CODART Canon

Battle of Pavia

Willem and Jan Dermoyen, after Bernard van Orley, ca. 1525 — 1531
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Napels

Tapestries were one of the most important of artistic media in the sixteenth century. No potentate waived the opportunity to underscore official appearances by means of monumental wall hangings, which served as vehicles of stately prestige and propaganda. Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), too, owned an extensive collection of tapestries, among others the tapestry series depicting the Battle of Pavia, given to him as a gift by the Brabant States General in 1531. The series documents Charles’s decisive victory over one of his greatest political rivals, the French king François I a few years earlier.

The designs for the seven hangings were created by court artist Bernard van Orley and were translated into the textile medium at the Dermoyen manufactory, located in Brussels, the leading center of tapestry production in the sixteenth century. Deeply versed in Italian Renaissance art, Van Orley revolutionized Netherlandish tapestry design and exerted an enduring influence upon it. The tapestry series today housed in Naples is probably the very first such cycle in which the military successes of the Habsburg dynasty were celebrated and recorded for posterity.

— Katja Schmitz-von Ledebur, Curator of the Kunstkammer and Tapestries, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna