Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/141



Probably German, about 1590. Collection: Stibbert, Florence

Signor S. Bardini of Florence. It was upon close helmets of this "Milanese" form that Lucio Picinino in his later manner and his followers executed their elaborate embossed ornamentation (Figs. 1082 and 1088). When we look to other countries for an elaborate head-piece of this order, we once more turn to France, and in the Musée d'Artillerie (II 259) see a close helmet of the type we want, but a helmet certainly not of Italian, but of French origin (Fig. 1199). This helmet we are inclined to ascribe to one of those Parisian armourers who practised their craft in the Louvre on behalf of the royal house of France, armourers whose work we have already illustrated and described in Chapter XXVIII of our third volume. The decoration shows the same predilection for covering the surface with terminal figures, curious monsters, and elaborate scrollwork executed in low relief, work which—the period considered—is admirably modelled, but which is marred by a certain conventional stiffness peculiar to the later French school it represents.