Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/294

 it will be noted that rivets with shaped heads are substituted for arming points in attaching the coudes. Taces of four plates and comparatively small pointed tuille tassets complete the body armour, beneath which can still be seen the complete chain mail hauberk showing at the neck, gussets, and around the waist. So advanced are the leg defences, with their full simple cuisses, their genouillères, and their sollerets almost of the bear paw or duck bill Tudor type, that were an actual existing leg-piece shown, we should not hesitate to date it as belonging to the first quarter of the XVIth century. A splendid cruciform hilted bastard sword hangs on the Duke's left side, while on his right is a stout short-quilloned dagger.

We later devote a chapter to an account of Jazarine and of Brigandine armour; but it would be impossible to give a detailed description of the extraordinary multiplicity of media and diversities of shape that were employed by the armourers of civilized Europe throughout the XVth century. Sometimes the body armour was formed of plates of metal riveted together either over or under a foundation of cloth and leather; often it was cloth encased, curiously padded, or even fashioned of plaited rope. An example of this last-mentioned fashion is to be seen in the Riggs Collection, Metropolitan Museum of New York.

In the third quarter of the XVth century we have also to reckon with the spirit of the Renaissance which, though working slowly at first, soon gathered momentum, making itself apparent in almost every armament used by princes and nobles of this luxurious period. In Italy more especially, if the work of the painter, of the sculptor, and of the bronze founder be studied, classically fashioned armour is mostly represented, with the result that this invasion of contemporary art by classicism reacts most strikingly on the armourer's craft. True it is that little, if any, classically influenced armour of the XVth century is in existence; but if the evidence furnished by contemporary pictures and tapestry goes for anything the result must have been an extraordinary mingling of styles. The present writer cannot think that this desire for depicting armour of Roman fashion existed solely in the minds of the painters and sculptors; there must have been countless examples actually made to pander to the fast-growing fashion. Donatello's statue of General Gattamelata, erected in front of the Church of St. Antony of Padua, shows him attired à l'antique (see page 173). In the same fashion is the famous statue of St. George by the same artist, which was formerly placed in a niche on the façade of Or San Michele, Florence. We repeat what we have said before, that we cannot illustrate a harness