are fashioned as serpents with heads turned in reverse directions, carrying out the spirit of the pommel design; they spring from an oblong central block, the lower edge of which projects in a fleur-de-lys form over the flat of the blade. In the two principal faces are sunk panels which, as in the case of the pommel, must have originally contained silver filigree work. The grip, which like the pommel is cast in two halves, is of flattened oval section and swells in the centre, having on either side pierced panels of interlaced corded ornaments, showing the velvet-covered wood foundation. The blade, which does not appear to have been made for the weapon, and which may have been the upper portion of a partisan blade shortened and fitted to this hilt, is considerably over-cleaned, and is stamped on one side only with a form of ornament. The hilt of this weapon is of very considerable interest; for had it not suffered in the past from a too vigorous cleaning and so lost the charm of colour and of patina that time alone can give, it would in the present writer's opinion far excel any offensive arm of the type belonging to our English collections. The fine series of early swords in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House can show us nothing of equal excellence as regards general design; only a master little inferior to Ghiberti could have depicted the sinuous bodies of the intertwined snakes that form the flat wheel-pommel and the quillon or cross-guard. No less accomplished an artist could so happily have achieved the design of combining an apparently free composition with a strictly conventional form of hilt. It may be noted that the silver filigree oriels, which are almost oriental in their flamboyancy, and the prettily intertwined design of the grip betraying the same eastern influence, both recall in no uncertain fashion the Siculo-Arabian motives seen on Venetian lamps and incense burners of the last years of the XVth century.
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Fig. 844. Pommel of the same form as shown in Fig. 845
Collection: Signor Ressman, Bargello Museum, Florence
In the Ressman Collection in the Bargello Museum, Florence, is a pommel of identical form to the one found on the last-named weapon; but it is in a finer state of preservation, and also shows a slight variation in the design of the silver filigree work in the centre (Fig. 844). In Nos. 95, 96, and 97 of the Wallace Collection we find variations of the cinquedea forms which differ only in the shape of their quillons and pommel; while again in the Royal Armoury of Windsor Castle yet another variety of the cinquedea dagger is to be seen, No. 31 in the Catalogue (Fig. 846), similar in con-
