its massiveness be taken into consideration. It may be objected that the duplicating of illustrations of this particular weapon—which in itself is subject to such slight variation of form—is unnecessary; our excuse, however, must be that the surface of the cinquedea often became the field for the richest and most varied decoration. Precious stones, gold filigree work, and plaques of niello were employed to decorate the hilts; whilst the blades could boast of etching equally rich with that seen on the knightly swords of the time. As in the case of the Italian sword blades, etching and gilding of figure subjects, inscriptions, and foliated scrollwork form usually the schemes of adornment; while the finer cinquedea bear etching upon their blades, which reminds one irresistibly of the designs in the cabinet of engravings at Berlin attributed to Ercole dei Fideli.
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Fig. 851. Cinquedea
Italian (Venetian), about 1480 Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 98)
M. Charles Buttin has written two clever and exhaustive brochures on cinquedea in private collections in which he states that he has examined personally or by photograph as many as one hundred and twenty examples; but, as he confesses, it is only the few, the decoration on which is of the finest character, that can maintain any claim to have come from the actual hand of Fideli. In this latter class he includes as being pre-eminent (Fig. 850) the splendid blade of a cinquedea, in the collection of the late Mr. Frederick Stibbert, bequeathed to the town of Florence some twelve years ago.
In the article on Le Musée Stibbert à Florence in the September number of Les Arts for 1910, by M. Charles Buttin, he discusses the distinctive features of the work of Fideli and gives his reasons for attributing this cinquedea to that master, comparing the decoration on it to that on the only known specimen which bears the signature of Fideli. Monsieur Buttin, of course, refers to the researches of Monsieur Yriarte in his Autour des Borgias (pages 141-209), who writes of Ercole dei Fideli (a converted Jew, by name Salomone da Sesso, born about 1465): "Hercule, fascinated by the past, always represents his figures either nude or lightly draped, his goddesses, nymphs, and vestals have a curious anatomy, he exaggerates the length of the
