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Italian workmanship, late XVth century. Collection: Ressman, Bargello Museum, Florence

Attributed to Andrea Briosco. Early XVIth century. Musée de Louvre

while the quillons—necessary guards to the hand—are, in a few cases, fashioned of tougher material, iron gilded or overlaid with silver. A very graceful sword with riband pattern quillons diagonally curved at the ends is in the Beaumont Collection, Musée de Cluny (Fig. 656). With the exception of the wire-bound grip, which is a modern addition, it is a weapon of great beauty. Here the pommel is of bronze; while the quillons are of iron, though thickly gilded. Though we regard it as essentially an Italian made weapon, it appears from the arms and emblems etched upon its blade to have been made for one of the Governors of Nuremberg at the very end of the XVth or at the commencement of the XVIth century. On the blade are the arms of