Illyrian armorials

They are all copies based on alleged lost original of the Ohmučević Armorial (Ohmučevićev grbovnik), commissioned by Petar Ohmučević (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.

The armorials combine historical (late medieval) with fictional coats of arms to construct the notion of an "Illyrian Empire".

Petar Ohmučević 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 Habsburg Spain at the time, for which was necessary to prove descent from eight noble and purely Catholic great-grandparents.

However, its immense influence in becoming the foundation of South Slavic or "Illyrist" heraldry in general, can't be denied.

An important source for Ohmučević's heraldic inventions was the Wappenbüchlein by Virgil Solis (1555), which itself contains fictional arms of "foreign kingdoms".