difficulty, to reconstruct a mounted figure, its counterpart representation, A 164 in the Madrid Armoury (Fig. 1067). A witness who was present at the battle, the Comendador Alcántara, Don Luis de Ávila y Zuñiga, the favourite "gentleman" of the monarch, confirms with his pen the veracity of that superb picture in the following terms: (Translation) "The Emperor rode on a dark chestnut Spanish horse, which had been presented to him by Signor de Ri, Chevalier of the Golden Fleece and his first equerry; he wore a caparison of crimson velvet, with trimmings of gold and some armour, white and gilded, and over it nothing else save the very wide band of crimson taffeta striped with gold, and a morrion tudesco, with a short lance, almost a javelin, in his hands." This white and gilded armour was confined to a breast- and backplate, large and strong tassets, gorget, and espalier pauldrons prolonged to the elbow. Beneath were sleeves of chain mail, and finally strong gauntlets with finger plates joined together two by two to protect the hands. These pieces, in combination with the triple-combed helmet, the javelin, and the wheel-*lock pistol, which is fastened to the front saddle steel, constituted a war apparel known in Spain at the time as de herreruelos, an apparel which was first worn in this campaign, according to the account given by Nuñez de Alba in his Diálogos del Soldado.
Space scarcely permits us to give details of that multitude of extant pieces that renders the Mühlberg harness one of the most complete suits known; for, as we have said, they require more than four figures for their full display. But we have alluded especially to the Mühlberg armour because it is a splendid type of German make à la façon d'Espagne, and because, thanks to the existence of Titian's portrait, we are able to give, as we always wish to give, an illustration of a contemporary painting which shows the type of armour in use, and which is, in this case, a representation of the actual suit described.
The Metropolitan Museum of New York is fortunate in possessing, through their purchase of the Duc de Dino's Collection, two suits of this German armour of Spanish fashion, the more complete of the two coming from the famous Bernal and Londesborough Collections. Though naturally they are not as complete as some of the magnificent series at Madrid and Vienna, we illustrate these suits as being less universally known, and as being interesting as examples of the fine armour which passed by some manner or other, during the subsequent troublesome times, from Spain, to which country they rightfully belong, into the hands of private owners. We will first speak of the more important of these two German-Spanish harnesses
