Museum example also came from their workshop. The helmet at Vienna belonged to Duke François Marie d'Urbino (Fig. 1230); while the Madrid specimen (D 1) was sent to the Emperor Charles V in 1534 by Federigo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, as a mark of gratitude for the Emperor's gift to him of the Principality of Monferrat (Fig. 1230A). The Duke also included in his present several separate pieces of armour, together with the famous suit, now lost save the helmet to which we have already alluded (ante, page 128, Fig. 1218). We may add that the chin-piece or buffe of the Madrid example is in the form of a man's beard; the upper portion, which was shaped as the eyes and nose, was a detachable piece, and is now missing. The gorget plates are embossed with a representation of the Golden Fleece.
It is here interesting to describe and illustrate a buffe (Fig. 1231a), signed by Negroli and dated, which recently was sold at Christie's in the Breadalbane sale for £1,155 (Lot 86) on 5 July 1917. The actual buffe is in two parts, working on the principle of the falling umbril with three gorget plates below; the upper plate of the buffe is embossed with a grotesque human face, the sneering and drooping mouth diverging below into a form of leafage. The surface is blued with a gilt decoration. Concealed between the first and second lames of the buffe is the signature: PHĨ Ē FRĀ DE NEGROLIS · F, engraved on a gilt cartouche, whilst on the other side on the corresponding cartouche is the date, MDXXXVIII. In the author's opinion this piece is part of a burgonet made for the Emperor Charles V or given by that monarch to some great figure of the time, and came from the Christie sale in 1839 of the armour stolen from Madrid. The descriptions in the catalogue of that sale are so meagre that few of the pieces sold can be identified.
No armourer's mark of the Negroli is to be found on these pieces, but the author here illustrates their well-defined mark (Fig. 1231b) on a cuissard of the Musée d'Artillerie suit, which has already been illustrated (Vol. iii, Fig. 1046).
Considering the work of the brothers Negroli in their more restrained but none the less still ornate manner, we must make mention of those two splendid head-pieces which are respectively in the collection of the late Mr. Pierpont Morgan of New York, and in that of Mr. S. J. Whawell. The former, which has lost its original ear-guards, is signed on an additional forehead plate attached beneath the umbril of the piece. Doubtless Mr. Whawell's casque was signed on a similar plate, which is now, however, missing, though the rivets that held it in position are still to be seen.
