The tang, which is of many shapes—long and short, straight-lined or curvilinear, plain or pierced for attachment—ends in the pommel or ‘little apple’ (_le pommeau_, _il pomolo_, _der Knauf_ or _Knopf_), into which it should be made fast by rivets or screws. The object of this globe, lozenge, or oval of metal is to counterpoise the weight of the blade, to prop the ferient of the hand, and to allow of artistic ornamentation. The grip of wood, bone, horn, ivory, metal, valuable stones, and other materials, covered with skin, cloth, and various substances, whipped round with cord or wire, is protected at the end abutting upon the ‘chape’[431] or guard proper (_la garde_, _la guardia_, _die Parirstangen_, _die Leiste_ or _die Stichblätter_) by the hilt-piece, which also greatly varies. It may, however, be reduced to two chief types—the guard against the thrust, and the guard against the cut. The former was originally a plate of metal, flat or curved, circular or oval, affixed to the bottom of the hilt, dividing the shoulders from the tang: in fact, it was a shield in miniature (_la coquille_, _la coccia_, _das Stichblatt_). We still use the term ‘basket-hilt,’ and apply ‘shell’ (_la coque_, _la coccia_, _der Korb_ or _die Schale_) to the semicircular hilt-guards—mostly of worked, chased, embossed, or pierced steel—which appear to perfection in the Spanish and Italian rapiers of the sixteenth century. This hilt-plate has dwindled in the French fencing-foil to a lunette, a double oval of bars shaped like a pair of spectacles. In the Italian foil, which preserves the plate, the section of the blade between that and the grip is called the _Ricasso_ (_a_); the parallel bar is the _Vette traversale_ (_b_, _b_); and the two are connected by the _archetti d’ unione_ (joining bows, _c_, _c_). [Illustration: FIG. 106.—THE ITALIAN FOIL.] The guard against the cut is technically called the cross-guard (_les quillons_,[432] _le vette_, _die Stichblätter_). This section is composed of one or more bars projecting from the hilt between tang and blade, and receiving the edge of the adversary’s weapon should it happen to glance or to glide downwards. The quillons may be either straight (fig. 109)—that is, disposed at right angles—or curved (fig. 107). When the two horns bend down from the handle-base towards the point they are called _à antennes_. Others are turned up towards the hilt, counter-curved or inversed—that is, faced in opposite directions—or fantastically deformed (fig. 110).