Monday, May 11, 2015

St. Martin and Polish coat of arms at Dingolfing

Salve,
beg your forgiveness for this rather long absence, so back to bloggin' I hope, as I have been busy with some work et projects.. while time flies faster than a crow.



ad r em, I am always interested in Medieval and Renaissance imagery showing horses, riders and their equipment. Christian (Catholic) religious art gives us plenty of opportunity to find such imagery.

Apart from the famously and easily recognizable Saint George, another early saint comes to my mind - Saint Martin of Tours – who has been a subject of many works of art and as such became one of the more popular riders in ... art history.



So while looking at the Wiki Commons depository of many images related to our Saint Martin, who was an actual Roman soldier of the elite cavalry unit Equites Cataphractii Ambianenses, or so say some historians, I came across this late XV century painted image, a fresco, from a St. Johannes church at Dingolfing, in Bavaria (Germany).
bridle with reins

saddle
crouper
Interestingly the horse is not painted as a stallion or a gelding


And while reading about the church I came across this beautiful painted image of two coats of arms:
the duke of Bavaria-Landshut and King of Crown of Poland and Duchy of Lithuania.




The occasion for such display was the famous wedding between George, the Duke of Bavaria-Landshut and the Polish princess Hedwig Jagiellon (Jadwiga Jagiellonka), celebrated at Landshut in  AD1475.



another image of the joined coat of arms

and some more of Duke George and Duchess Hedwig.

*


enjoy
ps
St. Martin of Tours may visit this blog more often in the future
ps'
images are from wikipedia commons

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