Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/49

 in the Tower collection, one of which, a late XVth century example, is covered with crimson velvet and studded with gilded head rivets and applied ornaments. It was purchased at the Peuker Sale.

In the Museum of Artillery at the Rotunda, Woolwich, is an Italian salade that is classed in the official catalogue of that Institution under the heading of Rhodes Armour, though what is meant to be inferred from this is difficult to determine. The suggestion seems to be that the example came from the Isle of Rhodes; but when imported and under what circumstances we have been at a loss to discover. This salade (Fig. 344) is of fine form, but somewhat small when compared with those we have been describing. The

skull-piece is trimmed with a gilt bronze decorated border attached round the edge with bronze-headed rivets, while the plume holder, also in the same medium, which is fixed to the helmet in front, is engraved with a vase and flowers. It is well worth taking special notice of the illustration of this salade; for its exact type figures throughout the XVth century and even earlier in Italian pictorial and sculptural art. For example, at the end of the XIVth century, it is a head-piece of the knights painted on the Avanzi frescoes already referred to; while in the middle of the XVth century it is carved on the triumphal arch of Alphonso of Aragon, erected at the Castel Nuovo at Naples in 1470 (Figs. 345 and 346). In the splendidly modelled reliefs on this arch, the details of the Italian mid-XVth century armour are 11