Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/114



Probably Flemish, about 1680. (The blade does not belong.) Collection: H.M. the King, Windsor Castle

Probably Italian, about 1650. Collection: H.M. the King, Windsor Castle

maker who, according to Boeheim, produced several examples of hilt in which the pommel is chased in the form of a head of a warrior with a laurel wreath, and in which the same head is three times repeated on a smaller scale on the knuckle bow, on the annular guard, and on the short drooping quillon. A good example is to be noted in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna (Fig. 1507). Hilts are met with entirely fashioned of ivory, a useless medium for the hilt of any sword. At Windsor Castle there is a specimen (Fig. 1508) in which the whole hilt is sacrificed to the representation of the rescue of Andromeda by Perseus, the monster's body and tail constituting the knuckle-guard and shell, the bound figure of Andromeda the grip, and Perseus mounted on Pegasus the pommel. We shall make no comment on this extraordinary though