THE ROYAL BAVARIAN MILITARY MERIT ORDER

DISPONIBILE DA FINE NOVEMBRE 2024 - SOLO SU ORDINAZIONE

Three volumes in hard cardboard slipcase, total 1288 pages, more than 2750 colour and black and white illustrations, each of the 3 volumes with hard cardboard cover and dust jacket, size: 29.5 × 26 cm

This more than 1200-page, three-volume work is the first comprehensive, scholarly reference book on royal Bavarian phaleristics, which has long been awaited by historians. The trilogy is based on more than thirty years of collecting and research by the author and – like no other phaleristic work before it – goes into depth with detail and meticulousness.

The richly illustrated monograph on the Bavarian Military Merit Order of 1866 can only be published in this scope on the basis of almost completely preserved archival sources from the Bavarian Main State Archives. The order is probably one of the most beautiful and most popular in Bavaria and was designed under the reign of King Ludwig II and his – as with his palaces – highly demanding artistic supervision.

In the main historical section of the work and in the comprehensive two-volume catalogue section, the Bavarian Military Merit Order is illuminated and presented from all sides in all of its 250 manufacturer variants in over 2,750 illustrations. This was only possible thanks to unrestricted access to institutional and private collections, including the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt, which is also the editor of the work.

In over 330 portraits and detailed biographies, the holders of the order are presented with around 200 award certificates and about 150 original, historical medal brooch bars, and all the production, award and return figures for the individual degrees of the order are revealed with exhaustive data.

Other Bavarian and international orders and medals are also taken into account in cross-references, and further topics on the history of the Bavarian Army and military history as well as the collection history of the War Archives and Army Museum are also covered. The reader is given an in-depth insight into the production by jewellers of the still coveted order decorations.

This work, which sets new standards in phaleristic literature, is aimed not only at scholars of orders, but also in particular at historians, researchers and enthusiasts of the Bavarian Army and the monarchy, and is intended to inspire further research.