Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/99

 THE FIFTH TYPE—VARIOUS DAGGERS OF TRANSITIONAL ORDER

German or Swiss, about 1530. Imperial Armoury, Vienna

Bâle Museum

In the fifth division we class all those transitional types that connect the daggers of the XVth with those of the XVIth century; they embrace developments of the rondel and the quillon dagger, and other kinds, and are all to be placed in the same category as being produced more or less under the influence of Renaissance feeling, either Italian or German. In this list we rank those fine Swiss daggers with the gilt metal mounts, the decoration of which is ever associated with the names of Holbein and Burgkmaier. A dagger from the Imperial Armoury, Vienna (Fig. 837) is an excellent example of the type of weapon to which we refer, though somewhat richer in the hilt than those that are usually seen. The wooden scabbard is overlaid with bronze gilt, cast, chased, and pierced with Holbein's famous "Dance of Death." Into the top of the scabbard are inserted a knife and pricker. We give an illustration (Fig. 838) of a fine pen-and-wash drawing by Hans Holbein, the younger, preserved in the museum at Bâle; it depicts