to cover the back of the neck and the ears; while a movable chin-piece was attached by the same pivots as controlled the visor. This type had a distinct advantage over the continental and earlier type, since it avoided the weak spot at the juncture of the cheek-plates with the narrow neck-piece at the back, and did away with the necessity of the rondel, which is seldom found in an English made armet. The movable chin-piece was fixed firmly by a hook or spring-bolt at the side.
From the continental type we should perhaps exclude the armets of German make. These were all of a late type, and had many individual features of their own.
The buffe, or grande bavière, was so often associated with the armet, that it might almost be taken for an integral part of the helmet proper. In the Uccello picture in the National Gallery no head-piece is seen without this additional protection. It was a reinforcing plate, fashioned much on the lines of the bevor of the salade; but worn on the armet it fitted over the chin and the lower part of the visor, effectually preventing the latter piece, which was unfastened in the early armets, from being forced up by a lance or sword thrust. These buffes were in almost every case attached by a strap or double straps passing round the neck of the helmet and buckling beneath the rondel at the back. A very good mid-XVth century illustration of the buffe attached by the strap is to be noted on the sculptured stone architrave in the Ducal Palace at Urbino, known as "the door of war"; where, carved in the motif of the ornamentation, there is a bas-relief profile view of an armet. The pin and rivet attachment of the mesail, the rondel, and the buffe attached by a stout strap are all admirably rendered (Fig. 428). Such buffes are also most clearly visible, sculptured on the splendid bas-reliefs that decorate the tomb erected between 1494 and 1497 to the memory of Gian Galeazzo Visconti in the right transept of the Certosa di Pavia, near Milan, casts of which may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
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Fig. 428. Bas-relief
From the architrave of the famous "door of war" in the Ducal Palace, Urbino. Middle of XVth century
The increasing use of the armet was not uniform throughout civilized Europe. The countries of central Europe generally never appeared quite to
