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PLATE V

ARMOURER’S ANVIL AND PINCERS. XVI CENT.

BRITISH MUSEUM, BURGES BEQUEST

ANVIL. XIV CENT.

IN THE POSSESSION OF MME. BELLON, AVIGNON

The craft of the armourer merits far more study than has hitherto been bestowed upon it, for in its finest examples it fulfils all the essential laws of good craftsmanship to the uttermost. Added to this the works of the armourer have what may be called a double personal interest. In the first place, they are the actual wearing apparel of kings, princes, and other persons of note, made to their measure and often exhibiting some peculiarity of their owner. Owing to the perishable nature of fabrics but little of wearing apparel has survived to us of the periods anterior to the seventeenth century, and therefore the suit of armour is most valuable as an historical record, especially when taken in conjunction with portraits, historical paintings, and sculpture. In addition to this we have the personality of the maker. The boldly grooved breast-plate, the pauldrons, and the wide elbow-cops of the Missaglia, the distinctive hook for the armet which appears only on Topf suits can be recognized at once, and besides this we have the poinçon or signature of the craftsman, which it is almost impossible to imitate, and which at once proclaims the authorship of the armour.

The whole subject of the armourer and his craft, his limitations, his success at his best period, and his decadence in later years can be best summed up in the illustration given on Plate III. Here we have the graceful and light yet serviceable suit of Sigismond of Tirol, made by an unknown armourer about the year 1470, placed side by side with the cumbrous defence made for Louis XIV by Garbagnus of Brescia in 1668. Though this craftsman must have had fine work by his forefathers at hand to study, and though the other arts and crafts were tending towards a light and flowing, if meaningless, style of design, the craft of the armourer had by this time reached a depth of sheer utilitarian ugliness which was never equalled even in the most primitive years of its history.

Footnote

Table of Contents

[1] See Regulations of the “Heaumers,” Appendix B, p. 171.

[2] Vetusta Monumenta, VI, and Armour and Weapons, p. 88, C. ffoulkes.

[3] Haute Savoye, near Aix-les-Bains.

[4] Charles ffoulkes “Italian Armour at Chalcis,” Archæologia, LXII.

[5] Sir Henry Lee.

[6] Arch. Journ., June, 1895.

[7] Sir Thomas Gresham’s steelyard in the London Museum is decorated with portions of sword hilts.