Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/195



Probably the work of Lorenz Kolman of Augsburg, about 1530 No. 106, Wallace Collection

used on its surface, as employed on the casque in Madrid, the decoration of which is said to have been the work of the Augsburg engraver, Daniel Hopfer. (This same method of gold application was occasionally used in the enrichment of the blades of XVth century Italian swords and cinquedeas, see Figs. 657, 845, and 862.) The only other examples in England, known to the author, of this form of surface enrichment are on the blade of a beautiful Bolognese cinquedea in the collection of Lady Ludlow and on the pair of knee-cops in the Tower of London (Class III, Nos. 849-50), which must have been stolen from the Royal Armoury, Madrid; for they can be found depicted in the famous Inventario Iluminado of the principal armour of the Emperor Charles V. They were purchased at the Christie sale of 1839 (Lot 81, £2 8s.). Other types of German casques are those low-crowned triple-combed helmets with ear-pieces such as can be seen in Burgkmair's "Triumph." Two excellent examples of casques of this kind, such casques as were often worn with those bizarre slashed costumes of the Landsknecht soldiery, one still retaining its original outer covering of cloth, are shown in the National Bavarian Museum of Munich (Figs. 1248 and 1249). We should say that both these helmets date within the first half of the XVIth century. In the Stibbert Collection of Florence is another such helmet with the triple comb more definitely accentuated; but judging from the type of etching that enriches it, we are inclined to think that, although distinctly German in fashion, this casque is North Italian in workmanship.