Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/335

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

celebrated Elector Maurice of Saxony, and was worn by him at the fatal Battle of Sievershausen (1553), the perforation on the right-hand side of the plate being supposed to have been caused by the musket ball that killed him. A more recent and wholly unfounded theory has also been mooted, that it was originally worn by King Henry VIII of England, an attribution based solely on the supposed likeness of the floral rosettes appearing in its decoration to the rose of the Tudors.

Fig. 1059. Half suit of armour

Originally in the collection of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol. Stated by the late Herr Wendelin Boeheim to be the work of Giovanni Battista Serabaglio of Milan (a supposed Milanese armourer about whom the author is sceptical). Middle of the XVIth century. Imperial Armoury, Vienna

To proceed with our enumeration of these detached pieces of armour there are, in the Museum of the Louvre, the breastplate (Fig. 1057) with its taces, short tassets, and the backplate (Fig. 1058) with a garde-de-rein of one plate, belonging to just such another parade set as that of which the Magniac breastplate formed part. It comes without doubt from the hand of a Negroli, this time of Philip. Their surface is cleaned to an unpleasant leaden colour; but originally it was blue-black. This we know from a comparison of them with the actual parade helmet of the harness, now in the collection of Mr. S. J. Whawell, which still retains its fine original colour (Fig. 1233). In the migratory collection of M. Bachereau of Paris are other