Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/127

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We will not weary our readers with a full description of the other Italian armets we illustrate; but so rare is a complete head-piece of this type, that we have been at some considerable trouble to collect a group of sufficient number to show the varieties of form of these head-pieces. The examples illustrated (Fig. 438) are of north Italian make and fashion and date from about 1470 to 1510.

Fig. 440. Armet

Italian, or possibly Spanish, about 1480. Collection: Mr. Frank B. Macomber, Boston, now in the Cleveland Museum

Three other armets of the Italian type we reproduce on a larger scale. The first (Fig. 439) shows the chain camail fastened beneath the lower edge of the helmet. The second (Fig. 440) is an armet which is considered by some to be of Spanish origin, but which, in the present writer's opinion, is also north Italian, dating from about 1480. As in the case of other armets referred to (Figs. 436 and 437), around the base of the skull-piece of this helmet there is riveted a thin strip of metal beneath which was the leather strap to which the camail was sewn. The third armet (Fig. 441) is a very fine north Italian example in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris (No. H 56). Here can still be seen the true Italian armet, but in its latest form. The low comb of the skull-piece is already cabled, and a suggestion of similar ornamentation appears on the visor. The borders of the principal plates, and other parts of