Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 2).djvu/47

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
There was a problem when proofreading this page.

THE SALADE HEAD-PIECE

top of the skull-piece to the lower edge. This head-piece was purchased in Munich; but we have been able to trace it to the same Italian source. It is now in our own collection. A few months later five other salades were offered for sale through various channels, all of which we discovered came likewise from Italy. Three we illustrate (Figs. 340, 341, 342). Two (Figs. 340 and 341) are in our own collection, while the third (Fig. 342) is now in a collection at Munich. They all bear the same Milanese armourer's mark, and most of them the small counter-mark, the Lion of St. Mark. The other two salades of this same "find," both excellent examples, though of somewhat

(a)(b)
Fig. 338. Salade
North Italian, bearing a Milanese mark, also one that appears to be of Venetian origin About 1470. Collection: Baron de Cosson
(a) Profile view(b) Front view

smaller proportions, are in the collection of Mr. S. J. Whawell. All the head-pieces we have examined from this "find" are in the same satisfactory state of preservation, which makes us think that they had been kept together under the same atmospheric conditions. After this discovery the collector need not despair, the more so that in the summer of 1919 we acquired for our collection a North Italian salade of about 1470 of equal beauty and in equally fine condition. It is 121/2 inches in height and is illustrated in the frontispiece to this volume. It was found in a private house in England and has never before been described.

The Tower armoury contains a very fine example of an Italian salade

with a strong reinforcing band around its T-shaped face-opening. The skull-

7