The horse was an integral part of Renaissance culture, not only as a beast of burden but also as a sign of rank and status. For the nobility equitation was an essential skill, both socially and militarily. Horses played a pivotal role in warfare and often wore armor as elaborate and expensive as that of their riders. Drawing exclusively from the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this catalogue features various types of European horse armor dating from 1480 to 1620. Splendid examples, many of which are unpublished or rarely seen, are examined in terms of style, construction, and decoration.

The Armored Horse In Europe, 1480-1620 (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)

History

Pyhrr, Stuart W.

Breiding, Dirk H.

LaRocca, Donald J.

Americas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The advent of the crossbow more than 2,500 years ago effected dramatic changes for hunters and warriors. For centuries, it was among the most powerful and widely used handheld weapons, and its popularity endures to this day. A Deadly Art presents a lively, accessible survey of the crossbow’s “golden age,” along with detailed descriptions of twenty-four remarkable examples.
 Beginning in the middle ages, the European aristocracy’s enthusiasm for the crossbow heralded shooting competitions and pageants that featured elaborately decorated weapons bearing elegant embellishments of rare materials and prized artistry. In addition to being highly functional, these weapons were magnificent works of art. A Deadly Art includes fascinating descriptions of crossbows used by Margaret of Savoy and Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian I and Charles V, among others.

A Deadly Art: European Crossbows, 1250–1850

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

An integral part of Renaissance culture, the horse was not only a beast of burden and means of transportation but also a sign of rank and status. For the nobility, horsemanship was an essential skill, both militarily and socially. Since horses played a pivotal role in warfare, tournaments, and ceremonies, they often wore armor as elaborate and expensive as that of their riders. From the late 1400s to the late 1500s, European horse armor became so technically and artistically sophisticated that its finest productions now rank among the greatest achievements of Renaissance decorative arts.
 The group of armored equestrian figures forming the centerpiece of the permanent arms and armor exhibition has, for almost a century, been one of the most popular and dramatic areas of the Metropolitan Museum. Aside from the bards (complete horse armors of plate) displayed on the figures, the Museum has many important examples in its reserve collection that are rarely shown, often unpublished, and largely unknown even to specialists. In fact, armor for the horse has generally received much less scholarly attention than that designed for the rider, this volume being the first exclusively devoted to the subject.
 The forty objects presented here comprise all the main types of horse defense, each intended to protect a different part of the animal's body: shaffron (head), crinet (neck), peytral (breast and shoulders), flanchard (ribs and abdomen), and crupper (hindquarters). Their range is broad―from a set of rudimentary peytral and crupper plates made of leather (the only examples of this kind in the United States) to an elaborately decorated steel shaffron produced for the Polish prince Nikolaus "the Black" Radziwill. A carved ivory chess piece from about 1370, one of the earliest three-dimensional representations of a European horse in a full bard; an armored saddle with its original velvet upholstery; whimsical ear guards in the shape of dolphins; and a "blind" shaffron made without eye openings to prevent a horse from shying during a joust―all cast light on the various forms and styles developed by armorers of the period. Also revealed is the evolving complexity of the decorative techniques and motifs employed, as horse armor was embossed, etched, gilded, and painted, and ornamentation evolved from simple foliate scrolls to fully realized figural scenes derived from classical mythology.
 Placing these objects in context is an essay tracing the history of European horse armor from its revival in the twelfth century (after its disappearance with the fall of Rome) through its flowering in the Renaissance to its eventual obsolescence in the early 1600s. Other texts include a discussion of the featured objects in relation to those in the Museum's permanent display and an overview of armored saddles and saddle steels.
 Symbol of a romantic age of chivalry, the knight was inseparable from his horse. This invaluable study reveals another aspect of that interdependence: as armorers devised protective coverings for both rider and animal, they also created lasting works of art.
 This catalogue is issued in conjunction with an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from February 15, 2005, to January 15, 2006. [This book was originally published in 2005 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480–1620

LaRocca, Donald

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s holdings of arms and armor are among the finest of their kind in the world. Presenting nearly 100 masterpieces from the collection, this lavishly illustrated volume includes complete armors and armor elements, swords, firearms and crossbows, staff weapons, horse equipment, and related accessories. Drawn for the most part from the princely armories of Europe, these objects represent the epitome of the armorer’s art, and many are published here in color for the first time. The engaging text by Dirk H. Breiding summarizes the latest scholarship and discusses how the museum’s collection—the core of which consists of a 1977 bequest by the distinguished connoisseur and scholar Carl Otto Kretzschmar von Kienbusch (1884–1976)—has evolved over the years. This volume reveals how arms and armor—uniting art, fashion, design, politics, and technology—can be seen as unique expressions of human creativity.

Arms and Armor: Highlights from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Yale University Press

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