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Fig. 458. Helm

English, about 1470-90. Collection: Mr. W. H. Riggs, Metropolitan Museum, New York

Fig. 459. Helm

German, or possibly English, about 1490-1500.

Collection: Signor Ressman, Bargello, Florence

of which was the delight of Dürer. Fine and massive, however, as are these particular English helms, their profile outline cannot compare with those of continental origin. We can show two only of the latter class in England, one on a tilting suit in the Wallace Collection, the other in the Rotunda, Woolwich. Inasmuch as the Rotunda example, though having all the elegance of a German made helm, has been considered by some authorities as possibly of English workmanship, we will examine and describe it first. This helm (Fig. 457A), known as the Brocas helm, from having been purchased at the Brocas sale in 1834, has been proclaimed by the Baron de Cosson to be "perhaps the grandest jousting helm in existence." As in the case of other helms we have described, it is composed of three pieces of different thicknesses, varying according to their placement upon the head-*piece, fixed together by iron rivets with salient heads a good half inch in diameter. In this case the heads are mostly covered by thin plates of brass soldered on, which led the author of the excellent account of the helm