Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/232



North Italian, about 1570-80. Collection: the late Mr. Rutherford Stuyvesant, New York

an excellent example of this type of ornamentation (Fig. 1277). Here a solid and finely made morion has a comb of great height which, like the actual skull of the helmet, is closely covered with a strapwork design inclosing in the centre a figure and groups of various arms arranged in that curious style of decoration which is always associated with Pisa. This helmet is now polished, but traces of its original gilding are to be discovered in the interstices. A morion which utilizes the same scheme of strap ornament, with the addition of classical heads, figures of fame, and the flying horse Pegasus, but which is more beautiful than the one we have just mentioned by reason of its fine gilding and rich brown russeting, is No. 481 in the Wallace Collection (Fig. 1278). Both these head-pieces are North Italian, belonging to the last quarter of the XVIth century, the former being probably a production of Pisa, the latter from some Milanese workshop. Of the same nationality and of almost the same date is that interesting morion in the collection of the late Mr. Rutherford Stuyvesant of New York (Fig. 1279). Here the etching and gilding employed in the ornamentation are a little