Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/90

 motifs of a previous generation. We are inclined to think that this particular form of ornamentation, as applied to the cup of a rapier, was the production of a Roman swordsmith of the mid-XVIIth century. We illustrate (Fig. 1479) the cup from another such rapier hilt; for though it is of finer workmanship it appears to come from the same hand. While we are dealing with Italian cup-hilts of this period, we should like to illustrate yet another type which in our opinion is also Italian, but, for some reason which we have never been able to understand, is credited to Portugal (Fig. 1480). It will be noted that the difference between these Italian and Portuguese cups is this: on the knuckle-guard side of these so-called Portuguese hilts the edge of the cup is drawn upwards to an acute angle extending half-way up the knuckle-guard, with the result that the quillon on the knuckle-guard side has to pass through the cup. True we have seen a purely semi-*spherical cup chiselled with the arms of a Portuguese family; but we have little hesitation in asserting that Italy was the country of production of even this particular hilt, and that the fashion of this extending cup was Italian and not Portuguese. This brings us to the consideration of the fact that it was originally Italy and later Spain which first recognized the utilitarian advantage of fixing a cup-hilt on a rapier, these countries universally adopting this fashion to the exclusion of nearly every other type of rapier hilt, and, indeed, resisting almost until the opening years of the XVIIIth century the introduction of the "court" or "small" sword which ultimately became throughout Europe the weapon of the gentleman. In England, France, and Germany the absolute cup-hilt was never popular, and rarely, if ever, figures in portraiture. Indeed, we have never seen a fully developed cup-hilt that could be considered of English workmanship. Certain cup-hilts which seem as if they were produced under Dutch influence are occasionally met with; but if that was so they were doubtless fashioned and made for the Spanish conquerors of the Low Countries. We illustrate a fine cup of this type, though of late date, about 1670 (Fig. 1481). Nor have we ever come across a true cup-hilted rapier of French or of German workmanship. But against this last assertion there is the evidence furnished by a certain class of cup-hilt, heavy in construction and clumsily decorated in the quasi-Italian manner. Compare, for instance, the cup of the rapier formerly in the Bernal Collection (Fig. 1482), where a borrowed Italian motif—an oval panel containing figures of the Holy Family surrounded by open scrollwork—is rendered in a Teutonic peasant manner. The pommel on this example does not belong to the cup and is of superior workmanship. The explana