Marin Sanudo's Diaries

Sanudo, Marino, Patricia H. Labalme, and Laura Sanguineti White. Venice, Cità Excelentissima: Selections from the Renaissance Diaries of Marin Sanudo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

“No writer will ever make much of modern history who has not seen my diaries, within which is contained every event.” So wrote the Venetian historian Marino Sanudo (or Sanuto) in 1531. This book provides a wide-ranging selection of Sanudo’s large and largely-inaccessible writings in a superbly edited and annotated single volume. For those interested in the early Italian Wars and particularly the circumstances surrounding the shocking (at least to the Venetians) Venetian defeat at Agnadello (1509), this is a useful and interesting book.

Stradiots and Jinetes

The stradiots, shown by the five figures left above, were modeled on the drawing on p. 28 (b) of Renaissance Armies. Stradiots could be found principally in Venetian service during the Italian Wars. The right-hand figure depicts the famous Spanish light cavalry, known as jinetes or genitors. It is based on Heath's sketch of a jinete on p. 51 (n) of Renaissance Armies. These are 15mm Mikes Models or early Essex.