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Italian, early XVIth century

Collection: Author

First half of XVIth century. Dino Collection, Metropolitan Museum of New York

Castle (Fig. 622); whither, no doubt, along with other arms and armour, it was brought in comparatively recent times for purposes of decoration. A few of these bucklers have found their way into private collections. An example is also to be seen in the Armoury of Malta; though it is a little different in construction, it is of the same circular convex form; but it is composed of a central nimbus with a border of twelve plates. Each plate is fashioned to the segment of a circle, and has in its centre an embossed ridge, all the plates being laid down upon a foundation of oak, the joints of the plates being concealed by applied framing of brass. In the centre is a hole through which formerly passed the barrel of the pistol (Fig. 623); the grated aperture for taking aim has been at some time filled in. Now as this particularly awkward combination was, it is supposed, the personal invention of King Henry VIII, of which he was according to tradition very proud, the present writer suggests that this buckler at Malta with many others now lost, was sent, together with much other artillery, in redemption of a promise made by the King in 1526, to L'Isle d'Adam, then Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. L'Isle d'Adam visited England after his sojourn in Spain and France, to which countries he had travelled in order to submit to their respective monarchs his project