Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/325

 memory any arms or armour distinguished by these details of ornamentation. On the following day, after the ceremony of the opening of the exhibition had been performed, the author again carefully examined this particular harness, still haunted the while by the memory of having noted a like ornamentation elsewhere. Suddenly the explanation of his familiarity with the method of enrichment became apparent: the damascening of the suit exactly corresponded with that of the Warwick stirrups, repeating the design of the vine leaves and curiously arranged foliage. Then came a difficulty. As before stated, the stirrups are signed in large Roman characters A.C. -F., whilst on the backplate of the suit in question, above the shoulder blades, in exactly similar characters, there are the initials B.C. -F. We can only get over the difficulty and establish our claim that the Warwick stirrups were made by the armourer Campi in the year 1546 en suite and for use with this classically fashioned armour of Charles V by regarding the substitution in the monogram of A.C. -F. for B.C. -F. as a proof that Campi, besides the name Bartolommeo, had some other Christian name beginning with the initial A. This we frankly confess is a very weak explanation of the difference in the signatures; but since detail for detail the decoration of the stirrups corresponds with that of the suit, it would seem hardly likely that they can be the work of any other hand than Campi's. It would be interesting to know when this pair of stirrups passed into the possession of the Warwick family, and when they were originally separated from the harness to which they apparently belong. The separation may have taken place in 1839, when many small pieces of armour, a few suits, and very many swords, rapiers, and daggers were stolen from the Royal Spanish storehouse by an unscrupulous custodian, and shipped to England for sale. To this incident the present writer has referred in other chapters dealing with the armour from the Madrid Armoury; but it is not out of place here to record the circumstances of the theft. The armour and arms were stolen in 1838 from Madrid, and in January of the year following they were sent by a firm of Spanish lawyers to London to be sold by auction. The sale was held by Messrs. Christie on 23 and 24 January 1839, and the property was described in the sale catalogue as "a very important assemblage of ancient armour and arms recently received from Spain." But so little did the public then appreciate the art of the armourer that the two days' sale of over 270 items only realized the absurdly small sum of £983. Yet in that sale were some of the choicest examples of armour of the first half of the XVIth century, more especially of the Kolman and Wolf of Landshut schools. Recent investigations have led to the discovery that the