Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/337



Italian, of what might be termed the "Landsknecht" type

Last years of the XVth century

Baron Ferdinand Rothschild bequest, British Museum

and Swiss, the sword armament of the Landsknecht soldiery being particularly individual. In the construction of certain types of sword hilts, Gothic influence, especially in Germany, stubbornly resisted the innovations of the Renaissance, with the result that well down into the first half of the XVIth century Gothic forms and decorative schemes are continually met with, thereby lending to some comparatively advanced XVIth century weapons the appearance of an earlier type and generation. It is interesting to note that, just as the graceful and flowing lines of XVth century civil costume abruptly disappeared to make way for the florid and robust taste of