The Illyrian Armorials ( Serbian : Ilirski grbovnici ) are a group of armorials compiled from mainly fictional medieval coats of arms, among which there can be found several actual coats of arms, during the late 16th to mid 18th century. They are all copies based on alleged lost original of the Ohmu?evi? Armorial ( Ohmu?evi?ev grbovnik ), commissioned by Petar Ohmu?evi? (died 1599), a person of Ragusan origin, who went to become an admiral of Spanish court and navy at some point between 1584 and 1594. It is an example of the earliest ("Interconfessional") form of Illyrism idea and notion of so-called "Illyrian Empire" , which formed the ideological basis for both the later rise of nationalism in the Balkans among its South Slavs , and the idea of unification.

The armorials combine historical (late medieval) with fictional coats of arms to construct the notion of an "Illyrian Empire". This fictional Empire happened to coincide exactly with the sphere of interest of the Spanish Empire in the Balkans at the time, and hence also Petar's own. Petar Ohmu?evi? personal goal was to confirm his own "Illyrian" noble origins, after he rose to the rank of admiral in the Spanish navy, and in order to qualify for the greater chivalric orders of Hapsburg Spain at the time, for which was necessary to prove descent from eight noble and purely Catholic great-grandparents. Ohmu?evi? was granted the status of nobleman in 1594, which is taken as the terminus ante quem of the armorial.

Ohmu?evi?'s armorial can thus be considered a personal project in inventing and probing one's origin, or even a hoax , as he invented genealogy in order to defraud a Spanish court and qualify for the coveted title. However, its immense influence in becoming the foundation of South Slavic or " Illyrist " heraldry in general, can't be denied. An important source for Ohmu?evi?'s heraldic inventions was the Wappenbuchlein by Virgil Solis (1555), which itself contains fictional arms of "foreign kingdoms".

The Illyrian Armorials includes the following armorials, with estimated dates in brackets:

See also [ edit ]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Illyrian Armorials .

• Pan-Slavism

References [ edit ]

Bibliography [ edit ]

• Kroll, Walter (1986). Heraldische Dichtung bei den Slaven . Harrassowitz. ISBN   9783447026260 .
• Palavestra, Aleksandar (2010). Ilirski grbovnici i drugi heraldi?ki radovi . Belgrade: Dosije studio.
• Rudi?, Srđan (2006). Vlastela Ilirskog grbovnika [ The Nobility of the Illyric Coat of Arms ]. Istorijski institut Beograd. ISBN   978-86-7743-055-9 .