Mail_and_the_knight_in_renaissance_italy.pdf

ARMI ANTICHE Bollettino dell’Accademia di San Marciano - Torino 2017

armi antiche vessillologia-uniformologia arte e storia militare

accademia di S. MARCIANO Casella Postale 517 10121 Torino

SOMMARIO

R. Franci pag. 5 Riaprono, completamente restaurate, le Sale Giapponesi del Museo Stibbert T. Capwell Mail and the Knight in Renaissance Italy. Part I

pag. 9

J. Sensfelder pag. 85 Bronze preserves History: Epitaphs of the Nuremberg Cemeteries

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Mail and the Knight in Renaissance Italy Part I Tobias Capwell Most studies of ‘knightly’ armour in the fifteenth century deal primarily with the forms, design and construction of plate armour. The shining steel surfaces, which transform the wearer into both a powerful weapon and a living sculpture, are the most obvious aspect of the equipment of the late medieval and Renaissance manat-arms. The plastic qualities of plate armour facilitated the creation of a kind of artificial human exo-skeleton. As well as being very distinctive visually, full ‘harness’ had defensive properties quite different from the predominantly mail and textile armours of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. This contrast has led many authors to divide the history of armour into the familiar ‘Age of Mail’ and ‘Age of Plate’ classifications, with a convenient ‘Transitional Period’ filling the chronological gap between c. 1250 and c. 1400 (Fig. 1). The problem with this idea is that it implies that, as the use of plate armour increased, the use of mail decreased; it conjures images of one form of protection being taken up because it was superior, while the other was discarded because it had been rendered obsolete. This is not what actually happened. Mail was too useful as a defensive material to be simply abandoned. Furthermore, plate armour was not introduced as a replacement for mail. It is true that by 1400 mail was often no longer the most externally-dominant or most visually obvious

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Fig. 1 − Detail from The Triumph of Fame by Lorenzo Costa, c. 1490. S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

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protective material in use, but it remained important well into the sixteenth century. Not only was mail used to cover the areas of the body to which plate would not normally extend – the underarms, backs of the legs, inside surfaces of the elbows, and the groin – it also persisted as a second layer of defence worn under plate armour. An important demonstration that the ‘Age of Mail/Age of Plate’ way of thinking is flawed is, as we shall see in this series of articles, the fact that Italian men-at-arms, as well as others elsewhere in Europe, often wore full shirts of mail under their cuirasses throughout at least the first half of the fifteenth century, and possibly later. The story of the evolution of armour was not one of transition from mail to plate, but rather of the everincreasing reinforcement of defences; new forms of plate armour were added to augment existing mail and textile armour, which was itself adjusted to work well with the new augmentations. Layering plates over mail, which was in turn covering padded textile, created armour with a much greater range of protective characteristics and capabilities. The plate elements were perfectly suited to resist concussive assault and added a level of resistance to piercing, puncturing attacks which had previously posed a serious threat to warriors armoured exclusively with linen and mail armour. At the same time, should the plate be pierced by an especially forceful, well-aimed blow, the mail was there underneath to ‘net’ the point of the penetrating weapon and prevent it from continuing into the wearer’s body. As well as exploring some of the finer functional principles of armour in the 1400s, an examination of

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the use of mail in conjunction with full plate armour also serves as a reminder of the essential social role of armour as fashion statement. Fashion design involves its own priorities which need have nothing whatever to do with functionality. Certain armour features may have existed simply to create a pleasing silhouette or visual association. For this reason a precise functional justification for certain features might be unnecessary, as they could quite possibly have existed purely for artistic or decorative reasons. Mail is a fascinating and beguiling material, its distinctive reflective, acoustic and tactile qualities captivate the senses, making it an essential aspect of armour as a rich, dramatic form of clothing quite apart from any protective contribution it might make. To the eye, it adds dynamic, liquid movement to an otherwise solid metal carapace. To the ear, it layers a loud rhythmic clamour over the clicking cadence of the articulated steel plates. In the hand, it flows like fine cloth while also being hard and metallic. Mail is protective, but it is also tremendously theatrical. This series of articles, of which this piece is the first, will focus specifically on armour in Italy. Here mail played its most prominent role in knightly equipment during the fifteenth century. Even as the art of plate armour-making reached its zenith in Quattrocento Italy, mail continued to have crucial functional and aesthetic applications. Each of the articles in this series will look at one area of the mail system employed by Italian menat-arms during the 1400s, tracing its development, raising questions about its practical and/or aesthetic functions, and exploring the ways in which each piece was distinctively Italian.

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Mail ‘Sabatons’ One of the most characteristic mail elements found on domestic Italian armour from the late fourteenth through the early sixteenth century are the defences for the feet, which, for a lack of a better term, will be here referred to as mail sabatons. This is not entirely satisfactory, since the term sabaton tends to conjure up images of foot armour constructed of articulated metal plates. In the course of addressing the not insubstantial challenge of protecting the feet, interactions between mail and plate were inevitable, just as they were elsewhere on the body; we will presently also encounter sabatons with both mail and plate elements. However of primary interest for purposes here are the seemingly insubstantial ‘sabatons’ of mail only, a fashion rarely found outside Italy and one that perhaps had much more to do with visual effect than with practicality. We will look first at the origins of mail sabatons and how they developed during the fifteenthcentury. This outline of the stylistic evolution will be followed by a discussion of possible methods of wear, a topic which might seem to be of minor importance, but which actually (being surprisingly elusive) is useful since it requires us to consider the physical properties of the materials involved. It demands that we be thorough in our exploration of the evidence, ensuring that we understand all aspects of it, rather than just glossing over certain details because they appear at first glance to be unimportant. Persuading a flap of mail to fit closely around the foot in a comfortable, dependable, and serviceable way is not necessarily as straightforward as it might seem.

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Early History It is tempting to assume that the mail foot defences of the fifteenth century must in some way have descended from the mail chausses with integral foot covers worn in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Chausses often covered the fronts and sides of the legs and feet only, being cross-laced around the back of the leg and under the foot, but by c. 11501 they could be constructed as full stockings or ‘hosen’ of mail, complete with integral feet. Chausses of this type remained in use until the late fourteenth century in Italy; as more substantial forms of leg armour were introduced – of quilted textile, hardened and/or splinted leather, and metal – they were simply worn over the mail chausses, which formed a protective foundation. It might therefore seem reasonable to assume that the mail sabatons of the fifteenth century were vestigial of these earlier forms of mail armour. However this does not appear to be the case. Mail chausses with integral feet seem to have been worn in Italy until around 1360. Up to this point they are found illustrated on the funerary monuments of Italian men-at-arms, worn under poleyns and greaves of leather and/or metal; some form of cuisse was probably also employed, but the long skirts of the coat of plates and mail shirt invariably hide them from view in effigial depictions. Good examples of this set-up are found on the effigies of Giovanni di Castruccio Castracane degli Antelminelli (d. 1343; S. Francesco, Pisa) and Johann Huler de Egran (d. 1359; S. Romano, Lucca)2. 1  2 

Blair 1958, p. 28. Boccia 1982, tav. 24.

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However after 1350 it was becoming more common for the chausses to extend only to a level just below the knee, and in this form they survived as late as the 1380s. These truncated chausses seem to have been one of the earliest stylistic ancestors of the mail valances worn on fifteenth century poleyns (see below). This allowed the lower leg to be sheathed in a full, closer-fitting greave of leather or metal. The foot was likewise armoured with hard plates, either in the form of scales or articulated lames. A good example of the former is found on the funerary slab of a man-atarms of the Obizi or Salamoncelli family (c. 1360; S. Francesco, Pescia)3, and of the latter on the effigies of Galeotto Malaspina (d. 1367; S. Remigio, Fosdinovo)4 and Niccolò Acciaiuoli (d. 1365; Certosa di Valdema, Firenze)5. Articulated sabatons of plate, which provided more effective protection, soon became dominant, and seem to be present on the majority of representations of men-at-arms from the 1360s onwards. The sabaton appears not at this early stage to have extended up under the lower edge of the greave, by means of a solid or articulated tongue section, as was to become common in the 1400s. This meant that there was a gap over the front of the ankle. To cover this exposed area, a small panel of mail was attached to the lower edge of the greave and was worn over the top of the sabaton. This feature is found as early as the 1350s, on the funerary slab of Lorenzo di Niccolò Acciaiuoli (d. 1353; Certosa di Valdema, Firenze). 3  4  5 

Boccia 1982, tav. 28. See Boccia, Coelho 1974, pp. 24-37. Boccia 1982, tav. 26, c.

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Fig. 2 a

17 Fig. 2 a -2 b − Thomas Kerrich’s drawings of the effigy of Giovanni di Poggio (d. after 1391), once in the church of San Lorenzo di Poggio, Lucca; now destroyed. British Library, London, Add. MS. 6728, fols. 176-7.

Fig. 2 b

This monument may be the earliest representation of the feature that would later evolve into the fifteenthcentury mail sabaton. An important developmental link between the mail defences for the legs and feet of the fourteenth century and those of the fifteenth was once found on the funerary monument to Giovanni di Poggio (d. after 1391). Now sadly destroyed, this figure was fortunately recorded by the eighteenth-century artist-antiquarian Thomas Kerrich, whose drawings of it are now in the British Library (Fig. 2). Here the subject was shown clad in a near-complete ‘white’ armour, composed of a bascinet with ‘Klappvisier’, one-piece breastplate with a skirt of articulated plates at the front to protect the abdomen and groin, small spaudlers, three-piece vambraces,

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Fig. 3 − Effigy of Ernst ‘the Iron’ Archduke of Inner Austria (d. 1424), c. 1410. Cistercian monastery, Rein, Austria. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

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fingered ‘hourglass’ gauntlets, three-part leg defences and articulated plate sabatons. Crucially, this armour is early enough that the accompanying mail elements still figure prominently in a practical way. What is almost certainly a long-sleeved mail shirt forms the basic defensive layer, the sleeves giving primary protection to the inner surfaces of the arms and secondary reinforcement, under the plates of the vambraces, to the outer surfaces. An aventail guards the sides of the face, neck, and tops of the shoulders, while the hem of the mail coat extends to mid-thigh, forming a long skirt. Most importantly for present purposes, functional mail valances at the knees and nascent mail sabatons are both present. The valances here serve their original function, covering the gap between the one-piece poleyn and the greave when the knee is flexed (see below), while the chink at each ankle between the lower edge of the greave and the upper edge of the plate sabaton is filled with a mail panel. The mail elements for the legs and feet, completely functional in the 1390s, were preserved in a semi- to non-functional form as stylistic vestiges throughout the fifteenth century. Short, ‘half-sabatons’ of mail protecting the voids at the front of the ankles continued to be used into the first decade of the fifteenth century. They are occasionally found outside of Italy, notably in the southern German Lands and the Iberian Peninsula, areas under significant Italian influence. On the effigy (made c. 1410) of Ernst ‘the Iron’, Archduke of Inner Austria (d. 1424), at the Cistercian monastery at Rein (Fig. 3), the mail leg and foot defences are worn in exactly the same manner as on the lost di Poggio monument.

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Fig. 4 − St Michael the Archangel, Valencia, c. 1390- 1410. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund 12.192.

Another significant example is a Valencian image of St. Michael painted around the same time (Fig. 4); here the poleyn valances have already become decorative, with the addition of articulation lames and demi-greaves above them, while the mail pieces at the ankles still serve to cover the gaps between greaves and plate sabatons.

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Although this earliest form of mail sabaton – worn over a plate sabaton and only extending to a level just below the ankle – does continue to appear occasionally into the second half of the fifteenth century6, the Italian fashion for the wearing them on their own seems to have started to catch on soon after 1400. As early as around 1403, on the funerary monument to Carlo, Roberto and Ricardo da Saliceto by Pier Paolo and Jacobello dalle Masegne (c. 1403; Museo Civico dei Medievale, Bologna) we find short mail panels being worn on the lower edge of the greave, but without any other form of foot armour (Fig. 5); the feet appear otherwise to be covered only by the leather arming shoe7. Once it was 6  The feature is found, for example, on a cassone panel by Giovanni di Francesco, c. 1457, now at the Casa Buonaroti in Firenze (inv. no. 68) and on the effigy of Sir Robert Whittingham (killed 1471 at the Battle of Tewkesbury), which depicts its subject clad in an Italian export armour (Church of St. John the Baptist, Aldbury, Hertfordshire). 7  The armed figures on this monument are not effigies of the deceased individuals, but rather small upright figures placed in front of two of the corners of the tomb chest.

Fig. 5 − Detail from the funerary monument to Carlo, Roberto and Ricardo da Saliceto Pier Paolo and Jacobello dalle Masegne, c. 1403. Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna, inv. no. 1659.

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a

b

c

d

Fig. 6 − a) After the effigy of Marino di Giovanni Cossa, d. 28 October 1418. From the church of St. Caterina, Pisa, now Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. R.F.1185. b) After a detail of the Poliptych Quaratesi by Gentile da Fabriano, Rome, c. 1425. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, inv. no. 887. c) After a detail of Madonna and Saints by Giovanni Badile, Verona, c. 1430-40. Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, inv. no. 373. d) After a detail from a sketchbook of Jacopo Bellini, Venice, c. 1435-40. Musée de Louvre, Paris, RF1484, fol. 67.

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decided, for whatever reason, that plate armour for the feet was no longer desirable, it was only a small step to extend the mail to the widest part of the foot. The true mail sabaton had arrived. Three-quarter Mail Sabatons, c. 1410-1460 Like their immediate precursors, the partial mail sabaton from 1410 onwards was stitched with wire through a line of holes punched along the lower edges of the front plate of the greave. Extending to the base of the toes, this new element quickly became a standard ingredient of the domestic Italian style (Fig. 6). The toe area was left uncovered, and in most pictorial representations the heel and a good part of the base of the foot is visible, made more obvious generally by the presence of a brightly coloured arming shoe, standing out as brilliant red, blue, green or white against the dark metallic lustre of the mail. The leading edge of the mail sabaton was often decorated with two or three rows of yellow metal links. The spur was almost always worn underneath rather than over the mail (the author is aware of only one exception in the pictorial evidence, a small equestrian relief, Italian c. 1450, in the reserve collection of the Bodemuseum, Berlin), and generally no other method of attachment is shown, apart from the wire stitching to the greave. It is important to note at this point that mail armour for the feet did not comprehensively replace plate sabatons at this or any other time. They were instead one of the defining characteristics of those particular Italian armours which made a fashionable statement out of the extensive, highly visible use of mail, with flowing mail sleeves, long mail skirts and mail valances at the poleyns.

24 Fig. 7 − Right greave and mail sabaton from the ‘Avant’ armour, made by Giovanni da Garavalle under contract with the workshop of Giovanni Corio, Milan, c. 143840. Glasgow Museums, inv. no. E.1939.65.e.10.

Mail sabatons tend to accompany all of these other mail elements. Similarly when plate sabatons are worn, mail tends to be less in evidence elsewhere on the armour– the valances are usually also omitted, along with, at times, the sleeves and one of the two mail skirts. Only one pair of original mail sabatons of this earlier three-quarter type survive (Fig. 7). They remain mounted to the greaves of one of the earliest nearcomplete armours in the world, an Italian field harness from Churburg Castle now in the collection of Glasgow Museums8. (Fig. 8). This armour, probably made between 8  The famous ‘Avant’ armour, after the word, meaning ‘forward’, inscribed repeatedly on the sides of the breastplate; inv. no.

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1438 and 14409, dates from the time when mail sabatons of the three-quarter, exposed-toe type were at the height of their popularity. They are made up of thirty-two rows of links, the last two forward rows formed of copper alloy rather than iron links, a form of decoration also found on many of the more detailed depictions in art. They do not include any special adjustments or shaping in their construction, being simply rectangular panels of fine mail, stitched through the lines of holes punched along the lower edges of the greaves with lengths of wire. There is no evidence of attachment points to the foot, although such fastenings must once have existed (see below). Like those found in some (but by no means all) of the contemporary images, these extant mail sabatons were each designed to extend beyond the lower edge of the greave at the sides of the ankle, carefully fitted so that they reach down to each side of the sole of the foot without actually meeting the ground. Three-quarter mail sabatons seem to have continued to be worn into the middle of the fifteenth century, and are still in evidence in the 1450s. However, after 1450 they appear less and less frequently, increasingly E.1939.65.e. Formerly Churburg Castle, no. 20; see Graf Trapp 1929, pp. 48-55, pl. XXIII; Mann 1956, pp. 2-9; Woosnam-Savage 1990, pp. 5-11; Scalini 1996, pp. 77-78; Joubert 2006, pp. 9-11 (catalogue entry almost certainly written by R. L. Scott himself); Capwell 2006, pp. 26-29. 9  Although the armour is the product of the Corio workshop, with most of its parts carrying the marks of Giovanni, Ambrogio, Bellino and Dionisio Corio, the leg armour is the work of Giovanni da Garavalle, who in 1438 was contracted to make leg armour under Giovanni Corio. See Boccia 1982a, p. 282.

26 Fig. 8a - 8b − Field armour, made in Milan by Giovanni, Ambrogio, Bellino and Dionisio Corio, with Giovanni da Garavalle, c. 1438-40. Glasgow Museums, inv. no. E.1939.65.e. The helmet and right gauntlet are authentic but did not originally belong to this armour, while the left gauntlet was made in the twentieth century.

Fig. 8a

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supplanted by new designs covering most or all of the foot forward of the greave. An exceptionally clear visualisation of this period of co-existence is present on Francesco Laurana’s triumphal arch for the Castel Nuovo in Naples (Figs. 9-10), created c. 1450-1458 as a celebration of the conquest of that kingdom in 1442 by Alfonso of Aragon (1396-1458). This very elaborate tour de force of the sculptor’s art includes side panels crowded with armoured figures carved in very high relief, representing some of the most carefully studied and realistic illustrations of Italian armour of the period. Each man-at-arms is unique, just as they would have been in life, with each armour displaying its own character and idiosyncrasies. Some figures wear mail sleeves over their vambraces in the Italian manner, others do not. Most are equipped with Italian celati, while one central figure

Fig. 8b

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Fig. 9

Fig. 10

29 Figs. 9-12 − Details of the relief panels of the triumphal arch of Alfonso V of Aragon, by Francesco Laurana, c. 1455-8. Castel Nuovo, Naples. Fig. 11

Fig. 12

sports a bevor and visored sallet in the West European fashion. When we turn to the feet, all current fashions in armoured footwear are represented (Figs. 11-12) – plate sabatons as well as both partial and full mail sabatons. Several of the figures also wear what one might call ‘half-sabatons’, something of a role-reversal of the late fourteenth-century ankle mail and toe-plates approach, with assemblies of three or four plates which protect the

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a

b

c

Fig. 13 − a) After a detail from a series of drawings of ‘Illustrious Men’, c. 143545. Istituto al Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe, Rome, FN 2818-33. b) After a detail from Constantine’s Victory Over Maxentius, from the Legend of the Cross fresco cycle by Piero Della Francesca, 1464-6. S. Francesco, Arezzo. c) After a detail from The Three Archangels with Tobias, by Francesco Botticini, c. 1490. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

top of the foot, while the middle area and toes are covered only with mail. It should be noted that, although they are still in evidence at this point, fast approaching 1460, partial mail sabatons are less common- the majority of examples illustrated on the triumphal arch in Naples are of the full-foot form. Full Mail Sabatons, c. 1450-1500+ While the straight-edged partial mail sabaton clearly was widespread and common enough to become recognisable as a classic attribute of the domestic Italian

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style, from as early as the 1430s another form was developing, extending beyond the widest part of the foot and beginning to be brought to a rounded point (Fig. 13). Early illustrations of this form are found the Libro di Giusto, executed by an unidentified Italian artist probably c. 1435-1450 and comprising a series of drawings of ‘famous men’ from Biblical, Classical and Medieval history10. Here this new design is found side-by-side with plate sabatons and partial mail sabatons of the rectangular form. Twenty or so years later, Piero della Francesca included something similar in his monumental Legend of the True Cross frescos in Arezzo, in which warriors clad in armour all ‘antica intermingle in battle with mounted men-at-arms wearing state-of-the-art full plate armour of Piero’s own time. The mail sabatons of several of the latter figures do not yet cover the whole foot, but are instead drawn to a sharp point, so that they at least follow the line of the foot itself, which is covered by a pointed arming shoe. The same sort of design is also found being worn by St. Michael in Francesco di Giovanni Botticini’s The Three Archangels with Tobias, painted around 1490 (Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze). Here the points of the sabatons are blunted rather than sharply pointed as at Arezzo, while the edges are accentuated with three rows of yellow metal links, the mail standing out very dramatically against the bright red arming shoes. 10  Roma, Istituto Gabinetto dei disegni e stampe, inv. no. FN 28182833. These drawings were taken from the enormous fresco cycle of three hundred figures (now lost) painted in the sala theatri at the palace of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (d. 1438) on the Monte Giordano in Rome, primarily by Masolino da Panicale. The work was begun in the late 1420s and completed in 1432.

32 Fig. 14 − After a detail from Saint George, by the Master of Santa Maria degli Angeli a Gardone val Trompia, c. 1500. Pinacoteca Tosio Martinegro, Brescia, inv. no. 306.

Despite the fact that partial mail foot defences clearly persisted right to the end of the fifteenth century, in one form or another, by 1460 at the very latest, and probably earlier, mail sabatons that covered the whole foot forward of the greave had taken over as the most common and typical design (Fig. 14). Most depictions agree that the heel remained uncovered, implying that in most instances the mail sabatons continued to be wired to the lower edge of the front plate of the greave. The author is aware of three authentic full mail sabatons surviving in museum collections, one pair and one single (the mate to which is a modern composition). The latter is found on the Italian export armour made by Tomasso and Antonio Missaglia, with assistance from Pier Innocenzo da Faerno, for Elector Palatine Frederick I, ‘the Quarrelsome’, later called ‘the Victorious’ (1425-1476) (Fig. 15). This armour11, far from being a standard Italian 11  Vienna, Hofjagd– und Rüstkammer, inv. no. A2.

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armour, incorporates German design features, including a close-fitting great bascinet, popular in Germany and western Europe but rarely used in Italy itself, symmetrical pauldrons with besagews, a longer skirt, German-style tassets, and uniquely, the foot plates for a pair of boot stirrups with long, attenuated toe extensions or poulaines. The traditional display of these solid stirrup plates fitted to the feet in the manner of sabatons has always hidden the mail sabatons underneath, which are never seen in photographs of this important armour. Their presence is quite unexpected, since mail sabatons generally seem to have been less popular outside of Italy. One of these sabatons is original and homogeneous, while the other is a modern (probably twentieth-century) assembly of old mail of three different types, attached to each other with authentic links which have had their rivets carefully removed. The authentic sabaton (Fig. 16), currently mounted on the right greave, is made up of fine, heavy mail of a high quality. The individual links (Fig. 17) are of round section, with an inside diameter of 4mm and an external diameter of just under 7mm. Interestingly this piece has no shaping over the front of the foot– no contraction links over the wearer’s toes. Instead the maker has created a subtle and very graceful taper along the edges, adding contraction links only at the very edges and alternating them side to side to that the shaping is not at all obvious. The taper is just pronounced enough to allow the edge to follow the line of the foot, where an untapered piece of mail would quickly descend to the floor beyond the base of the toes. The piece is decorated with three rows of copper alloy links forming a now fragmentary border around the edges.

34 Fig. 15

35 Figs. 15-17 − Field armour of Frederick the Victorious, made by Tomasso and Antonio Missaglia and Pier Innocenzo da Faerno, Milan, c. 1450-5. Hofjagd– und Rüstkammer, Vienna, inv. no. A2.

Fig. 16

Fig. 17

36 Fig. 18

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Fig. 19

Fig. 20

Figs. 18-21 − Composite field armour, made by Antonio Missaglia, Giovanni Negroli, and others, Milan, c.1450-60. Museo Diocesano, Mantua, inv. no. B1 (per gent. conc. del Museo Diocesano F. Gonzaga Mantova). Fig. 21

The other two surviving full-toed mail sabatons are a pair, found on an Italian composite armour dating from c. 1460, preserved in an Italian church as a votive offering since its working lifetime. ‘B1’, from the series of composite field armours displayed for centuries at the Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Curtatone, near Mantua (Fig. 18), is one of the most beautiful and

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at the same time most typical of the surviving Italian armours. It is closely comparable to innumerable pictorial representations of armour of this style, by Mantegna, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Carpaccio, Piero della Francesca, and a great many others. It is the only armour to retain its original mail valances (see below), which are complimented by the equally fortunate survival of the mail sabatons. Both the valances and the sabatons were present on the original Sanctuary figures before they were dismounted in the 1930s; they are certain therefore to be as original and authentic as any of the other armour parts at Mantua12. The sabatons of B1 are each composed of a broadly oblong section of mail which extends to the base of the toes. To this is attached a shaped toe-piece, on which the maker has reduced the number of links per row moving forward quite rapidly, forming a rounded toe area that easily conforms to the shape of the front of the foot. Unlike the Vienna and Glasgow examples, the B1 sabatons do not extend beyond the edge of the greave at the sides (Fig. 19); the mail ends where the line of holes on the greave terminates. Just as is the case with the other survivors, at Mantua there is no evidence of how the mail pieces were attached to the foot. To attempt an explanation of this question, we must return to the pictorial evidence.

12  See Mann 1930, pp. 125-126, and Mann 1938, p. 329.

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Methods of Attachment The small technical details which allow armour to work well were not always of interest to artists. Although late medieval and Renaissance depictions of men in armour are often very well-observed, small details are often omitted. In many cases this might occur because the artist felt that the particular work of art did not require fine technical delineation in order to serve its intended function. In other instances it could be explained by the probability that certain functional necessities, such as joint articulation rivets, were not meant to be appreciated as overt visual aspects of the armour in the first place13. Technical features required for the functioning of the armour were often de-emphasised visually; they were not always expressly intended to be seen. Therefore they would often be omitted from idealised representations which strove to portray subjects as they were wished to be rather than what they really were. The fastening method employed on a pair of mail sabatons worn as part 13  The very famous gilt copper alloy effigy of Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376) embodies one of the most accurate and wellobserved three-dimensional depictions of late fourteenth-century armour, and yet, while some of the most prominent technical details have been included, such as the lines of rivets on the great helm placed under the head, almost all articulation rivets on the armour have been omitted. The reason for this may have been simply that the articulation rivets were a functional necessity on the actual armour but were not intended to form a special visual feature. Instead, their removal from the effigy serves to accentuate the smooth, graceful forms and clean lines of the idealised armour. The author would like to thank Robert Macpherson for this observation.

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Fig. 22

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of a fifteenth-century Italian field armour was exactly the kind of detail which was routinely omitted. When an armour is fully assembled on the body, a great many technical details relating to its internal workings are obscured. This presents an obvious problem when looking for technical information in artistic depictions. Any attempt to address the question of mail sabaton fastenings really requires a view of the underside of the armoured subject’s feet, a perspective we are rarely offered. The writer’s hopes were, a number of years ago, briefly pricked during an encounter with Piero della Francesca’s ‘Montefeltro Altarpiece’ (14721474; Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano). In the lower right corner the patron of the work, the famous condottiere Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino (1422-1482) is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child clad in a full armour (Fig. 22), a beautifully rendered Milanese example, brightly polished, with each bolt, rivet, buckle Figs. 22-23 − Detail from Virgin and Child with Saints, by Piero della Francesca, c. 1472-5. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Nap. 516/Reg. Cron. 180.

Fig. 23

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Fig. 24 − Intarsia panel representing an armour cabinet, “Frederico’s Life and Attributes”, Federico’s Studiolo, Benedetto da Maiano and Florentine intarsiatori, c. 1476. Ducal Palace, Urbino, inv. 1990 INT 38.

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and strap accurately reproduced. Kneeling figures in armour are not unknown elsewhere in fifteenth-century art, but they are somewhat rare. Examples such as this one, in which the soles of the feet are clearly visible, are even rarer. Therefore when the author spied a strap descending down from the mail sabaton (Fig. 23), it was difficult not to hope that it represented an answer to the sabaton question. However it did not take long upon close inspection to realise that this strap belonged to the spur worn under the Duke’s mail sabaton, and not to the sabaton itself. Sadly, this great painting, which contains one of the most famous Italian Renaissance representations of an armoured knight, is devoid of any hint of how the armour for the feet might be held in place. Another unusual representation of an armour belonging to Federico is found on one of the trompe l’oeil intarsia cabinet doors in the Duke’s study at his palace in Urbino (Fig. 24). Here the Ducal armour is depicted disassembled and arranged in and around the cabinet behind the door. One empty greave and unfastened spur have escaped the confines of the cabinet itself and are arranged with apparent carelessness on the floor. Yet despite the disassembled state of the armour, with the mail sabaton spilling down from the lower edge of the greave, once again we are disappointed, as no fastening details can be seen. Before progressing further, it may be useful to speculate on the various ways one could in theory hold a piece of mail in place on the foot, keeping the one clearly established fact in mind – that the top of the mail sabaton was usually stitched with wire through a line of

44

holes along the lower edge of the greave front. We must also limit ourselves to methods that would not require any special modifications to the mail itself, since none of the five surviving examples retain any sign of the method of their attachment. Whatever it was, it must have been something that could degrade and be lost without leaving any visible sign of its presence on the remaining metal parts. 1) Sewing. Could not the mail have simply been sewn to the arming shoe? Such a solution would certainly work, and would produce the visual appearance found in many pictorial representations. However, it would eliminate the need to wire the mail onto the greaves, and indeed would mean that, in conjunction with wiring, the arming shoes would, along with the sabatons, be permanently attached to the greaves. Of course the mail could theoretically be sewn on every time the armour was donned, with the stitching being slashed as part of the disarming process, but even for a knight of high status with many obedient and accommodating servants to carry out such awkward tasks, this seems an inelegant solution. 2) Lacing. There is evidence from as far back as the twelfth century of mail foot coverings being crosslaced under the foot14. There is no practical reason why fifteenth-century mail sabatons could not 14  Depicted on the late twelfth-century statue of Roland on the portico of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Matricolare, Verona.

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also have been tied down in this way, although one would have thought that the procedure would have yielded a visual attribute so prominent that artists would have been hard-pressed to ignore it. 3) Strapping. Certainly leather straps under the foot were commonly used to keep plate sabatons in place. There is no reason why this same method could not be applied to sabatons of mail. In the case of plate sabatons, one strap often passes under the narrowest part of the foot forward of the heel, along roughly the same line as the spur strap, while another, often a split Y-strap, keeps the toe-plate from lifting up off the foot. 4) Pointing. Stout arming points were routinely attached to the arming doublet and hose to hold the various armour parts in place. We must therefore consider their use on the arming shoes as well. Taking into account the fact that many artists simply omitted the details of attachment from their otherwise very precise portrayals of armed figures, and having established the sorts of devices we expect might have been employed, we may turn to the pictorial evidence for mail sabaton attachment, such as it is. The earlier partial mail sabatons, extending to the widest part of the foot only, seem designed with ease of construction and attachment in mind. They required no special shaping, and the problem of covering the round toe was avoided. Straps under the foot ought to be all that was required. And on a small painted panel depicting

46

Fig. 25

Fig. 26

Fig. 25 − After a detail from The Martyrdom of St. Biagio by Giovanni Antonio da Pesaro, c. 1425-35. Palazzo di Venezia, Rome, inv. no. P.V.10225. Fig. 26 − After a detail from Prince Federico da Montefeltro and his Son, by Pedro Berruguete, c. 1480-1. Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino.

the martyrdom of St. Biagio by Giovanni Antonio da Pesaro, dating from c. 1425-1440 (Palazzo di Venezia, Rome, P.V.10225) that appears to be what we find (Fig. 25). Crucially one of the men-at-arms in the foreground is clearly not wearing spurs, and yet straps (or laces) passing under his feet are still visible. This unique example is the only hint for the attachment of partial mail sabatons known to the author. When investigating the slightly later full-foot type however, more clues present themselves. The most

47

Fig. 27 − After a detail from The Virgin and Child with Saints, by Lorenzo Costa and Gianfrancesco Maineri, c. 1499. National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG1119.

common and obvious attachment feature, though it too is often omitted, is an arming point placed on the arming shoe over or near the large toe (Fig. 26). The point then passes through the mail and is used to tie it down. It is important to note that this method alone probably would not be sufficient – the mail would still be free to slop from side to side in an unacceptable way. It must also have been affixed at the sides. Yet it is a fact that many depictions appear to suggest that wiring to the front of the greave and an arming point at the toe were all that was used; the figure of St George in The Virgin and Child with Saints (Fig. 27) by Lorenzo Costa and Gianfrancesco Maineri, c. 1499

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Fig. 28 − Detail from The Triumph of Fame, by Lorenzo Costa, c. 1490. S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

(National Gallery, London, NG1119) is a good example, as indeed is, apparently, the Montefeltro altarpiece in Milano. Such an idea is hard to accept. This method would be clumsy, ineffectual, and once again inelegant. Toe points were clearly used, but only on the full-foot mail sabaton; the author has never come across evidence of their use on the earlier partial

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type15. When toe points were adopted, it seems reasonable to suggest that they simply formed an addition to the existing devices which held the mail down at the sides, since the toe area was the only part of the piece which could not be secured by means of straps. Incidentally it is probably safe to eliminate stitching as an option, simply because if it was being employed the arming points would have been unnecessary. The presence of the arming point at the toe strongly implies that the sabaton was designed to be easily removed from the foot when the greave was taken off. (Fig. 28) If small straps under the narrowest and widest parts of the foot were the way the earlier partial mail sabatons were secured, it seems reasonable to suggest that this method would continue to be used after the mail had been extended to cover the toes. However straps could not be used to hold the toe area in place, so an arming point was added to the system. Points at the toe were not a new idea – they had been previously used to secure the toe-lames of plate sabatons in the fourteenth century16, and are occasionally found during the fifteenth century as well17. 15  In the author’s book (see Capwell 2006), the reconstruction of the ‘Avant’ armour (p. 29) incorrectly shows that armour’s partial foot mail sabatons as being pointed to the arming shoes. There seems, in fact, to be no evidence of pointing until the introduction of the full-foot form. This mistake was the author’s own and not that of the reconstruction artist. 16  The toe of the single surviving sabaton of the boy’s armour, c. 1390-1400, from Chartres Cathedral, now in the Musée de Chartres, is pierced with a pair of holes for pointing to the arming shoe. 17  For example, on the effigy of Don Garcia Osorio (d. 1502), c. 1490-1500, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. no. A.481910.

50 Fig. 29 − After a detail from La Madonna della Vittoria, by Andrea Mantegna, c. 1495. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 369.

(Fig. 29) A mail sabaton side-strap may be present in the donor portrait of Francesco II Gonzaga, 4th Marquess of Mantua, painted by Andrea Mantegna in 1495 to commemorate the claimed victory over the invading French at the battle of Fornovo (Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 369). Here the Marquess wears a half-sabaton composed of four downward-lapping plates, with the forward part of the foot protected by very finely woven mail. The spur strap is painted as a dark band edged with narrow lighter lines on either side. Upon close examination, a similar band may be discerned a few centimetres from the toe. There may be another narrow strap further back, just forward of the lowermost lame of the plate defence, but it is difficult to be sure. Apart from the actual fastenings themselves, linings for the mail sabatons should also be considered. Many armour parts were once backed with padded textile, but being made of organic materials such linings

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rarely survive. When a lining does remain, its survival is inevitably due to the fact that it has been protected inside something substantial, like a helmet. Sometimes extant leather lining-bands remaining inside armour pieces and exhibiting stitching holes tell us that a lining once existed there. However if a lining was only glued in place, or if in the case of mail armour stitched delicately in position directly to the metal parts, all traces of its existence can easily be lost. Mail, having notable weight but also considerable flexibility, is a notoriously disobedient material. However when attached to a lining, it ‘does as it is told’, becoming fixed into the desired shape and area of coverage, and ceasing to expand and contract as mail otherwise will. A mail sabaton lining need not have been especially thick, indeed it cannot have been, since the mail coverings seem universally to have fitted very closely to the foot. As far as evidence which can be offered for this idea, we first should observe the way mail is seen to behave in some of the more realistically painted depictions dating from the late fifteenth century. Moving forward from the greave, the edge of the mail sometimes describes a gentle, controlled curve down to a level just above the sole of the foot, at which point it follows a path parallel to the ground down to the toe. One of the best depictions of this detail is found in a representation of a warrior saint (Fig. 30) by Francesco and Bernardino Zaganelli, dated 1499 (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano, inv. no. 457). In this instance the edges of the mail sabatons appear to be bound with cord or thread, while the lines described along the feet strongly suggest a lining (Fig. 31). Furthermore, loops of red thread or very fine cord

52 Figs. 30-31 − Detail from The Virgin and Child with Saints, by Francesco and Bernardino Zaganelli, dated 1499. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. inv. no. 457.

Fig. 30

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Fig. 31

can be seen distributed at regular intervals throughout the body of the sabaton, again suggesting a lining which has been carefully couched in place. Fine red arming points hold down the toes, while what may be two sidestraps (or a single Y-strap) keep the sabaton from slewing side to side. In conclusion it seems that Italian mail sabatons were initially worn, in their squared-off, open-toed form, only with side-straps, sewn either to the mail itself or to a lining. This form of attachment was already being employed on plate sabatons, and is a straightforward and obvious solution. When the sabatons were extended to cover the whole foot, from the middle of the fifteenth century, side-straps probably continued to be employed with the addition of arming points at the toes. With this

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development linings could have become more important, to better confine the mail to a proscribed shape and area of coverage.

Mail Valances or Balzae The role of Italian armour as a form of body-art comes to the fore when we turn our attention to the mail valances or balzae, short fringes of mail commonly hung below the main poleyn plates on Italian leg armour. These pieces were intrinsically Italian– they almost never appear outside of Italy, except in areas of immediate Italian influence, such as eastern Spain, and in a few cases, the Netherlands. They are emblematic of domestic Italian fashion and set it apart from all other styles. The Latinate term balzae appears in the 1407 inventory of the armoury at Mantua belonging to the ruling Gonzaga family18. This document was probably drawn up shortly after the death of Francesco I Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua (1366/7- March 1407), a condottiere and builder of the Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Curtatone, which would later become the repository of the single most important group of surviving late fifteenth-century Italian armours. The term is found in line 38:

18  See Mann 1938a, pp. 239-283.

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Viginti paria balzarum ab Arnixiis vetera19. (‘Twenty pairs of valances for old legharness’) In his translation of this document Sir James Mann interpreted ‘balzae’ as ‘fringes’, but noted that the word’s more literal equivalent is valance (or valence), a term used to describe various decorative cloth fringes fitted to beds, windows, shelves, etc. Elsewhere in his writings Mann employed the term to refer specifically to the mail kneefringes found on Italian armour20, and there seems to be no obvious reason why this usage should not continue. Mail valances are a reminder that mail, as well as being a form of protection, could have an ornamental function as well. As Mann observed, perhaps a little too negatively, mail valances in the fifteenth century had ‘no practical value’21. From a purely utilitarian perspective, the fact that fifteenth-century mail valances appear to have no obvious practical function might indeed seem puzzling. Having no protective purpose, the valances are nevertheless quite significant as a fashionable detail, installed to produce a certain visual and perhaps also auditory effect. More significantly, they are a stylistic carry-over, an affectation that once had a practical purpose but which was retained long after that role became obsolete. The history of military fashion is littered with such things – the wearing of a stylised, non-functional 19  1407 Gonzaga inventory, line 38; Mann 1938a, pp. 276-277. 20  Mann 1938, p. 329. 21  Mann 1938, p. 329.

56 Fig. 32 − After a detail of a fresco depicting a joust, by Azzo di Masetto, c. 1289-99. Sala di Dante, Palazzo Comunale, San Gimignano.

gorgets by officers in European armies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for example, or the continued inclusion of swords in present-day dress uniforms. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries many of the earliest supplemental defences worn over the basic mail armour were made of densely padded textile and/or hardened leather. Italian men-at-arms typically wore closely-tailored mail stockings or chausses, over which were placed hardened leather greaves and padded textile (‘gamboised’) cuisses which fully enclosed the upper leg to a few inches below the knee. Over the gamboised cuisse was placed a hardened leather or metal poleyn, a single dished plate covering the knee-cap. The essential visual impression of this type of leg armour is depicted in a lively series of joust frescos in the Sala di Dante in the Palazzo Comunale at San Gimignano in Tuscany (Fig. 32). Here the artist took care to represent

57 Fig. 33 − After the funerary slab of Filippo de Desideri, d. 1315. From San Domenico, Bologna, now Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna, inv. no. 1642.

the visored and crested helms, the long-sleeved hauberks with mufflers, the mail chausses, the hardened and tooled leather shoulder, upper arm, and lower leg defences, the gamboised cuisses, and the (possibly) metal poleyns with a wonderful, energetic flair. One key aspect of this style of armour is the way in which the eye is drawn to the knee area, where metal, textile, leather and mail elements all work together, overlapping in a specific way. At this early stage we are introduced to the beginnings of the Italian idea that the knee plate should have a hanging fringe below it, so as to maintain the correct interaction between the knee plate and the greave. Without some kind of extension below the poleyn, there would be a sizeable gap between it and greave, a gap that would yawn open when the knee was flexed. This system represents the beginning of what would become a long-lived conception of how the leg armour should look and how

58

a

b

c

Fig. 34 − a) Detail of Mars, after a relief panel by a collaborator of Andrea Pisano, called the ‘Master of Saturn’, c. 1337-41. Museo del Duomo, Florence. b) After Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of Montemassi Castle, by Simone Martini, c. 1329. Sala del Mappamondo, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. c) After details from the St. Benedict Frescos, by Spinello Arentino, dated 1387. San Miniato al Monte, Florence.

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the various parts of the leg should be divided visually. This type of leg defence continued to be used throughout the fourteenth century. The area between poleyn and greave began to be covered with mail by the early fourteenth century, an early example being the funerary slab of Filippo de Desideri (d. 1315) from the church of San Domenico, Bologna. Here the mail extends only a short way down onto the greave, and appears to completely encircle the leg, in the manner of a gamboised cuisse (Fig. 33), which may sometimes have been reinforced with mail. Certainly such textile protection for the thighs continued to be worn well into the fourteenth century, as evidenced for example by a roundel depicting Mars made for the Duomo in Firenze between 1337 and 1341 (Fig. 34a). In this work the dense lines of padding on the cuisse are especially well-represented, as is the one-piece poleyn worn over it, and again we can clearly see the lower edge of the cuisse maintaining the overlap between the knee-defence and the hardened leather or metal greave. Perhaps one of the most famous early images of an Italian condottiere is the equestrian portrait most frequently attributed to Simone Martini, thought to represent Guidoriccio da Fogliano at the siege of Montemassi Castle (taken by the Sienese in 1328) in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (c. 1329). Here the area just below the knee on this beautifully attired horseman is entirely sheathed in mail, with what is clearly a metal poleyn plate and gamboised cuisse above and an iron greave, fully enclosing the lower leg, below (Fig. 34b). Although it is not the earliest example of the immediate precursor of the fifteenth-century valance, as implied by

60 Fig. 35 − After a detail of a portrait of Furio Camillo, from La prima deca by Tito Livio, c. 1373. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Codex 214, fol 107v.

Fig. 35

Fig. 36 − Two details after an illuminated manuscript version of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, Italian, c. 1390. Trivulzian Library, Milan.

Mann22, it is perhaps the most obvious demonstration of the origin of the visual effect that fifteenth-century armourers later sought to preserve, with their diminutive mail valances, after the introduction of the full plate cuisse. What was essentially a full mail chausse, cut off a short distance below the knee and worn over a closed greave, seems to have been worn into the late fourteenth century (Fig. 34c). The mail mounted below the knee took on even more of a resemblance to the valances of the fifteenth century with the introduction of hard plate defences for the thigh. Although iron thigh plates were available in the second half of the fourteenth century, hardened leather seems to have remained the most common material for 22  Mann 1938, p. 329.

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Fig. 36

this part of the armour until the late 1300s. The onepiece poleyn was mounted on the thigh piece and this complete cuisse of leather and iron was worn with a separate enclosed greave, either of leather or metal, as had been the case since at least 1300. This arrangement still required some device to maintain a good interaction between the poleyn and the greave; this necessity continued to be met, not so often by a fully-enveloping sheath of mail as found on the da Fogliano fresco, but now most commonly by a rectangular piece of mail hung from the lower edge of the poleyn itself (Figs. 35-36). It is possible that some type of strapping or lacing system was employed to hold the mail valance in place around the top of the greave, although pictorial representations do not tend to include this detail, if it ever existed.

62 Fig. 37 − Detail, funerary slab of Brandolino III di Zumelle, c. 1396. Castel Brando, near Veneto.

By the end of the fourteenth century full plate armour had become available. Armour for the joints, made up of narrow articulating lames which slid over each other as the elbow or knee flexed and straightened, became more common. Some of the earliest Italian depictions of what appears to be full plate armour continue to include the one-piece knee with a mail valance extending down from it (Fig. 37). Soon an articulating lame was increasingly being added to the lower edge of the poleyn, which sometimes led to a shortening of the valance (Fig. 38). The multi-part poleyn with articulating lames above and below the main knee plate caught on quickly, although as late as the second decade of the fifteenth century the older single-plate poleyn with longer mail valance continues to be found (Fig. 39).

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Fig. 38 − Detail from the funerary monument to Carlo, Roberto and Ricardo da Saliceto, by Pier Paolo and Jacobello dalle Masegne, c. 1403. Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna, inv 1659.

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Fig. 39 Fig. 41

Fig. 40 Fig. 39 − After a detail of the funerary effigy of Riccardo Gattulasco, c. 1417. Museo Bardini, Florence. Fig. 40 − After the effigy of Marino di Giovanni Cossa, d. 28 October 1418. From the church of St. Caterina, Pisa, now Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. R.F.1185. Fig. 41 − Left leg defence of the ‘Avant’ armour, c. 1438-40. Glasgow Museums, inv. no. E.1939.65.e (after Boccia).

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Articulated poleyns were standard after 1410, but sometimes they may still have required functional valances of mail. The funerary slab of Marino di Giovanni Cossa, c. 1418 (Fig. 40), includes cuisses with articulated poleyns with what appear to be single lames above the main poleyn plates and a pair below; from the lowermost lames on either leg is suspended a mail valance. The mail pieces provide a good amount of overlap with the greaves, and could very well still be serving their traditional function. However, by this date another construction method is equally possible. By this time many cuisse-makers had replaced the mail valance with one of plate, the so-called ‘demi-greave’ (Fig. 41), a lame somewhat longer than the narrow articulating one above it, moulded to fit closely over the top of the greave, and fitted with a strap that passed around the back of the leg to hold the upper and lower leg assemblies tightly together. This design eliminated the problem of gapping when the knee was bent; the whole front of the leg was fully protected with articulated steel plates, whose surface area could expanded and contracted with the movement of the knee. The mail valance was apparently no longer needed. Nevertheless the Cossa monument could very well depict fully articulated cuisses, and yet it also includes valances. It may in fact be one of the earliest depictions of cosmetic valances, although we cannot be certain. If this construction is what the artist intended, the demi-greave which locked into place over the top of the greave was covered by the valance, which hung on a narrow supporting plate riveted to the top of the demigreave itself.

66 Figs. 42-43 − Detail of a composite field armour, made by Antonio Missaglia, Giovanni Negroli, and others, Milan, c.1450-60. Museo Diocesano, Mantua, inv. no. B1.Photo of Tobias Capwell.

Fig. 42

Fig. 43a

Fig. 43b

Thus the overall visual impression was maintained, despite the level of plate protection provided to the knee having been increased. The continued existence of these mail pieces beyond the period of their practical usefulness is explained by the fact that Italians had clear, long established ideas about what elegant leg armour should look like and what features determined its ideal appearance. Why should an essential piece of the picture be discarded simply because it was obsolete from a

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functional point of view? It still gave an eye-catching flash of glinting mail, it still swashed boldly and noisily against the plate armour as the wearer moved. Furthermore, if the whole artistic impression of the Italian man-atarms at the middle of the fifteenth century is taken into consideration, the valances can been seen to provide visual balance between the mail sleeves and skirts worn on the upper body and the mail sabatons that protected the feet. With the exception of a small number of instances dating from before 1420, mail valances were rarely worn at the same time as plate sabatons; they were designed to contribute to the overall visual sense of a heavily mailladen armour, with mail issuing forth from key points throughout the body, emphasising a burly yet refined body-concept. The mounting of the cosmetic valance onto the demi-greave by means of a small applied plate is the method found on all surviving Italian leg armour exhibiting evidence of having been worn with them. Only two pairs of extant cuisses retain their original valances. The older pair now form part of the earliest (c. 1450-1460) of the composite field armours from the Sanctuary of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Curtatone (Museo Diocesano, Mantua, inv. B1; Figs. 42-43)23. Here the narrow valance plate fits snugly over its demigreave, and is attached by means of a rivet on each side. It is pierced with a row of closely-spaced holes near the 23  These pieces were present on their cuisses when the Mantua armours were still mounted in their niches in the Sanctuary at Curtatone; they are therefore unlikely to be anything other than original. See Mann 1930, p. 126, pl. XXII, fig. 10.

68 Fig. 44 − Detail of a composite field armour, made by Pietro da Castello of Brescia, Cristoforo Capelli of Milan and others, c. 1480-90. Museo Diocesano, Mantua, inv. no. B4. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

lower edge. The valance has then been ‘stitched’ in place with (presumably) soft iron wire running through each of the valance plate holes and each of the top row of links on the valance. The right valance is composed of four rows of riveted round-section links of around 7mm in diameter and two rows of butted copper alloy links. The left is made up of three rows of riveted links and two of copper alloy. It is worth noting that the valance plates on all of the Mantua armours which carry them (inv. nos. B1, B2, B3 and B4) are shaped to fit very closely over the demi-greave – there is no space between the two metal surfaces. The valance and its suspension plate therefore cover the area of the demi-greave that would otherwise be pierced to accept the small locating pin mounted on the greave. For this reason, it seems that all the surviving cuisses that were definitely worn with valances (those of the Mantua armours cited above and the pair that form part of the ‘Devil’s Mask’ armour from the Sanctuary of Beata Vergine delle Grazie at Udine in north-eastern

69 Fig. 45 − Detail of a composite field armour, by Antonio Missaglia of Milan, Giovanni Antonio delle Fibbie of Brescia and others, c. 1470-90. Museo Diocesano, Mantua, inv. no. B3. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

Italy) were not fixed by means of pins to their greaves. Instead the demi-greave was simply strapped around the back of the leg, with the slight amount of potential movement of the demi-greave over the greave being tolerated or perhaps even preferred24. Pictorial representations are almost never detailed enough to include any information about the valance plates themselves. However the three pairs included in the Mantua group give us some idea of how they tended to be decorated. Those mounted on the leg armour of inv. no. B4 (c. 1480-1490; Fig. 44) have top edges that are cut to follow the slightly cusped lines of the articulation 24  It is also notable that all of the primary Italian armours dating from around 1440 and later that never carried valances on their cuisses (the ‘Avant’ armour c. 1438-1440 at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, inv. no. E.1939.65.e; the armour of Frederick ‘the Victorious’, Hofjagd –und Rüstkammer, Vienna, inv. no. A2) also include the pin attachment points on their greaves for the demi-greave, the only exception being the armour of Ulrich IX, Vogt of Matsch, c. 1445-1450, at Churburg Castle, inv. no. 19.

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Fig. 46 − Leg armour attributed to Nicolo da Tolentino, Italian, c. 1480-90. Said to come from the Basilica di San Niccolo, Tolentino, current location unknown.

lames above them and decorated with simple file-marks, such as are often found on many other parts of surviving Italian armours. The valance plates on inv. no. B3 (Fig. 45) are instead cusped along their upper edges, making them a much more prominent feature of the armour overall. Another unusual design was found on the leg armour which incorporates the only other surviving pair of valances, dating from c. 1480-1490 (Fig. 46). These which once formed part of a composite armour said to have come from the Basilica di San Niccolo in Tolentino and which were sold at auction in Rome in 189025. Here the valance plates are cut with broad, straight-sided sawteeth along their upper edges. These plates carry the 25  Richards sale 1890; Angelucci 1886.

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other pair of original valances, while the greaves retain what may have been the original mail sabaton wiring, if not the sabatons themselves26. At the time of writing, the author has not been able to confirm the current location of these important pieces. Encouragingly, the Italian arms scholar Paolo Pinti has related, in his 1997 work on arms and armour preserved in local museums, churches and castles throughout Italy, how he found this leg armour, along with the rest its composite armour, in a box in store at the Basilica at Tolentino in 197627. Although they derived from a functional piece of armour, the mail valances themselves after around 1420 were a stylistic remnant and thus exclusively ornamental. All of the standard decorative techniques used on mail armour were routinely applied to them, as was deemed appropriate to individual armours. We may assume that entirely plain valances (made up only of iron links, mounted on plain supporting plates) must have existed, but the author has not encountered any direct evidence of them in any full-colour representation (where the absence of yellow metal decoration would be apparent). Of course many depictions of valances are found on sculptures, drawings and funerary monuments where colour was often not included or does not survive; it is therefore difficult to judge how common the plain versions were. One supposes that they could have been common, but artists tended to portray their legions of armoured saints, heroes and other important characters 26  See Mann 1930, p. 126, pl. 28, fig. 3; Mann 1938, pp. 316, 329. 27  See Pinti 1997.

72 Fig. 47 − Detail from a fragment depicting halbardiers, by Vittore Carpaccio, c. 1490-3. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, inv. no. 901.

Fig. 48 − Detail from The Virgin and Child with Saints, by Lorenzo Costa, c. 1492. Church of St Petronio (Basilica), Bologna. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

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in rich equipment that was not representative of the realworld majority. The most typical form of decoration was two or three rows of yellow metal links (latten, gilt-metal28, or in rare cases perhaps even solid gold29), which formed a contrasting border along the bottom edge of the valance (Figs. 47-48). This type of decoration is also found on the extant examples on Mantua inv. no. B1; in that case, as mentioned above, the yellow metal links are butted, and they do not appear to be modern additions. It is impossible to be certain about their date, but they do appear to have been present on the valances when they were still installed in the Sanctuary at Curtatone. They must therefore be very old. Although they are rare, valances made entirely of yellow metal links do appear in pictorial representations (Fig. 49a). Not surprisingly, they tend to be found on richer armours or at least on the most prominent character in a scene. Occasionally they echo and enhance the use of gilded or otherwise yellow metal on the plate armour itself; fully-gilt poleyns are given an even bolder presence by the addition of valances treated in the same way, while the more usual yellow metal valance borders are incorporated into a more specific decorative theme when used in conjunction with selective gilding applied to the edges of the poleyn plates (Fig. 49b). 28  The yellow metal cuff borders on a pair of fifteenth- or sixteenthcentury mail sleeves, now in the Musée de Valere, Sion, appear to be made up of three rows of gilt-latten links. 29  The will of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, mentions a mail standard the links of which were solid gold. Cited in Pfaffenbichler 1992, p. 38.

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Fig. 49a

Fig. 49 − a) After a detail of Scipio Africanus, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, c. 1482-5. Room of the Lilies, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

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Fig. 49b

Fig. 49 − b) After a detail of Virgin and Child, with Saints Apollonia and Sebastian, by Davide Ghirlandaio, c. 1490. Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. no. 65.

76 Fig. 50 − Detail from The Martyrdom of St Sebastian, c. 1490. St. Sebastian Chapel, Church of St. Petronio (Basilica) Bologna. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

Fig. 51 − Detail from The Virgin and Child with Four Angels and Six Saints (‘San Barnaba’ altarpiece), by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1487-8. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, inv. no. 8390.

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Less frequently the lower edges of the valances are dagged or ‘vandyked’ (Figs. 50-51). The dags are sometimes quite long and well-defined, being composed of between four and six tapering rows of links, or less pronounced, made of only two or three rows. When employed on the valances, dagging tends also to be continued on the mail skirts and even the mail sleeves (worn over the vambraces but under the pauldrons in the standard Italian manner), though this last feature was rare in Italy30. In one instance (Fig. 52), found in an altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with Saints (in which one of the saints wears partial armour including full leg defences) by Francesco Francia at the church of S. Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna (c. 1494), the valances are tapered slightly towards the bottom edge, the number of links in each descending row being decreased at the edges. Another style of valance seems to have remained in use throughout the fifteenth century, and was probably still worn into the early 1500s, being contemporary with the more usual oblong fringe type. Here the valance was not simply a little curtain of mail, but rather a tube which encircled the knee and hung down over the top 30  A fine example of a depiction of an Italian armour worn with dagged mail sleeves, skirts and valances (Fig. 50) is the St. Michael found on the ‘San Barnaba Altarpiece’ (c. 1487-1488) by Sandro Botticelli, from the Church of St. Barnaba in Florence (now Galleria Uffizi, inv. no. 8390). Interestingly, dagging on mail pieces worn with full harness was, in contrast, absolutely typical in the Low Countries and is to be found constantly in Flemish depictions of armoured warriors, worn with the Italianate armours of that region on the cuisse valances, skirts, sleeves, standards and armet aventails.

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Fig. 52 − Detail from Virgin and Child with Saints, by Francesco Francia, c. 1494. S. Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna. Photo of Tobias Capwell.

79 Fig. 53 − After a detail from The Virgin and Child with Saints, by Lorenzo Costa and Gianfrancesco Maineri, c. 1499. National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG1119.

of the greave, in the manner observed throughout the fourteenth century. In depictions of this arrangement the mail just below the knee can usually be seen extending up underneath the lower lames of the poleyn, rather than sitting directly below them. When views of the side of the leg are presented, the mail can quite clearly be seen to continue around the back of the calf. In such cases the demi-greave is also (usually) omitted, the cuisse terminating at the articulation lames below the main knee plate. Such enclosed valances seem to have been worn in one of two ways. The examples found in The Virgin and Child with Saints (probably 1499) by Lorenzo Costa and Gianfrancesco Maineri now in the National Gallery in London (Fig. 53), quite clearly shows that the mail pieces are still wired onto the cuisses. The point of attachment

80 Fig. 54 – Other example of form of enclosed valance are depicted in a semirelief Saint George, Lombard, c. 14601470. Pinacoteca Tosio Martinegro, Brescia, inv. no. 114 (Archivio fotografico Musei di BresciaFotostudio Rapuzzi).

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however is the lowermost of the articulation lames, since no demi-greaves are present to be overlapped. The mail then is continued around the back of the leg, and presumably was brought into tension, providing a close fit, when the wearer’s leg was inserted31. It is not always possible to determine with certainty which style of valance is being represented in a pictorial source, especially in compositions that provide a direct frontal view of the subject. Nevertheless two clues can be kept in mind: • the tubular type tend to be significantly longer than the cosmetic, front only form. • the demi-greave is usually (but not always) omitted when tubular valances are worn.

Of whatever type, mail valances, and indeed mail sabatons too, are fascinating reminders that on a Renaissance armour, as in an ancient myth or traditional story, the meaning is frequently to be found in the small details. They are easily ignored, but if we dismiss them as superfluous or unimportant we may also be discarding one of the keys to understanding not only the history and function of such armours but also the intentions of the makers and the mentality of the wearers.

31  Other examples of this form of enclosed valance are depicted in a semi-relief Saint George, Lombard, c. 1460-1470 (Pinacoteca Tosio Martinegro, Brescia, inv. no. 114); an ink sketch of soldiers by Pinturicchio, c. 1470-1480 in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence; Pietro Perugino’s Archangel Michael, part of the Certosa Altarpiece, c. 1496-1500, National Gallery, London, inv. no. 288.2.

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Angelucci 1886 A. Angelucci, Le armi del cavaliere Raoul Richards alla mostra dei metalli artistici di Roma, Roma 1886 Blair 1958 C. Blair, European Armour circa 1066 to circa 1700, London 1958 Boccia 1982 L.G. Boccia, Guerre e assoldati in Toscana 1260-1364, Florence 1982 Boccia 1982a L.G. Boccia, Le armatura di S. Maria delle Grazie di Curtatone di Mantova e l’armatura Lombarda del ‘400, Milano 1982 Boccia, Coelho 1974 L.G. Boccia, E.T. Coelho, L’armamento di cuoio e ferro nel Trecento italiano, in «L’illustrazione Italiana», II, 1974, pp. 24-37 Capwell 2006 T. Capwell, The Real Fighting Stuff: Arms and Armour at Glasgow Museums, Glasgow 2006

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Graf Trapp 1929 O. Graf Trapp, The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg, trans. by J. G. Mann, London 1929 Joubert 2006 F. Joubert, Catalogue of the Collection of European Arms and Armour Formed at Greenock by R. L. Scott, Glasgow 1924, ris. anast. Godmanchester 2006 Mann 1930 J.G. Mann, The Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie with Notes on the Evolution of Italian Armour During the Fifteenth Century, in «Archaeologia», LXXX, 1930, pp. 117-142 Mann 1938 J.G. Mann, A Further Account of the Armour preserved in the Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie near Mantua, in «Archaeologia», LXXXVIII, 1938, pp. 311351 Mann 1938a J.G. Mann, The Lost Armoury of the Gonzagas, in «The pp. 239-283 Archaeological Journal», XCV, 1938, Mann 1956 J.G. Mann, Three Armours in the Scott Collection, in II/6, 1956, «Scottish Art Review», special number pp. 2-9

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Pfaffenbichler 1992 M. Pfaffenbichler, Armourers, London 1992 Pinti 2005 Pinti, Paolo, Armi e arte: un viaggio per musei, chiese e castelli alla ricerca di armi antiche, alla scoperta di cose belle (Monteprandone: Regione Marche, 1997). Richards sale 1890 Raoul Richards collection, sale catalogue, Giacomini et Capobianchi, Rome, March 3-29, 1890 Scalini 1996 M. Scalini, L’Armeria Trapp di Castel Coira, Udine 1996 Woosnam-Savage 1990 R.C. Woosnam-Savage, The “Avant” Armour and R.L. Scott, in «Park Lane Arms Fair», VII, 1990, pp. 5-11