Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 3).djvu/337

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of Lucio Picinino. The borders of the various lames and the details of the embossed work are most skilfully damascened with the purest of Italian foliated designs in gold. The helmet upon the suit is a burgonet, of classical form, surmounted by the figure of a monster. This burgonet must not be confused with that described and illustrated in Vol. iv, Fig. 1224. As in the case of the Campi suit at Madrid, full sleeves of mail may have protected the arms, though the fingered gauntlets are still in existence. Possibly this half armour formed part of a whole suit which was subsequently broken up; this, however, is certainly not the inference to be derived from the record in the 1596 inventory. We may add that the suit retains much of its original lining of velvet and gold embroidery. No mark used by Battista Serabaglio is recorded or known, and were it not for the inventory of 1596 in which the name of Serebei is associated with this harness, armour students would be in complete ignorance as to the supposed productions of this Milanese armourer-artist. We are unable to attribute to him any other known suit or part of a suit. The late Herr Boeheim was responsible for the form of the name, Serabaglio.

There is probably no suit of armour that has been more frequently described and illustrated than that in the Musée d'Artillerie known as the Armure aux Lions. It was preserved in the Arsenal of Chantilly during the XVIIIth century, and was moved to the Musée d'Artillerie in the early years of the XIXth century. It now figures there under the heading of G 50 (Fig. 1060). Although it is not now credited to the ownership of any king of France, this remarkable harness was until comparatively recently on no authority whatsoever associated with the names first of Francis I and then of Henry II. Certainly the top of the breastplate is embossed with the collar and order of St. Michael; but that was not the sole prerogative of the royal house of France (see the suit of the Earl of Leicester, Fig. 1102), nor, in our opinion, is the suit French in fashion or make. It is, however, a very beautiful parade harness, and from the character of its bizarre decoration we place it in the category of the suits which, both as regards form and enrichment, have been influenced by the classical feeling. It is without an armourer's mark of any kind, and although the embossing on it seems to have been done by an artist with whose style we are familiar, we are unable to ascribe the harness itself to any armourer with whose work and name we are acquainted. We certainly regard it as a production of Northern Italy, possibly Milan, and of the middle of the XVIth century. The recessed borders ornamented with embossed acanthus foliage are reminiscent, both in craftsmanship and design, of the