Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/365

 the initials I.S. together constitute the mark employed by Jörg Sigman; it can be seen in various works from his hand, and especially on that table of punch-marks of silversmiths which is in the Museum of Augsburg and which Herr Buff discovered. Not content with inscribing his monogram and initials by the side of those of Kolman on the front of the helmet, Sigman repeated his initials I.S., and also the date 1549, below the base of the plume-holder (now lost), no doubt in order to make it clear that he had spent more than three years on the work; for as we have said the entire panoply was not completed until 1552, a circumstance that obtained for him his coveted indentures as silversmith. The breastplate is of laminated plates from the neck to the waist; on it is displayed the order of the Golden Fleece. The backplate is of similar construction; the arm-defences are simple, with espaliers, rere-, vambraces, and elbow-cops. There are taces of two lames, to which are attached the tassets, which are detachable at the fourth and seventh lame, and so could be worn at any length. The jambs only protect the outside of the leg; upon the knee-cops are embossed masks of satyrs similar to those seen on the elbow-cops. There is a brayette. On the saddle steels, which are preserved in the Madrid Armoury, at the sides of the central bands are to be seen marks of Desiderius Kolman and the guild mark of Augsburg (Figs. 1074 and 1075).

The beautiful chanfron, of which we have already spoken, is decorated in the same taste as the rest of the suit, and bears on an escutcheon the arms used by King Philip II when he was Hereditary Prince (Fig. 1076). The two palettes (Fig. 1077), formerly in the Musée d'Artillerie, are now on the suit as set up in the Royal Armoury, Madrid. The extra elbow-cops (Fig. 1078), as we can judge from the eyelet holes in them for the passage of the aiglettes, were intended to be used in conjunction with an additional gorget (Fig. 1079), still at Madrid, when only a long-sleeved shirt of mail was worn without other plate armour for the body. At Madrid is also to be seen a narrow pair of plates made for the same harness that could be attached to leggings of mail or even leather, and so could enable the other plate armour for the legs to be dispensed with. That very eminent writer, M. Charles Buttin, has described the whole of this wonderful harness to the minutest detail in La Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, 1914, the careful perusal of which we strongly recommend.

Allied to the suit just described by the proportions of its parts and its general effect is that harness which, according to the Count de Valencia,