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 Medici guard, though distinctly of the casque variety, may be considered to have been founded upon the civilian velvet bonnet of the time, the three combs being suggested by those German Landsknecht head-pieces to which we shall refer shortly. The surfaces of these Medici casques are russeted and partly gilded on the raised parts, and as we have said, fleurs-de-lis are embossed on either side; while a grotesque mask occupies the umbril of the skull-piece. This family of casques may be taken as dating as a class, from about 1570; as it was in 1569 that Pope Pius V created Cosimo Grand Duke of Tuscany. We are inclined to think, however, that the Londesborough specimen now in the collection of Mr. D. M. Currie must be a rather earlier type.

Of the guard of Cosimo de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. This example is of rather different workmanship to the preceding and of somewhat later date

Just as the Electors of Saxony in the latter part of the XVIth century armed their body-guards with a particular pattern of morion (Figs. 1282 and