Subject: knight

Culture: Renaissance Italian

Setting: Italy 16thc

Object: armor

* National Gallery of Art > West Building

* Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology > Love and War: The Weaponized Woman

* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms & Armor

"Armor of Giovanni Battista del Monte

Steel, etched and partly gilt

Italian (possibly Brescia),

about 1590

Del Monte (1521-1614) was a mercenary soldier who at various times served the emperor, the pope, the kings of Spain and France, and the Venetian Republic. This armor dates from del Monte's service to Venice as captain general of infantry and was probably made in Brescia, an armormaking center then under Venetian control.

"The armor is notable for its elegantly pointed helmet with a steel plume and for the etched and gilt decoration in imitation of a textile pattern. Overall decoration of this kind was especially fashionable in the period from 1590 to 1610. A portrait of del Monte in the Museo Stibbert, Florence, shows this armor with its arms and gauntlets, now missing."

* Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art > Permanent Collections

"Suit of Armor with Shield and Halberd

Vincenzo Zenon

silver, 1446 [?] ...

Much of what we know about this armor comes from three inscriptions that tell us who made it, when it was made, and where it was made. If you look on the upper right corner of the shield you can find one of them hidden in the midst of other engravings.

"It says, 'Vincenzo Zenon fare a 1446 [?] Venezin S Silvestro Ne 958.' The engravings that cover this suit may have been the work of more than one craftsman under the supervision of a master, in this case Zenon. This was the way that most of the shops that created armor like this functioned at the time.

"The shield also has a winged lion on the top that is the attribute of St. Mark, the patron saint of Venice."

* Hermitage > Pйцaрский Эaл