Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/312

 art of exquisite beauty. There is a sketch of a hilt of this kind in the Bâle Museum. It seems hardly possible that such wealth of enrichment could ever have been actually produced; certainly no such hilt is known to the author. In the circumstances we feel that this design and very many more of the same nature from the hands of Holbein, Aldegrever, Peter Flötner, and other famous jewel designers are to be compared with those drawings of Leonardo da Vinci for open burgonet helmets, which only represent a great artist designer's metal schemes, and which were almost impossible to execute, and, even if executed, impossible to wear.

Italian, third quarter of the XVIth century J 96, Musée d'Artillerie, Paris

We will now consider the "swept" hilted rapier as it appears in the third quarter of the XVIth century. A very representative example with a