The Ombrellino, Umbraculum or Pavilion and Medieval Tent Con

[James B.]

He has one image of the inside, however there was a thick wood frame in there for the museum display that hides those seems.

[Mac]

OK...found the pic you mean. http://www.greydragon.org/images/tentpics/tent40.jpg

Still, it's a shame we can't see what's going on in there.

Mac

[Tracy Justus]

Dredging this topic up because I was looking up information about surviving tailor's manuals and came across this page about a fascimile of Il Libro Del Sarto. Halfway down there's an illumination of a mounted knight carrying a traditional hub-and-spoke parasol.

The manuscript belonged to a Milanese tailor in the second half of the 16th century... He collected illustrations of the costume models in fashion, for daily life and luxurious circles, but also tents, war flags, patrons, tournament and comedy costumes, ecclesiastical and academic, engravings, all that in order to be displayed to his customers. [bold mine]

According to Worldcat there are several copies of this fascimile in the US and I think it would be worth looking at to see if he gives any indication of tent supports.

Tracy

[Baron Alcyoneus]

Simone Martini, Saint Martin Renouncing the Sword
1317 (60 Kb); Wall painting; Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi



What are we looking at here? I'm not sure that the pole (assuming the dimensions are accurate, and the tent was a heavy canvas) would be sturdy enough to support the tent with the carved out section in the center.


Looking at a larger picture ( http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CijcaA9yq58/T ... eapons.jpg ) I'm wondering if it isn't just profiles of 2 of the shields painted above.

[Tracy Justus]

Simone Martini used gilding and glazed metal foil in his paintings. I suspect that the pole is depicted as having painted silver escutcheons which have oxidized over the centuries. Notice how the men's armor is blackened like the escutcheons. (OT: I'm in awe of the red and gold spiral hat on the guy in the CoP. You men get to wear some awesome accessories.)

T.

[Baron Alcyoneus]

I didn't think specifically of silver leaf for the escutcheons, although I know that is how you often find black/brown helmets in paintings.

I'm looking at David Nicolle's Knights of Jerusalem (2008), p168. It is showing Turks gathering up small pavillions and walking off with them. They are gathering the material around the "waist" of the pole, often while the circumference of the pavillion remains full size and shape. (art by William Caoursin in Obsidionis Rhodie Urbis Descriptio c1496).

They should be collapsed if there was no internal structure.

[Tracy Justus]

Through the generosity of a friend I got my hand on an ILL copy of Il Libro del Sarto. Unfortunately it does not provide a definitive answer about tent frames. The book is full of painted illustrations of projects, including pavilions, with notes about yardages, incidentals, and costs. A full page note on a set of connected pavillions includes itemization for timber, poles and slats, thick and thin rope, different sizes of rings for the ropes, and other terms in Renaissance Italian that google translate and my semester of Italian are no help in deciphering.

Late in the book is a single striped square pavilion. The material list includes (as best I can translate) a center pole, a cap with a leather washer, 56 slats, 56 wooden buttons and 40 poles as well as rope, thread, rings, canvas and some items I can't translate. Almost at the end of the book is a single hanging with loops along both long edges and toggles and buttonholes along the short edges. The text uses the Italian word for button for what is clearly illustrated as a toggle- the same word, bottoni, is used in the material list for the square tent which makes me think the square tent had toggles to connect the walls to the roof.

Unfortunately while the client with the umbrella is identified (Monsignor de la Ternita) his parasol is not mentioned. (I would have liked to know the renaissance word for parasol.)

Hope this is of use to folks. I encourage anyone intersted in the topic to get the book through ILL, especially if you have access to someone who can help translate the renaissance Italian.

Tracy (Clare de Crecy)

[Sean Powell]

17th century so it's a bit out of date and I believe that the framework is reconstructed modern but the fabric construction details might lead to some insights if people can track down more information.



From here:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/2 ... alaces.htm

Sean

[Baron Alcyoneus]

Among that exhaustive list, were any dimensions or yardages given for that last pavillion??

[Tracy Justus]

I assume you are asking me? Yes, but the notes are in Renaissance Italian and the book is in modern Italian and I don't recognize what words might be a unit of measure. A lot of the entries are refered to as being a certain number of soldi, which is a coin rather than a length measure. The modern text may have a discussion of the pavillions but in flipping through I didn't see one- but as I said in my earlier post, my Italian is rudimentary.

Tracy

[Sean Powell]

17th century so it's a bit out of date and I believe that the framework is reconstructed modern but the fabric construction details might lead to some insights if people can track down more information.

From here:
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/2 ... alaces.htm

Sean

Sorry to quote my own post but I was reading more of the link above. It included this paragraph that I can not ascertain the validity

In 1683, the Polish king Jan iii Sobieski routed the Turkish army that was besieging Vienna. Among the spoils listed by a London newssheet were "sixty thousand tents and two millions of money in the Grand Vizier's tent." While the precise number of tents is probably a journalistic exaggeration, the Ottoman camp was indeed abandoned, and Sobieski, writing to his wife a few days after his victory, mentions the great quantities of tents acquired. Many of the tents in European collections today were among those captured at the Siege of Vienna.

Research into the Siege of Vienna led to a wikipedia article that happened to have this picture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vienn ... e_1683.jpg

I'm curious if anyone has a source for a larger image of that painting and/or can document the date the painting was created. What interests me are the 2 different styles of the tents in the foreground lower left. This is a time when painting accuracy is the norm rather then the strong artistic license of the middle ages. The red tent is clearly octagonal and not round. That strongly implies spokes (or rigid internal frame) rather then a hoop. The taller orange one has a complex domed and flared roof that clearly shows stretched ropes that pass from the dome to the perimeter edge and then downward. I don't see any other way this could be achieved other then a rigid internal framework.

I think that this might be the clearest indication yet that there is more then one way to skin a cat and that multiple solutions can and did exist in the same army at the same time.

Thanks,
Sean

[Mac]

I'd like to know more about the Turkish tents that are said to be in European collections. You could argue that 17th C Turkish tents won't tell us much about 14thC European tents, but I feel better about extrapolating from them than I do from extrapolating from 20th C party tents.

The article that Sean linked to (above) says "A good deal is known about these tents." Unfortunately, it does not say by whom it is known.

Marianne has started the ILL process for the only book mentioned in the article. I hope it will provide a starting place, and an inroad into the literature.

Mac

[Charlotte J]

This mid-15th c image may be meant to portray a canopy of state over a bed instead of a tent, but it's not too big a stretch to imagine similar principles apply. This image shows what might be a wall or curtain hanging method.

Full version here:

http://www.mathildegirlgenius.com/galle ... lasgow.jpg

The attribution in the file name is: MS_Hunter_60_T_2_18_1455_50_treasures_in_glasgow
Parse that how you will.



Zoom detail of the construction here (slightly bigger at the link than here on the page):
http://www.mathildegirlgenius.com/galle ... l_zoom.jpg

[Gregoire de Lyon]

While flipping through one of my wife's books of illuminations (Western European Illuminated Manuscripts 8th - 16th Centuries) I found an interesting illumination on page 109 showing the interior of a round pavilion from the mid-15th century.

Edit - the manuscript is in the Russian National Library - I'll try to scan my wife's book this evening when I get home...

Description en vers francais d'un tournoi fait en 1446, ou Recit du tournoi du Roi Rene a saumur (Laurnay) en 1446 nomme "Pas du Perron"

Fr.F. p. XIV. 4

156 F.9r

[Charlotte J]

Do you have a digital camera? It's not Français 156 at Mandragore. Not exactly sure what to search on.

[Gregoire de Lyon]

Do you have a digital camera? It's not Français 156 at Mandragore. Not exactly sure what to search on.

Right - I just remembered why I had had this note on my desk for a month and hadn't posted it. It is in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg.

This isn't a terribly helpful link, but it does give better manuscript details.

http://www.adeva.com/faks_detail_en.asp?id=17

I will try to get a copy of the image made tonight.

[RandallMoffett]

Charlotte,

I'd have to be hung externally as it lacks any support though for separate tops from bottom sections this is a great detail.

RPM

[Charlotte J]

Yeah, though you do see artists leaving out poles. Which is why leaving out ropes is a tough thing to use as evidence, too. But you're right, this is certainly a rare look at attaching walls! Curtain walls, though, another difference. Not so much taut side walls.

[Mac]

I think what we are seeing in the Judith picture is not the inside of the back wall of the tent, but rather a curtain hung on its own rod. I think this for two reasons. The first is the the rod is quite straight and not curved like the hoop of tent would be. The second is that although the method by which curtain is suspended from the rod is clearly depicted, the attachments of the rod to the canopy are not shown. It's sort of like a shower curtain. If it were part of the hoop structure, there would be loops (or something) interfering with the curtain rings. This makes it seem less likely that it is an actual part of the tent structure.

These curtains within canopys of state are quite common in art.

Mac

[zippy]

@ sean powell That looks like the tent that was displayed in the 'Land of the Winged Horsemen' exhibit. If it is, it is inside out.

[Kenwrec Wulfe]

http://www.adeva.com/faks_detail_en.asp?id=17

Anyone have 1,980 euros they can throw my way?

[Gregoire de Lyon]

I will try to get a copy of the image made tonight.

I looked at the image again last night. Didn't make a copy because I really don't know why I thought it was germane to this discussion. It shows an open pavilion, but no poles, ropes, etc. Just a guy sitting in a pavilion.

My apologies for the derail.

[jester]

It's debatable, certainly, but I think this image is a pretty strong argument for a hoop style tent. Look to the left of the figure on the left and see the fabric that is apparently pulled back from the structure.

[RandallMoffett]

Jester,

can you post a link or larger image of this?

RPM

[jester]

No larger image, sorry. This image is available on Mandragore. It is from the Francais 886 document. I don't know which folio.

[Baron Alcyoneus]

Those "hooks" have to be held up by something.

[James B.]

This mid-15th c image may be meant to portray a canopy of state over a bed instead of a tent, but it's not too big a stretch to imagine similar principles apply. This image shows what might be a wall or curtain hanging method.

Zoom detail of the construction here (slightly bigger at the link than here on the page):

Kim noticed some manuscript images of beds in the new Morgan Library book at the costume display on Saturday, clearly there is some sort of string/rope connecting the walls to the loops on the curtain rod. We didn't buy the book there because we found it cheaper online; it is ordered but not shipped yet.

[Tracy Justus]

There are curtain hooks in The Medieval Household, as I recall. They are copper alloy, oval, with a hook at the bottom. We have one in our collection. It would be fine for holding up a lightweight interior curtain but not robust enough for a canvas wall.

I think the purpose of putting a panel of cloth on rings is to be able to slide it aside, which is not a feature needed in a medieval pavillion. (Or at least, not for the exterior walls.)

T.

ETA:The Illuminating Fashion catalog that James refers to is a marvelous book and I highly recommend it for folks interested clothing of northern France/lowlands from the mid 14th through the 15th centuries.

[Kenwrec Wulfe]

It's debatable, certainly, but I think this image is a pretty strong argument for a hoop style tent. Look to the left of the figure on the left and see the fabric that is apparently pulled back from the structure.

I cannot from work, but I will see if I can find something when I get home.

[Kilkenny]

There are curtain hooks in The Medieval Household, as I recall. They are copper alloy, oval, with a hook at the bottom. We have one in our collection. It would be fine for holding up a lightweight interior curtain but not robust enough for a canvas wall.

I think the purpose of putting a panel of cloth on rings is to be able to slide it aside, which is not a feature needed in a medieval pavillion. (Or at least, not for the exterior walls.)

T.

ETA:The Illuminating Fashion catalog that James refers to is a marvelous book and I highly recommend it for folks interested clothing of northern France/lowlands from the mid 14th through the 15th centuries.

But curtains are a natural development with a spoke wheel pavillion design...not sure that there is anything to take away from that

[Kenwrec Wulfe]

Necromancing this thread.

I would love to see what has been discovered with the hoop design.

Anyone have new information?

[Galleron]

Necromancing this thread.

I would love to see what has been discovered with the hoop design.

Anyone have new information?

Cerveaux! Rrrrr! Cerveaux!


A lot of Mac's work on his rectangular tent is applicable to hoop design.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=149735

Much of my recent research has been preparation for a hooped tent:

http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.co ... abel/Tents

[Kenwrec Wulfe]

I have followed the rectangular tent thread, as well. Excellent stuff.

I am finally making my plans for a tent and I love the hoop design. I was going to contract out the canvas stitchery, but do the woodwork myself.
Your site has been an awesome resource as well. Thanks!

[Karen Larsdatter]

BNF Français 364, fol. 125 (Hannibal passant les Apennins, Romuleon, c. 1485-1490)

Click here to view the whole manuscript in zoomable format on Gallica.

[Mac]

That's a nice find, Karen!

Mac