Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/226

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Fig. 528. Portrait of a nobleman

By Giovanni Moroni. Showing chain mail gussets attached by aiglettes to a leathern doublet. National Gallery

which were insufficiently guarded by the covering of plate being protected by chain mail. The armpits, the buttocks, and the cods alone depended upon chain mail for their defence, the chain mail bag for the last-named being known as the faulde. The portions of chain mail which protected all these parts were sewn or laced upon a foundation of leather. No better illustration of this can be given than their representation in the famous picture by Giovanni Moroni in the National Gallery, where an Italian nobleman stands ready to be armed. He is habited in a leather coat with gussets of mail laced beneath the armpits; while about him on the ground are pieces of his armour of plate (Fig. 528). It would appear that the mail