In 1494 the Merate brothers were sent for by Maximilian I and did work for him personally. They also obtained a contract for three years, for which they received 1000 francs and 1000 gulden, under which they pledged themselves to set up a forge, workshops, and mill at Arbois, in Burgundy. Gabrielle was also to receive 100 francs a year and to be free of taxes, an advantage frequently granted to master-armourers. For this he had to deliver annually fifty suits stamped with his mark, each suit costing 40 francs, and one hundred helmets at 10 francs each, one hundred pair of grandgardes at 5 francs, and one hundred pair of garde-bras at 40 francs the pair. The enumeration of the last two items in pairs is unusual, as they were defences only worn on the left shoulder and arm and would not be sold in pairs. At the same time we should remember that the terms used for different portions of the suit are often confused, and a word which now has a certain definite meaning in collections was often used in a totally different sense. The Merates were bound by this contract to work only for the Emperor. Their stamp is generally supposed to be a crown and the word “Arbois,” but it is uncertain as to what actual specimens now in existence are by their hands. Possibly the “Burgundian Bard” (II, 3) in the Tower was made by them. It bears a crescent and the letter “M,” and is decorated with the cross ragule and the flint and steel, the Burgundian badges which were brought to Maximilian by his wife, Mary of Burgundy. Their names are mentioned in the list of tax-payers in the parish of S. Maria Beltrade, the church of the Sword-smiths’ Gild, at Milan under the date 1524-9, and they are also mentioned in a letter from Maximilian to Ludovico il Moro in 1495 as excellent armourers. They took their name from the village of Merate, which is near Missaglia, a township which was the birthplace of the famous Missaglia family. Work stamped with the word “Arbois” and the crown is found at Vienna, 917, 948, and the “M” with the crescent is marked on the bard of A, 3 at Madrid, on II, 3 and II, 5, Tower of London. [Sidenote: _Thomaso Missaglia_, Milan, _circ._ 1415-1468. Marks 27, 78.] [Illustration: FIG. 66. Capital formerly in the Via degli Spadari, Milan.]