Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/187

 *scribed as his in the inventory drawn up after his death; its origin is therefore certain. A second casque, incomplete but of the same form (Fig. 1238), is in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, formerly in the Dino Collection, and may be considered a work contemporary with the casque just mentioned. This latter casque came from the collection of the Conde de Casa Rojas, Marquesa del Bosch, of Valencia in Spain. The style is good, and the enrichment is executed with admirable clearness. The crest of the helmet displays a combat between two tritons, separated by a vase of antique form. The actual crest is outlined with a knotty spray of leafage, a real masterpiece of workmanship. On each side of the skull-piece is a figure of a woman nude to the waist, terminating in acanthus leaves, bordered with roses connected by swags of flowers. The neck-*piece is missing; but the helmet is finished at the neck by a rounded piece of metal boldly chased. The hinged ear-guards, which are in two pieces, meet under the chin. The upper plate is decorated simply with a finely engraved rose round the air apertures, and on the lower lame is chased a satyr playing on an instrument. The gorget plate is chased to represent the scales of Roman armour. Numerous traces of gilding exist, showing that the foliage and other details of the chasing were originally gilt. The pivots that attached the umbril are in position on either side of the casque. An examination of the fellow casque at Vienna shows that this one must originally have been completed by the addition of a curious out-curved neck-guard and an umbril visor of most unusual form. In the later manner of Picinino is the next helmet, that interesting historical casque in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, which is said to have been presented by Duke William of Mantua in 1561 to his brother-in-law, the Emperor Maximilian II (Fig. 1239). Here can be noted that over-luxuriance of design to which the general outline of the casque has been subordinated, a decadence of taste which cannot be sufficiently condemned when, as in this case, it affects adversely the constructional skill of the armourer. Further evidence of this tendency to over-elaboration of ornament is furnished by the helmet in the Currie Collection, now bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig. 1240), an example which, though lacking the historical interest of the Vienna specimen, appears to us somewhat superior in make. Notwithstanding that the surface of the helmet