Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/382



Presented by the Duke of Terranova to the Infante, afterwards King Philip III. Italian, in a later manner of Lucio Picinino, about 1590. B 4, Royal Armoury, Madrid

There are shorter bands on either side of similar character. The whole design is connected with strapwork, which, like the backgrounds, except those to the figures, is covered with minute arabesques in gold azzimina. The Currie breastplate was purchased at the Bernal Sale of 1855, No. 2420 in the catalogue, by Lord Londesborough, and when it was in his collection it was engraved and described in Fairholt's "Miscellanea Graphica," Plate 39. As we have traced certain pieces of armour from the Bernal Collection to the Christie Sale of 1839, we may surmise that this particular breastplate was also abstracted from the Madrid Armoury, more especially as there is a tradition that it was once the property of King Philip III. In support of this tradition we would point out that in the Royal Armoury of Madrid there is a small suit (B 4) exactly of the model we have been describing, and with an identical breastplate, which, according to the late Count de Valencia's catalogue, on the authority of the inventory of 1652, was ordered from Lucio Picinino, and presented by the Duke of Terranova, Governor of Milan, to the Infante, afterwards Philip III (1578-1621). It is a splendidly complete half suit (Fig. 1088), and though it lacks gauntlets, it possesses both a close helmet and a cabasset head-piece. It is decorated entirely on the same principle as the suits we have described. The wonderful Armoury of Madrid shows us two other suits, which are the work of Lucio Picinino, one a full mounted suit