surrender in disgrace.
Although artworks were usually commissioned by wealthy aristocrats who would appear in battle as heavily and expensively armored knights, the works here also give plenty of attention to the lower-ranked common soldiers whose fighting proved decisive at Pavia. The Imperial infantry firing arquebuses mowed down the French gendarmes, whose plate armor was no match for the force of the lead balls.
The artists powerfully capture the terror and chaos of defeat. As the French rear guard desperately flees, a French soldier trying to cross the Ticino River grabs hold of a branch on the bank, while elsewhere an Imperial pikeman is shown looting a couple of plump chickens as the enemy retreats in disarray.
As well as conveying the texture of the main action and its aftermath, the tapestries remarkably convey other incidental details, whether the ironically peaceful cattle grazing in the distance, or the view of the city overlooking the battlefield. All of the tapestries are also surrounded by intricately designed floral borders that echo the vegetation depicted within each composition.
While such attention to humble detail was typical of northern European art, the Italian Renaissance’s influence can be seen in the well-muscled, smartly posed bodies of the soldiers, clearly arranged in three-dimensional illusionistic space receding to a high horizon line. Such a fusion of northern and Italian elements was typical of Bernard van Orley, the Brussels artist who designed the Pavia tapestries.
Stepping back from the cut and thrust of the fighting, a viewer might reflect on how artists manage to transmute the blood and guts of battle into the intangible qualities of honor and glory. Although the Pavia tapestries could be reductively described as Imperial propaganda for Charles V, the depth and nuance of the artwork offers much more than that, fully immersing its audience in a compelling drama.
Details
“Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries” is on view through Sept. 15 at the Kimbell Art Museum, 3333 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth. Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday from noon to 8 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Adults $18, seniors 60 or older and students with ID $16, children ages 6-11 $14, SNAP recipients $3, half-price on Tuesdays and on Fridays after 5 p.m. For more information, call 817-332-8451 or visit kimbellart.org.
