In 1560, backed by Cardinal Granvella, he endeavoured, but without success, to enter the Spanish army. He then returned to France and took the part of the Catholics against the Huguenots. In 1568 he succeeded in serving in Flanders under the command of the Duke of Alva. This celebrated commander gave him a commission, which may be seen in the archives of the house of Alva, appointing him chief engineer of the works of fortification and besieging of fortresses, at a monthly salary of 500 ordinary and 50 extraordinary escudos. In addition to this salary, his son, Escipion, was given 25 escudos per month for pocket money. The Duke of Alva held Campi in such high esteem that, in a letter to the Emperor dated the 3rd June 1569, he said: "I tell your Majesty that in Captain B. Campi you have a good thing, because by profession he is a soldier, and he is also possessed of art, although it has not the same foundation as that of Pachote (Cristobal Pacheco), and he is the best man that I have worked with since I had anything to do with men—I do not mean engineers only, but men of any class. He is very homely and very merry at his work" (translation). Campi died from the result of a head-wound from an arquebus ball at the siege of Haarlem on the 7th of March 1573.
Now as regards the suit itself. At the first glance one might suppose that one was looking at the harness on some life-sized statue of classical times, so closely has the fashion of the antique armour been copied. The breastplate, which is moulded on the lines of the male torso, is a better defence than the bronze [Greek: thôrax stadios] of antiquity, as far as we can judge from those that have been preserved, from the fact that it is composed of three parts, a device which gives it a certain flexibility. It would appear that even Campi must have been well satisfied with his work on this suit; for in a prominent place on the breastplate he has not only recorded his name in full, but also the effort he made to comply with the mandate of his master by executing the work in two months, an effort which in an ordinary way would have required a year to complete. To that effect he expresses himself in the following inscription: BARTHOLOMEVS . CAMPI . AVRIFEX . TOTIVS . OPERIS . ARTIFEX . QVOD . ANNO . INTEGRO . INDIGEBAT . PRINCIPIS . SVI . NVTVI . OBTEMPERANS . GEMINATO . MENSE . PERFECIT. On the backplate appears nothing but the initials BC.F. (Bartolommeo Campi Fecit).
Around the base of the breast- and backplate, hinged in front and stapled behind, are a series of cockle-shell pendants from which are suspended four rectangular plates, almost in slavish imitation of the antique. With the possible exception of the casque, the gorget is the only part of the
