Plate armour reached the perfection of workmanship in the second half of the fifteenth century. At no period was it so light, yet impervious, with curves and angles so admirably directed to deflect the impact of sword or lance, and articulations so skilfully devised to mitigate the restraint on freedom of movement necessarily imposed by a sheathing of steel. Never was armour so closely fitted to the contour of the body, and thus so elegant, so easily and therefore so constantly worn. This, the so-called "Gothic Armour," is the cynosure of collectors, and is so rarely to be obtained that a fairly perfect cap-à-pie suit may command some £2000. This Gothic armour is the armour of the Van Eycks and Memling, of Perugino and Leonardo, and of the earlier works of Albert Dürer. The sumptuously illuminated French and English manuscripts of the fifteenth century depict it in use in every vicissitude of war or combat, by sea and land, on horse and foot, and testify how little it impeded the freedom of action of the wearer. They show that it was rarely concealed in campaigning by any textile garment, and also that when worn by prince or noble, it might be gilded, entirely or partially, even almost fantastically. Thus the upper half may be gilt, and the nether limbs left burnished steel; or these gilt and the body steel; but more often the alternate plates of the articulated breast and back defences, the arms, or the elbow and knee pieces, are gilt, while the rest presents the normal sheeny surface of steel.