Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/305

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slashed ornaments; but it is free from any surface etching, a circumstance which seems to suggest that it was never finished (Fig. 1044).

Fig. 1043. Portions of the part of a slashed suit

German, first quarter of the XVIth century. Tower of London, Class II, No. 10. (Purchased in 1841)

Fig. 1044. Right arm-piece of a slashed suit

German, first quarter of the XVIth century. It was apparently never finished. Collection: Lady Zouche, Parham

Still pursuing the subject of puffed and slashed armour, we will now turn to two suits which, though employing such forms of enrichment for their surface decoration, illustrate a different type of armour. Both these suits are in the Musée d'Artillerie of Paris, G 179 and G 178. We reverse their order, as G 179 appears to be the older of the two harnesses. G 179 (Fig. 1045) is a splendid suit made for fighting on foot in the lists, and is the work of one of the Missaglia or of the Negroli of Milan. The date 1515 appears etched on the palm of the gauntlet. Besides this, several times repeated, are the mottoes, Semper and Suave, the diamond ring, and the Austrian plumes. The device of Lorenzo I de' Medici, who died in 1492, was Semper; that of his son Giovanni, Pope Leo X, Suave. Lorenzo had also adopted the diamond ring surrounded by three plumes, reminiscent in their colours of the three theological virtues. Therefore we may consider that the armour was either made for a de' Medici, a descendant of Lorenzo I, with the intention of honouring the Pope, or was ordered by the Pope himself. In 1515 only two Medici were living who could have worn this armour, Giuliano II, son of Lorenzo I, who married in that same year an aunt of Francis I, and was then thirty-seven years old, and Lorenzo II, son of Piero, eldest son of Lorenzo I, who was