- ing the chanfron and steels of the saddle. The surface of all the armour of
which the panoply is composed is white, or brightened steel, with slightly recessed, etched, and gilded ornaments. Round the borders of the whole runs a band of diamantine protuberances. It is only on the pièces de renfort that these borders do not appear; for in the first place they are fashioned of too thick a plate to emboss or to dentate, and again, any protuberance might furnish a hold for the adversary's lance. It has been suggested, and on good grounds, that the actual etched ornaments on this wonderful harness are from the hand of Daniel Hopfer of Augsburg. This attribution is the result of a comparison of the details of the design on the suit with the similar ornamentation which is found on designs by Daniel Hopfer which can be consulted in the Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris.
In the superb harness made for the Emperor Charles V by the brothers Negroli of Milan, in 1539, a harness distinguished by a splendid simplicity and a magnificent grandeur, we can see how great an incentive to excellence of workmanship was induced by the keen spirit of emulation which prevailed among the jealous German armourers of the day. It is the present writer's opinion that of all the wonderful Charles V and Philip II harnesses, one suit alone, showing the combined craftsmanship of Koloman Kolman and George Sigman which we will deal with later, approaches the standard of excellence of this Negroli suit. When one comes to consider that this very advanced form of harness was made in 1539, the great art of the Negroli is unquestionable, and yet this harness, as it is seen to-day, must bear but a poor semblance to its magnificence in its original condition. True, its beautiful form is the same, and its ornamentation shows the exquisite skill of the embosser; but these features are no longer heightened by the colour scheme which the suit originally possessed. It is probably the most important work of the Negroli which is known, a veritable triumph for that great school of artificers, who, from the Missaglia of Ello of the XVth century to the Negroli of the century following, maintained for Milan her world-famed supremacy in the armourer's art. Though the interchangeable parts which are extant are still more than sufficient to clothe two figures, many of the pieces which belong to the suit, which is known as "The armour of the great masks," and figures in the Inventario Iluminado of Charles V, have long since disappeared. Originally there were thirty-eight parts; to-day only twenty-four of the more important remain. The Inventario devotes three pages to a summary of all the pieces, which are drawn and coloured. This shows that the ground colour of the steel when originally finished was not
