Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/94

Fig. 1484. Main gauche dagger

Made en suite with the rapier (Fig. 1483). Rutherford Stuyvesant Collection, Metropolitan Museum, New York

extant examples of Spanish fashion are much more numerous than those made in the Italian style. It will be seen that the Spanish cup-hilted rapier has a cup of larger diameter, but is less deep, while the pommel is more depressed and the knuckle-guard bows strongly outwards. It is difficult to meet with a true pair of these weapons of a high standard of workmanship. The rapier and main gauche dagger we illustrate (Figs. 1483 and 1484) are as fine as any of their kind known. They came originally from a noble family at La Cava, near Naples, and at one time were the property of a Spanish Viceroy of Naples in the third quarter of the XVIIth century. They are said to have belonged to a Viceroy of about 1618; but since, as we have already suggested, there is no evidence in XVIIth century portraits of the existence of the true cup-hilted rapier before, we will say, 1640, some confusion must have arisen as to which Viceroy they really belonged. Although these hilts are, as we said, of distinctive Spanish fashion, we are inclined to believe that they were chased in Italy, if not produced directly under the influence of the so-called Brescian school. They are now in the collection of the late Mr. Rutherford Stuyvesant, and are on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. The only two dated specimens of cup-hilted rapiers which we know of are of still later date—an example bequeathed to the Bargello Museum of Florence by the late Signor Ressman, dated 1668, and an example in the Wallace Collection (Fig. 1496),