Which memories are real?
As the captured flags disintegrated and the immediate memories of the battlefield victories faded, the damaged trophy banners began to proliferate in new forms. Various communities within the Confederacy had made drawings of their booty flags in books, as a historical register of their victories. Sometimes the flags were drawn in motion, others flat and almost two-dimensional. This translation into the medium of drawing made it possible to preserve fleeting memories made of fabric. These memories — and thus also their translation into a new medium — were, however, never entirely accurate.
The inventories in the Zurich arsenal books show how distortions or deviations regarding objects such as the Burgundian banners were passed on. The Burgundian flag that is the focus here, for example, was already being depicted with rounded corners as early as the 17th century, even though it was almost certainly rectangular.
These copies of copies of copies — copies, that is, spanning multiple generations of replicas — raise the question: which memories are genuine, and how genuine are they, really?
Today, for instance, the Burgundian flag depicting St. Christopher survives in the National Museum only as a fragment like the other Burgundian flags still preserved in Swiss museums. As with the banner bearing the coat of arms of Charles the Bold, we today can only guess at what this object actually once looked like.
“In the Lucerne flag book, which was itself copied several times, we also find depictions of tattered flags. As banners, they can no longer be recognized as such, and yet they still appear as signs of hard-won victories and vanquished enemies. Sometimes fragments, too, can make powerful statements. From the fragment, new narratives and fictions can be spun.
In the 19th century, copies of military trophie were frequently made to fill in the gaps of the medieval record: missing objects, missing pieces of objects, and ambiguous provenances could be obscured by simply making new objects that were deployed to support grand Swiss historical narratives.
Copies, such as those by the famous goldsmith Johann Karl Bossard appeared just like originals. A ‘Burgundian goblet,’ for example, allegedly excavated near Murten around 1840 is actually full of holes. But Bossard “restored” it by making a copy without holes while the original was in his family’s possession.
Based on the heavily damaged ‘original,’ Bossard manufactured a seemingly perfect facsimile — without holes. This copy appeared as if it had been taken directly from Charles the Bold’s own table- a notion spelled out on the cup’s bottom.
The inscription on the goblet’s underside fills the holes in the archaeological find. Although admitting that it is a facsimile, it declares that the original belonged to Charles the Bold himself. Bossard dedicated his gleaming facsimile to the Zurich Guild “zu Kämbel,” and thus to the city’s urban elite who had long staged themselves, through objects such as Burgundian bootys, as direct heirs and descendants of the victorious Confederates. Bossard had a very similar interest in the Marian girdle as in the Burgundian goblet… through the new attribution, the former votive offering from Solothurn’s cathedral treasury was transformed through Bossard’ expert authentification into a trophy from Burgundy.
During industrialization, the Middle Ages appeared as a source of social and aesthetic renewal. Trophies of war, too, were turned into art.
Like many of his contemporaries, the Lucerne goldsmith Johann Karl Bossard drew inspiration for his own work from historical medieval and Renaissance styles. His sketches and copies show how carefully he studied medieval objects, striving to match medieval originals in style and craftsmanship. But he also filled his work with inventions and expanded upon his original sources.
From his very hands-on and assiduous study of historical objects„ new creations emerged — ‘strictly in the style of a particular period,’ as Bossard himself emphasized.
In Bern, history was repeatedly reenacted in street parades. The costumes consisted of actual trophies and all sorts of replicas.
One well-documented example of such parades is the celebration of the city’s founding planned in 1791. Bern’s history was to be presented in four scenes. Berchtold V, as the city’s founder, led the first procession. The Burgundian Wars, featuring a variety of genuine and less-than-genuine spoils of war, served as the final act. Records show that the armory was supposed to supplied armor and other items for the performers’ historical costumes.
Just how politically charged such parades could be is evident from the fact that the 1791 celebration was ultimately canceled due to revolutionary tensions. At that time, the old war heroes could be seen not only as a conservative argument in favor of the old regimes of the Swiss cantons, but also as a call for reform. It is unclear whether the Missaglia armor was going to be used as Berchtold’s armor in 1791. However, marks on the steel suggest that it was certainly used at various moments.
Commemorative processions marking historic events made it possible for participants to experience history firsthand and to cultivate patriotism—a colorful pageant of costumes, imitations, and genuine spoils.
In 1853, a lavish procession with historical costumes was staged to celebrate 600 years since Bern’s entry into the Swiss Confederacy.
The organizers hoped that the men and boys of Bern took on the roles of their heroic forebears would inherit their virtues. The festive procession concluded with a display of captured war spoils, featuring a “booty cart.” The Caesar tapestries served as the model for the reconstructed tent of Charles the Bold displayed on the cart. We can discern their influence in the faint drawing in the album where we spy the seated Roman ruler (facing the opposite direction as on the tapestry, but clearly derived from it).
Im 19. Jahrhundert wurden an vielen Orten der Schweiz Museen gegründet. Die Burgunderbeute wurde dort auf pompöse Weise neu inszeniert und dazu neu genäht.
Das Zeughaus von Solothurn, das später selbst zum historischen Museum wurde, vereinte sowohl historische Objekte als auch Reproduktionen und sogar Fälschungen. Ein imposantes “Zelt aus dem Lager des burgundischen Herzogs” beherbergte solche zweifelhaften Exponate. Das Nachbauen des Zeltes war eine Weise, Geschichte ins Leben zu rufen und durch Prozesse der Reproduktion erfahrbar zu machen.
Die verschiedenen Objekte in der Fotografie des “Beutezeltes” sollten ein möglichst lückenloses und prächtiges Bild der Geschichte “Burgunderbeute” vermitteln.
Ob auch der Mariengürtel als vermeintlich burgundisches Beutestück Teil der Installation im Solothurner Zeughaus war, ist unklar. Bei der Landesausstellung in Genf wurden allerdings sowohl das Zelt mit seinen Begleitobjekten als auch die “Kette” als erbeuteter Schmuck der burgundischen Prinzessin Maria ausgestellt.
Something is missing from every copy. For example, a scanning robot cannot yet perfectly replicate the sheen of the goldsmith’s work, no matter how hi-resolution technology becomes.
The latest 3D technology often produces astonishingly realistic results when it is used to imitate and reproduce historical objects. Such copies can be useful for scholarly research and documentation, and are sometimes also used in exhibitions—for instance, when the originals are too fragile to be shown or transported. In spite of advancing technology, however, the reproduction of shiny, smooth metal surfaces remains technically extremely difficult.
The results from a scanning robot are not yet fully satisfactory.
The Fugger family of Augsburg designed the illustrated text known as the Ehrenspiegel (‘Mirror of Honnor’) as a form of praise (and flattery) to the Habsburg dynasty. The drawings in the book featured family heirlooms. Some of these derived from the secret Basel jewelry sale images.
The jewels of Charles the Bold, captured at Grandson and Murten, are known today only thanks to the sales drawings. These were produced by the people of Basel in order to persuade the Augsburg merchant family Fugger to purchase them at exorbitant prices. The drawing of the ‘Drei Brüder’ was subsequently copied onto parchment for a draft of the Ehrenspiegel. In a revised version of this work honoring the Habsburgs, the drawing was copied yet again. In this way, in connection with the jewel sale, a chain of copies emerged, multiplying ever further. If it hadn’t been for the somewhat dubious Basel sale, we would no longer have a clear picture of how the Burgundian jewels looked. Copies were what preserved them for posterity.
The legendary Burgundian jewels, among them the ‘Drei Brüder,’ have disappeared. How can a history of this lost heritage be exhibited today?
“The history of Charles’s jewels is one full of splendor, secrets, desire, and loss. Today, most of his precious objects no longer exist — they were plundered, pawned, broken apart, or sold. We know them only through reproductions, or copies, some of which were made (paradoxically) in order to keep the jewels hidden, like the drawings in Basel’s historical museum. How, can this history of loss still be shown? Historical and contemporary reproductions could makethis lost heritage tangible — yet the material gap can never truly be filled. The “real thing” is missing.
In the 19th century, Viennese mineralogists produced a plaster cast of the ‘Florentine’ diamond. This could be measured and compared with other large diamonds, such as the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond, which the English had brought from India. A Parisian glass artist created the copy now on display at the Natural History Museum in Vienna, using the plaster cast as his model. In Vienna museum, the stone is displayed as a marvel of natural history, rather than a dynastic symbol.
A reproduction of the Three Brothers was added in the 1970s to Queen Elizabeth 1’st tomb, in order to enhance the impression of authenticity.
Charles the Bold’s golden hat, too, exists today only as a copy — can the Burgundian splendor be conveyed through these types of replicas?
A gun barrel in the armory book of Emperor Maximilian is strikingly similar to the Burgundian gun barrel in Basel — almost indistinguishable. But is it one of Jean de Malines’ original five?
The accuracy of the drawing of the ‘Burgunderin’ in Maximilian’s armory book is unclear. A clue, however, hints that it is not the same cannon as the Burgunderin in Basel.
The ‘Burgunderin’ in Maximilian’s armory book, used at the 1504 siege, likely originally belonged to Charles the Bold and came into the hands of imperial troops as booty during the conflict between the Burgundians and the Habsburgs in 1474/75, later passing into the possession of Emperor Maximilian I. This ‘Burgunderin’ was thus also Burgundian war booty — but it did not come from the Confederate cache of booty taken in the Burgundian Wars. The splendid armory book also vividly shows how such weapons were produced. On another page of the same manuscript, various types of metal are depicted. Particularly striking is the copper ingot at the left edge of the image.
The aim of this representative manuscript was to document innovations in the field of artillery and to demonstrate Maximilian’s power. Old and novel cannons were described and illustrated in it.