suggestive of duplicated tulip flowers. There is to be seen in the Palace of Martinengo della Fabbrica a statue erected to the memory of Antonio Martinengo I by Count Silvio Martinengo. On the statue is represented the armour under discussion—a circumstance which goes to prove how very real was the former belief in its having belonged to Antonio I, a family belief indeed that nothing could have upset except the irrefutable evidence of the real period of the harness. It is many years since we have had an opportunity of examining the harness at Turin; but it was then our impression that it was of Milanese make, though from the hand of an armourer unfamiliar to us, and that part of the gilding had been subject to restoration. In the official catalogue of the Royal Turin Armoury it is described as the work of one "of the best Brescian armourers." But this attribution probably rests on no more valid foundation than the idea that, inasmuch as the Martinengo family held estates at Pavona and Gabiano in the district of Brescia, such armour as they required would be commissioned from a Brescian armourer.
Of such gorgeous sets of pageant armour as the suits we have just described, in making which, from a desire to pander to the wearer's love of display, the armourer has been tempted almost to disregard the traditional lines of body defence, no other examples have been preserved in their entirety even in the foremost armouries of Europe. Certainly we have, for instance, the Armure aux Lions (see Fig. 1060) in the Musée d'Artillerie, the breastplate, backplate, and helmet made for Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol (see Fig. 1059), the half armour of Vespasian Gonzaga, Herzog von Sabbioneta, which is also to be seen in the Imperial Armoury of Vienna, and in the same collection the half suit attributed to the Admiral Agostino Barbarigo; but all these suits, though under classical influence, show a much stronger leaning towards the shapes and fashions of ordinary XVIth century armour. There are, however, certain separate breastplates, etc., apart from these sets, which must originally have formed part of complete harnesses, closely rivalling in grandeur the Campi suit. Of these ultra enriched parts of harnesses, we can illustrate no better example than that embossed breastplate from the famous Magniac Collection, which is now in the Riggs Collection (Fig. 1056). Considered as a specimen of artistic metal-working this piece of armour certainly ranks amongst the foremost decorative productions of the Italian Cinquecento. It is, moreover, signed in a very conspicuous manner by the artist Paolo Negroli, one of the two famous brothers of Milan. The signature is etched on a ribbon scroll in the lower part of the breastplate as follows: S. O.
