Heraldique

One of the most remarkable frontispieces created for the account books of the women’s Hospitaller monastery of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri, now being digitized at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze as part of the Langue of Italy project, which aims to digitize the complete archives of San Giovannino and the Priory of Pisa.

Courtesy of the Malta Study Center.

The Cavalieresses of Malta were noble women affiliated with the Hospitaller Order of Saint John in Florence. Founded in 1392 under the protection of the Grand Master of Rhodes, they combined monastic life with the charitable mission typical of the Order: assisting pilgrims, caring for hospitals, and educating young noblewomen. After several relocations caused by wars and urban transformations, they eventually settled at San Giovannino dei Cavalieri in Via San Gallo, a monastery deeply linked to Medici patronage and Florentine Renaissance culture. Their church preserved the symbols of the Order of Malta — especially the white cross on red — and became one of the most prestigious female religious institutions in Florence until the Napoleonic suppressions of 1808.

The Malta Study Center maintains the largest collection of microfilms and digital images of manuscripts, art, and archival material related to Malta and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem in the world.

Just a bit of beauty.

The “Semilanuta scrofa” (female half-woollen boar) is a legendary creature, a symbol of the city of Milan before the communal age, linked to the foundation of the Lombard capital by the Celts.

Today is Easter… and eggs 🐣 suddenly make sense.

You were looking for them, weren’t you?
Today, a bit of modern civic heraldry.

The coat of arms of Matrei am Brenner (Tyrol, Bezirk Innsbruck-Land, Austria, 2022) is a perfect example of “redendes Wappen” (canting arms): the name “Matrei” hides drei (three) and Ei (egg) → so, three eggs.

You’ve read everywhere about the egg as a symbol of birth, and therefore resurrection. Sometimes, it’s nice to keep things a little more… grounded. 😊

But the shield goes further.� It brings together three former municipalities:

* Matrei → three silver eggs
* Mühlbachl → a mill wheel and waves (mill + stream)
* Pfons → a rooster holding a hammer (old lords of Arnholz + serpentinite quarrying)

A modern coat of arms, yes, but built on language, memory, and territory. And today, finally, the eggs feel… appropriate.

A caption that says more than it seems.

Original text (Middle Dutch):
Dit is sinte gregorius die dede
introp van Utrecht ende een
heyligh pontifex con felloes

Apparently it means:
“This is Saint Gregory, who made the ceremonial entry into Utrecht,
a holy pontiff, accompanied by others.”

Late 15th century.
Kattendijke Chronicle, fol. 134v.

A name.
An action.
A place.
A public moment.

For a medieval chronicle, that is already a complete story.

A coat of arms… or Christmas bells that refuse to stop ringing?

This coat of arms may originally have been canting arms —
heraldic bearings that play with the bearer’s name through a visual pun or rebus.

The term comes from the Latin cantare (to sing).
French heralds called them armes parlantes — “talking arms” —
because they quite literally sound out the name of the armiger.

The problem?
Languages, dialects, and meanings have changed a lot over the last thousand years.
So today, we don’t always hear what they once “said”.

And so — without claiming certainty —
on December 26, we choose a lighter reading 😊

For us, they’re still Christmas bells:
ringing to greet, to gather,
and to wish you all happy holidays.

After all, canting arms have been part of heraldry since its very beginnings —
and sometimes, heraldry enjoys a good joke.

Apparently, even medieval heraldic lions celebrate Christmas.

I was leafing through a German armorial — Sammelband mehrerer Wappenbücher (BSB Cod.icon. 391, c. 1530) — when I noticed this detail on a crest.

Yes: a lion, proudly wearing a Christmas hat.

Sometimes the past smiles back at us.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

*(The image is original and unaltered — though of course I wouldn’t bet on the hat having an actual Christmas function 😄)

Such arrogance (mine)! 😅😊

I was absolutely convinced I had spotted an error in Sigismond Olesiewicz’s illustrations for “Jeanne d’Arc. Son histoire racontée pour la jeunesse (1928)”.
“This is NOT Joan of Arc’s coat of arms!”, I told myself as soon as I saw the image. And I was right… but only partly. Because Olesiewicz was not depicting Joan at all — he was illustrating Étienne de Vignolles, known as La Hire, one of Joan of Arc’s most famous companions.
So far, so good. The coat of arms attributed to La Hire is “De sable à trois grappes de raisin d’argent accompagnés chacune d’une feuille de vigne du même.” (Black field with three silver grape clusters, each with its own silver vine leaf.)

Honestly? A nice French coat of arms is always a safe choice.
In the end, Sigismond Olesiewicz was probably more cautious than I was.

👉 Who was La Hire?

Étienne de Vignolles, called La Hire (perhaps from Ira, “the one who grows furious”), was a fierce, impulsive and unpredictable warrior of the Hundred Years’ War.
The English described him as almost a demon on the battlefield.

Note: 4 pictures (1 and 2 Courtenay - 3 Caterina de’ Medici - 4 counts of Auvergne). This follows yesterday’s post about Catherine de’ Medici and her heraldic legacy.

Athon de Courtenay — sometimes called Hutton in early sources — is traditionally considered the founder of the Courtenay family. Around the year 1000, he took advantage of the Burgundian succession crisis to seize and fortify the site of Courtenay. According to genealogical tradition, his marriage to Ermengarde of Boulogne linked the Courtenays to the Counts of Boulogne — whose arms often display three or four red torteaux. The Courtenay arms stabilised early with three torteaux, perhaps echoing this connection.

Centuries later, Catherine de’ Medici inherited Boulogne through her mother Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, and — after the death of Anne de La Tour — absorbed the Auvergne–Boulogne patrimony into the French crown. In Catherine’s full heraldic achievement, subtle traces of Boulogne appear, creating an unexpected parallel with the Courtenay family and their own Boulogne origins.

Thank you, piers_sc

Let me share a little trick 😉 for telling whether a coat of arms is 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 English or 🇩🇪German. It doesn’t work all the time—but more often than not, it does. If it’s German, the crest (the figure above the helmet) is usually identical to the one inside the shield itself. The English, on the other hand, tend to go for two different figures—one on the shield, one on the crest. Variety, you know. I won’t say which are more beautiful... but I do have a soft spot for beavers.

Two pictures of the Coat of arms of Gräter, Greter (Patrizier in Biberach) (siehe Stafflangen).

According to sources, the beaver (in German: Biber) appears as a heraldic symbol for "canting" reasons—that is, because it echoes the name of the place or family:

* In the municipality of Stafflangen, the coat of arms—featuring a black beaver crowned in gold on a red background—honors the Gräter family, who held lordship rights over the area.
* This choice is also found in the arms of the city of Biberach an der Riß, where the beaver has appeared since the seal of 1258, referencing the name of the town itself (“Biberach” literally means “beaver stream”).

In heraldry, this is a form of "canting arms": the symbol visually represents the name of its bearer—in this case, the presence of the beaver is directly linked to the "Biber‑" name and the local history.

Unfortunately, I don't speak German—if any barbarian 😅😂🤣 would like to correct me (I'm laughing, of course—thank you in advance!), please do so.

Source: Scheibler'sches Wappenbuch - BSB Cod.icon. 312 c; Standort; München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Cod.icon. 312 c.; Scheibler'sches Wappenbuch - BSB Cod.icon. 312 c; Entstehung; [S.l.] Süddeutschland um 1450 - 17. Jh.

🏇✨ Siena (Italy) is about to feel its heartbeat roar louder than ever!

On July 2nd, the city comes alive with the Palio di Provenzano — a centuries-old horse race unlike anything else in the world. Ten neighbourhoods (called contrade) compete in a breathtaking dash around the iconic Piazza del Campo.
It’s not just a race. It’s history, rivalry, and passion woven into a living tradition. 🔥🇮🇹
(Of course, we cheer for Pantera 🐆 — we have to! — but we deeply admire the skill, heart, and artistry of every jockey, horse, contrada, and craftsman () who brings the Palio to life.)
Who will triumph this year?

 🦄