Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 4).djvu/318



The dagger en suite with the Epée de Religion, illustrated in Fig. 1353. Musée du Louvre

jewelled enrichments was made use of by the artist in the manufacture of sword and rapier hilts. Often in the portraiture of the time the great nobles can be seen wearing sword and dagger hilts made of gold, and jewelled. But although gold is a glorious medium in which to express magnificence, it must be remembered that its very softness renders it an eminently unsuitable metal for the manufacture of an intricate hilt. There is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris the sword known as the Epée de Religion (Fig. 1353), presented by Pope Pius IV to Jean Parisot de la Valette, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, after his successful defence of Malta against the fleet of Soliman II in 1565. The flattened spheroidal pommel, the grip, the straight quillons, the large pas-d'âne, and the single ring-guard are of pure gold, confusingly enriched with strapwork, introducing medallion heads of the Emperor Titus and the Empress-mother Faustina, enamelled in brilliant translucent and opaque colours, and studded with precious stones. We are obliged to acquiesce in that condemnation of the general clumsiness of form of the hilt of this sword, and of its over-elaboration of ornament which has led to the theory of its German make: for it is essentially German in form and ornamentation. On the same occasion that Giovanni Angelo Medici, Pope Pius IV, gave the sword to La Valette, he presented him with the dagger made en suite with it; this dagger is now in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre (Fig. 1354). Both sword and dagger were formerly preserved in the Treasury of the Cathedral of St. John, Valetta, Malta; but were removed thence (1798) by Napoleon I to France. Although the sword is still in pristine condition, it will be found that the soft gold hilt of the dagger is much rubbed, owing to the historic fact that it was carried by Napoleon among his personal effects when campaigning. He bequeathed the dagger