centuries of two suits of rich armour, apparently French, in company with the undoubted suit of the first Earl, unless they were those of his two illustrious prisoners. I will admit that certain features found in these two suits might be met with in suits worn ten or twelve years later than 1557, but there is not the slightest approach in the breastplate of either of them to the peascod form which came into vogue at the beginning of the last quarter of the 16th century, nor do they show the marked medial line characteristic of breastplates of about 1570, but have still the rather rounded, burly form in fashion in the reign of Henri II. Indeed, the shape of the breastplates seems to me to point conclusively to their production during that reign, and Mr. ffoulkes is constrained to admit that the Constable's breastplate appears of earlier date than that suggested by the rest of the suit. Now, as that armour is certainly not made up, but all of a piece, he here rather contradicts himself. Mr. ffoulkes lays stress on the volutes on the shoulder pieces of that suit. In the collection at Vienna is a half suit of armour which bears a very close resemblance to that of the Constable. It is that of the Venetian Admiral Agostino Barbarigo, and is engraved in Böheim's Album of the Vienna collection, Part I, plate XXXI, Wien, 1894. It came from Ambras, so the attribution is fairly certain. We find here the same helmet with its bevor, the same splinted breastplate and the same very marked volutes on the shoulder-pieces and elbow guards. Now Böheim, although I sometimes differ with him on his attributions of certain pieces to certain artists, had a very profound knowledge of the styles of armour at different epochs, and he attributes this suit to about 1560, which is very close to the date of the battle of St. Quentin. Mr. ffoulkes also seems to think that the Montmorenci suit is not rich enough to have been worn by the Constable. I will only observe that the suit of armour of this same Anne of Montmorenci, preserved in the Musée d'Artillerie, Paris (Fig. 1047D), which came from the celebrated Ambras Collection formed by the Archduke Ferdinand of the Tyrol in the 16th century, and the attribution of which is practically certain, is plainer still, being a workmanlike black suit of fighting armour, decorated only with very few depressed gilt bands. The helmet in which he received his death wound, a helmet much of the type of yours, and having nothing to do with the suit just mentioned, which has a close one, is simply decorated with etching. Princes and Commanders did not fight in rich pageant armour, and the suit worn by the Emperor Charles V at the battle of Mühlberg in 1547, still preserved at Madrid, is a robust fighting harness, but slightly decorated, and totally different in character from the splendid pageant suits made for the Emperor in Italy. Consequently that objection of Mr. ffoulkes breaks down.
In conclusion, I see no real reason to doubt the attributions given to your two suits of armour, which I remember seeing many years ago at the Tudor Exhibition, and which I described in the "Magazine of Art" for July, 1890, as well as in "The Antiquary."
Yours very sincerely,
C. A. de Cosson.
77, Via Ghibellina,
Florence,
17th July, 1917.
