There are quite a few queues around Rome’s St Peter’s Square, from the one to actually enter the Basilica, to the queue that allows you to visit the tombs of the Popes or to climb up to the dome and admire the landscape from over there.
If, rather than an ordered queue, you spot around the square or near the Basilica groups of tourists elbowing each others with cameras and mobile phones in their hands, follow their camera lenses and you will probably see a Swiss Guard around.
Guards or soldiers patrolling official places in important capitals all over the world generally manage to unleash the most barbaric behaviours in tourists, but Swiss Guards seem to be absolutely irresistible for the hordes of tourists looking for the coolest/silliest/nicest picture to bring back home from Rome.
There are two main reasons why tourists regress to their more debased instincts when they see Swiss Guards around St Peter’s: 1. they are usually young and cute men; 2. their uniform is rather unusual being very colourful.
I’m too old to behave like a teenager and take pics of myself with a Swiss Guard, but, since I’ve always had a fascination with their uniforms, I decided to throw myself in a barbaric horde of tourists and take some pictures. Even when I was a child I found rather interesting the colours of the uniforms: blue and yellow were chosen by Pope Julius II taking his family's (Della Rovere) colours while Pope Leo X added the red to reflect his family's (Medici) colours.
I loved the way the colour combination contrasted with the white of the collar and gloves, and also used to be mesmerised by the cut and silhouette of the uniforms and by the fabric spats.
The first Swiss Guards entered the Vatican in January 1506. At the time military uniforms didn’t really exist, but the Swiss Guards were dresses at the Pope’s expense, so they probably wore the Swiss cross or the Papal crossed keys sewn on their chests.
They also wore an armour in the upper part of their bodies on top of a cropped doublet that was fitted at the waist or a longer doublet that reached at the knee and was characterised by the absence of a collar. The interesting part were the sleeves and breeches that were at times decorated with coloured bands of material, attached only at the two extremes. This was also the fashion among mercenary captains.
In "The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple" by Raphael (1511-1512) the painter portrayed a few Swiss Guards around Julius II dressed in knee-length breeches matched with a doublet.
The guards would also wear a "saione" at the time, a sort of longer garment on top of which a black cape was added for protection against rain and cold.
As time passed the materials favoured for the uniforms, such as wool, became finer and during the Renaissance more colours – such as red – were added. The uniform was completed by a wide brimmed hat, a padded leather turban-shaped cap or a metal helmet trimmed with brightly coloured pheasant or heron feathers.
The latter was later on replaced with a metal high-crested open helmet with the front and back edges turned upwards, called "morion".
An important historical event, the French Revolution also left its mark on the uniform of the Swiss Guards and new elements - such as a cocked hat with a ribbon cockade, a French-styled collar, a wide leather shoulder-belt or bandolier - were integrated into the uniform.
The current colour combination is attributed to Commandant Jules Repond who took inspiration from Raphael’s frescoes (note: Raphael influenced Italian fashion in the Renaissance through his paintings, so here you have an interesting art-meets-fashion connection) and, abolishing all types of hats, introduced a simple beret with the soldier's grade and added a plain white collar.
Nowadays, only the full dress-uniform is worn with a special gorget, white gloves and pale grey metal morion with ostrich-feather plume (its colour changes in accordance with the soldier’s grade).
While going through some pictures of Swiss Guards I found another reason why I like their uniform: the blue and yellow bands give a sense of lightness when the wind touches them and they move over the red doublet and breeches (see pics 2 and 4 in this post). You will easily be able to find books on the history of the Swiss Guards on Amazon but also from the Libreria Editrice Vaticana in St Peter’s Square (the latter has actually got some very interesting yet expensive illustrated volumes on this topic).
Among the most recent fashion collections there were some random links to the Swiss Guards' style in Bernhard Willhelm's S/S 09 menswear collection, though the connections between the two must actually be attributed to the fact that both Willhelm's S/S 09 designs and the Swiss Guards' uniforms echo in their shapes, silhouettes and colours Renaissance fashion.
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