Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/178

 was preparing this casque (1543); for Francis's last struggle to retain Milan was between 1542 and 1544, when by the Peace of Crespy he lost his duchy to the Emperor. Add to this that while such a casque could not reasonably have found its way out of the Imperial Armory it may well have disappeared from the French king's possessions, like so many other important arms which were scattered during the Revolution. So far as we know, moreover, the present object was long preserved in France. It would be by no means surprising, therefore, if a study of the French archives demonstrated that in 1543 Francis I paid Philip de Negrolis many broad French pieces for embossing a princely casque!"

When we consider Mr. Whawell's casque (Fig. 1233), which, as we have said, has probably lost the plate which had the signature upon it, we unhesitatingly pronounce it to be the work of Philip Negrolis; we notice once more a slight step in the direction of the grotesque. In this instance we are able to identify the breast- and backplates that were made for and actually belong to the same suit as the helmet. They are now in the Louvre (see Vol. iii, page 293, Figs. 1057 and 1058). Mr. Whawell's casque was purchased in the first half of the XIXth century in Rome, by Sir Adam Hay, Bart., who sent it, together with a shield, to which we shall refer later, to the famous Loan Collection held at the South Kensington Museum in 1862. It is there described in the catalogue as follows:—"An Iron Helmet, with oreillettes ornamented with repoussé arabesques crested with a sort of sheaf ornament; in front is a dolphin mask. This beautiful helmet is doubtless the work of Paolo de' Negroli, a famous Milanese armourer of the XVIth century; the ornamentation and also the style of execution correspond precisely with those of the breastplate, which is signed by the artist; in all probability it was the helmet en suite with it." The italics are the author's; they are added to emphasize the association of this helmet with the breastplate illustrated in Fig. 1056 (vol. iii, page 289), which might indeed very easily have been mistaken as belonging to it, had not the author discovered at the Louvre the actual back- and breastplate, corresponding detail for detail with the casque. This casque, if not the finest, is at least one of the finest examples of this particular type of the armourer's art extant. How skilfully the puckered-up mask of the marine monster diverges into foliage forms, and how gracefully the delicate tendril scrollwork occupies the surface of the skull-piece! Of the ear-pieces, which are hinged, one is apparently of a slightly later date than the casque itself, a late XVIth century restoration made seemingly by an armourer whose skill could not vie with that of the Negroli, a