Armour & Weapons

94 THE DECADENCE CHAP. VI was that armour was, by degrees, less and less used for war and only retained for pageant, joust, and parade in which personal display and magnificence were demanded. The engraved and inlaid suits of the late sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, although they offend the craftsman’s eye as does the decorated bicycle of the Oriental potentate to-day, do not transgress that important law, on which so much stress has been laid, of offering a glancing surface to the opposing weapon. It is when we come to the embossed suits with their hollows and pro- jections that we find the true character of armour lost and the metal used only as a material for exhibiting the dexterity of the workman without any considera- tion for its use or construction. This interference with the glanc- ing surface is noticeable in the Fig. 43. Casque after Negroli, six- suit illustrated in Fig. 42, but teenth century. Paris. „ K ,, 7 even here there is some excuse, in that the designer had reason for his embossing of the metal—if the imitation of the puffed suit was to be carefully portrayed. The same, however, cannot be urged for those suits which are simply covered with ornament with no purpose, little meaning, and less composition or design. If we set aside our opinions as to the suitability of the ornament, we are compelled to admire the wonderful technical skill which produced such pieces as the suit made for King Sebastian of Portugal by Anton Pfeffenhauser of Augsburg, and now in the Madrid Armoury. Here every deity of Olympus, the allegorical figures of Justice, Strength, and the Cardinal Virtues, crowd together with Navigation, Peace, and Victory ; Roman warriors fighting with elephants are found among Amorini, Satyrs, and Tritons ; while every inch of the metal not devoted to this encyclopaedia of history and legend is crowded with foliage and scroll-work of that debased and unnatural form