Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the FirstGardner, John Starkie
History
Armour in England, from the Earliest Times to the Reign of James the First
Gardner, John Starkie
Armor -- England
This fashion of armour appears to have been devised in the ateliers of
the Missaglias of Milan. A work by Wendelin Böheim, custodian of the
Imperial collections of armour in Vienna, published last year in Berlin
(_Meister der Waffenschmiedekunst vom xiv bis im xviii Jahrhundert_),
gives a short biographical sketch of this renowned family of armourers,
who migrated to Milan towards the middle of the fourteenth century,
from Ello, a village not distant from Asti and Lake Lecco. Petrajolo da
Missaglia, the founder of the family, settled in Milan as an armourer
towards the middle of the fourteenth century, and built the house in
the Via degli Spadari where his sculptured poinçon or armourer's mark
is still to be seen. The work of his son Tomaso da Missaglia greatly
augmented the already world-wide reputation of the armour of Milan, and
deserved in 1435 the recognition of Filipo Maria Visconti, who freed
him in 1450 from taxes until his death somewhere about 1469. The armour
by him is plain, the best known being that at Vienna of the Palsgrave
Frederick the Victorious about 1450, with closed helm, roundels,
unfingered gauntlets, and pointed sollerets over 13 inches in length.
The suit is less graceful than German Gothic armour. The equally
renowned son of Tomaso, Antonio, was born about 1430, assisting in his
father's extensive business at the age of twenty. Large commissions
were received, such as that in 1466, of the value of 20,000 lire, for
100 harness for the ducal mercenaries, and others from Duke Francesco,
the Pope, Don Alfonso of Arragon, afterwards King of Naples, etc. On
his father's death in 1469, their great patron the Duke presented him
with an estate and mill, and in 1470 he added the iron mines near Canzo
to his patrimony. Soon after, in 1492, a Venetian envoy sent home an
account of Missaglia's works, finding finished harness to the value
of many thousand ducats. His death took place near the end of the
century; the exact date being unknown, like the name of his immediate
successor. There are mentions of several Missaglias about whom little
is known, one working in 1466 for Louis XI. Antonio was the last to
bear the name of Missaglia, succeeding members of the family assuming
that of Negroli, a name first met with about 1515, when a Giovanni
Negroli appears as master of the works. The tomb in St. Satyro,
Milan, preserves the inscription _Negroli da Ello qualunque detto
Missaglia_. Few examples of Antonio's work are known. One of these,
a plain suit made for the Neapolitan Count Cajazzo about 1480, is in
the Vienna Imperial collections. The breast and back plates are not
articulated, the pauldrons and tuilles are large and massive, coudières
elegant, only the right gauntlet fingered, the leg-pieces with few
articulations, and the suit, as so often seen in illustrations, is
minus the sollerets. The head-piece is a sallad singularly painted
in oils with the Count's armorial bearings, reminding us of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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