Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/103

their actual date. As in the case of all weapons of these times, the spirit of the Renaissance very soon made itself apparent in their enrichment. In Italy the influence of this spirit can be traced down from about 1440, manifesting itself finally in the gorgeous enrichments of the various cinquedea-like daggers. In the case of the cinquedea, the sixth and last class of dagger which we shall examine, we shall have to go back to the end of the first half of the XVth century in order to look at the earlier types. Here we propose to deal briefly with a few daggers of Italian origin which are more or less the XVIth century descendants of the XVth century cinquedea. The four XVIth century dagger swords we illustrate have practically the blade proportions of the cinquedea; but their hilts consist of the ordinary quillons, grip, and pommel.

Fig. 843

Engraving by Heinrich Aldegrever, from Die Hochzeitstänser, showing the "Holbein" dagger and the skirt from which the fashion of the tonnlet was derived

Of hybrid cinquedea, if we may use the expression, no example is more representative than that in the Windsor Armoury, No. 24 in the catalogue (Fig. 845), which, like other early daggers to be found there, was sent to Windsor Castle from Carlton House in the second quarter of the XIXth century. The hilt of this example, which is of North Italian workmanship of the first quarter of the XVIth century, is entirely of gilt bronze, and is fashioned of three separate parts, the pommel, the grip, and the quillons. The pommel is of wheel form, composed of two castings joined back to back, its outline cleverly fashioned as the intertwined bodies of two snakes linked together at neck and tail. In the centre of this grotesque framework, on each side of the pommel, is a circular sunk panel containing a quasi-oriental tracery design in silver filigree. The quillons