Chialu Part Two

I spent last evening watching an old Peter Cushing horror film (From Beyond the Grave) and setting up these soldiers. Here are the rest of the figures I have.
Generally these ones came off better, so to speak, as they don't have as much damage to their bases as the nice Risorgimento figures seen in the last post.
So here we go:

These are the mounted knights, and an impressive lot they are. As for the historical setting they were meant to represent, I'm not so sure.
There are clues. Many of the mounted knights have firearms shouldered.
These charging knights held my attention as a little kid, and I must say, even today, they are impressive.
The two colourful marquees are hand carved balsa wood.

Foot knights.

Some interesting items to note are the marching soldier with a firearm, and the unusual crossbows. Very nice miniatures.
Up next the Papal Swiss

Many of these are resin or bendable plastic figures, some with composite heads. These are really colourful, but I don't have the pope or the cardinals that I remember in the original display.

Included in the soldiers were these. They are conversions of other figures, and the wonderfully active cloaks were made out of a fabric tape set with a thick paint. The creator was a genius. I think the last figure on the right might be a stradiot, I'm not sure.

I wish I had more of these. These gladiators are really something. Odd, but I don't recall seeing these in the original display. The memories of children are often glossed over by whistful adults. I have only three, but I have seen that Chialu made a lot of animals, so no doubt he had or had planned a Colloseum display.

A couple of photos to show the size of the miniatures. The foot soldiers are around 75mm tall from foot to top of the head.
And here's the general giving a final disdainful inspection.
Obviously she didn't like the knights.
Thinking back, it would make a lot of sense for a bicycle mechanic to make a mobile display using bike wheels and chains and sprockets. I recall a single line of Papal soldiers marching around one display setting, so they must have been mounted on a bicycle chain.
I wonder whatever happened to that display.