Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/69

 shield, all gilt with many roman subjects Another round Neapolitan shield all painted and gilt with a battle Another round shield of fig-tree wood with Neapolitan painting in gold and black." In the XVIIth century many cup-hilted swords and left-hand daggers of Spanish fashion, the hilts elaborately pierced and chased with scrolls, foliage, flowers, and birds were made for Spanish grandees by Neapolitan artists whose signatures are sometimes found on them. Naples and Sicily were at that time under the dominion of Spain, and I have met with two pieces signed by sword makers of Palermo.

Two great blade-making centres, not much heard of before, come to the front in the XVIth century, Toledo and Solingen, and that industry has not yet ceased in either place. I cannot find exactly when or how it began at Toledo. It is said that one of the bladesmiths of Boabdil, to whom I have already referred, on the fall of the kingdom of Grenada, became a Christian and worked at Saragossa and at Toledo, and possibly that was the origin of this industry destined to become so famous all over Europe. We are acquainted with the names of about one hundred Toledan bladesmiths, and all through the XVIth and a part of the XVIIth centuries they produced blades of marvellously fine quality and temper. So great was the reputation of these blades that it led to the production of innumerable imitations in Italy, and especially at Solingen, but true Toledo blades can always be recognized by certain peculiarities in their make and section, and also by their very fine lettering, each letter being made up by the use of several punches forming curves, straight lines and dots, triangular or diamond shaped, and these dots play a large part in the formation of the letters. Swords were also fabricated in several other places in Spain at the period I am speaking of, for Navagero in 1524 says that very good ones were made at Toloseta in Guipuzcoa, and that the waters of the Oris, which passed there, were excellent for tempering steel, and their fame was known even in France, for Davitz in 1627 says that much money was earned in Guipuzcoa with swords made at Toloseta, and that Bilbao in Biscay exported many. They are again mentioned by Mendez Silva in 1645, and he also speaks of Mondragon as a place where arms of all sorts were made. There is in the archives of Simancas a document of 1516 which names those places in Biscay where armour and arms were made, and it speaks of ten localities in the neighbourhood of Marquina as producing them, besides which outside Biscay, at Peñacerrada, there were twenty good workmen who with their assistants could construct 400 suits of armour for infantry each month, and these of excellent quality, as the iron and steel were better than anywhere else and the workmen more skilful with the hammer. The inventory of the Duke of Alburquerque