Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/336

 plates from parade armour of excessive richness strongly under the classical influence. As might be expected, in the case of most suits produced in the second half of the XVIth century, the motifs of enrichment are more or less influenced by the classicism of the Renaissance; but the ornamentation, unlike that of the few we have just referred to, is on a foundation plate which varies, of course, with the changing fashion of the time, but is devoid of any classical feeling as to form and outline.

While we are on the subject of this classically influenced armour we will describe an example to which we have already referred, that half armour now in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, which was formerly in the Ambras Collection and was known as the "Milanese Harness" (Fig. 1059). This must certainly be included in our history, and so must the parade shield which accompanies it, which we shall mention later; for they are the work of an armourer whose name is recorded by the late Herr Boeheim, but the author, after the recent investigations of the Baron de Cosson, doubts very much if such a person ever existed. The suit once belonged to the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, and in the inventory of his collection made in 1596 it is described as a Milanese harness which the Archduke bought from a merchant of the name of Serebei, a person whom Boeheim endeavours to identify with Giovanni Battista Serabaglio, a member of the famous Busti family of Milan. This mid-XVIth century achievement of Milan, while conforming to the Italian fashion of the day, is yet conceived somewhat on the lines of old Roman suits of antiquity. According to the old inventory Serebei delivered the harness to the Archduke in the year 1560 for twenty-four hundred Kronen. The breast- and backplates fit accurately together, extending from the top plate of the gorget in fourteen lames or splints to the base of the taces. These lames, since they work upon slotted rivets, ensure a very free movement of the body. The tassets are of six plates and follow the lines of the taces. The shoulder defences take the form of very small pauldrons, finishing immediately below the turners of the rerebraces in a band of escalloped ornament quite classical in appearance. As to decoration, the torso of this very beautiful half suit is divided into three diverging bands starting from the wholly decorated gorget plate to the lowest plate of the tassets. The embossed work is splendid in quality, and on the cuirass plates is in sufficiently low relief to enable the plates to slide freely one over the other. Forms of strapwork, trophies of arms, and motifs and figures chosen from pagan mythology constitute the theme of the ornamentation, which is rendered in a manner reminiscent of the mid period of the work