The second quarter of the sixteenth century witnessed the emergence of a new fashion of armor design based on the forms and ornament found in classical art. Embossed in high relief, richly gilt, and damascened in gold and silver, these lavish parade armors all'antica were worn by Renaissance kings and captains who wished to project an aura of power and virtue by arraying themselves like the heroes of ancient Roman history and mythology. The re-creation of classically inspired armor is invariably associated with Filippo Negroli, the most innovative and celebrated of the renowned armorers of Milan. The core of the book is a thorough reexamination of all the armors signed by Filippo Negroli. Additional works are attributed to him, and lost works are identified. The authors confirm the attribution of two magnificently damascened armors to Francesco Negroli, and they present Giovan Paolo Negroli's single signed work along with pieces they consider to be his. Each armor is described, illustrated, and placed in the context of the maker's oeuvre; its history of ownership is discussed; and its treatment in the critical literature is assessed.

Heroic Armor of the Italian Renaissance Filippo Negroli and His Contemporaries

Arts & Photography

Pyhrr, Stuart W.

Godoy, José-A.

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This book celebrates more than a decade of collecting by the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Arms and Armor since the reinstallation of its permanent galleries in 1991. The new acquisitions complement and build upon the Museum’s encyclopedic collection, which totals more than 14,000 objects from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America. Fifty-eight of the most important recent acquisitions are featured in this volume, including the richly decorated armor and weapons of two French kings, the king of Sweden, and a future king of England, several members of the ruling Medici family of Florence, a hero of the American Revolution, two sultans of Turkey, and the Tokugawa shoguns of Japan. The texts provide insight into the artistic, historical, and technical aspects of this specialized field. Many of these important and intriguing objects are previously unpublished.

Arms and Armor: Notable Acquisitions 1991 2002 (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)

Ogawa, Morihiro

LaRocca, Donald J.

History & Criticism

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

Breiding, Dirk H.

Americas

The second quarter of the sixteenth century witnessed the emergence of a new fashion of armor design based on the forms and ornament found in classical art. Embossed in high relief, richly gilt, and damascened in gold and silver, these lavish parade armors all'antica were worn by Renaissance kings and captains who wished to project an aura of power and virtue by arraying themselves like the heroes of ancient Roman history and mythology. The re-creation of classically inspired armor is invariably associated with Filippo Negroli, the most innovative and celebrated of the renowned armorers of Milan. Within the Negroli family of armorers, Filippo was the best known of his extremely successful generation, which included his brother Francesco, a skilled damascener in the service of Emperor Charles V, and his cousin Giovan Paolo, a talented master who provided armor to the French court. From large numbers of recently uncovered documents in the state, civic, and ecclesiastical archives of Milan, details have been gleaned of Negroli family members, their workshops and employees, marriages and deaths, property and testamentary arrangements, and business dealings with clients and fellow armorers. A digest of the documents is included, and a brief, cogent discussion of the manufacture and commerce of arms in sixteenth-century Milan provides a context for the work of these talented artists. The core of the book is a thorough reexamination of all the armors signed by Filippo Negroli. Additional works are attributed to him, and lost works are identified. The authors confirm the attribution of two magnificently damascened armors to Francesco Negroli, and they present Giovan Paolo Negroli's single signed work along with pieces they consider to be his. Each armor is described, illustrated, and placed in the context of the maker's oeuvre; its history of ownership is discussed; and its treatment in the critical literature is assessed.  Around these superlative examples of Renaissance armor all'antica are grouped works that demonstrate the strong influence of the Negroli on contemporary Italian armorers as well as the variety and originality of armor design during the years 1535–55. The authors also touch on the sources of Renaissance armor through Greek and Roman prototypes, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century versions of classical-style armor, and sixteenth-century albums of designs. In the hands of a master like Filippo Negroli, whose virtuoso skill at modeling in high relief is unrivaled in the history of metalworking, traditional military costume was transformed into sculpture in steel. The extraordinary technical abilities of the Milanese armorers, combined with their imaginative adaptation of decorative motifs from the antique, such as lion and Medusa heads, fantastic creatures, and abundant foliate ornament, gave rise to an original art form that evokes the pomp and pageantry of the Renaissance courts. These treasured objects, many of which are still part of the royal collections they have been in since the sixteenth century, are generously illustrated in this book, which serves as the catalogue of an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [This book was originally published in 1998 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Heroic Armor of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and his Contemporaries

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

The princely collection of Liechtenstein includes one of the last great armories in Central Europe to survive in the possession of the original family. The armory comprises plate armor and edged weapons, firearms and artillery, but it is the hand firearms (guns and pistols) that are of greatest historical and artistic interest. The firearms collection is one of the largest extant, comprising more than one thousand examples ranging in date from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century and coming from every corner of Europe: France, the Netherlands, Spain, England, Denmark, Italy, and the territories of Central Europe that constituted the Holy Roman Empire. More than three hundred firearms by Viennese makers are still present in the collection, as is an important group of arms made by the otherwise little-known gunmakers active in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. There is also a small group of oriental guns that are probably booty from the Austro-Turkish wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The international character of the collection can be accounted for, on one hand, by an active trade in firearms and, on the other hand, by the existence of the princes' interest in weapons of different origins and mechanical types. Though the Liechtenstein armory contains fewer examples of richly decorated arms than are found in the great dynastic collections in Vienna, Munich, Dresden, Copenhagen, and Stockholm—all now state-owned public museums—it presents a more accurate picture of the firearms collections assembled by the high nobility in Central Europe in the age of the Baroque. [This book was originally published in 1985 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

Firearms from the Collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein

A highly and colorfully illustrated companion to an exhibit showing at the Museum from October 1998 to January 1999. Focusing on the output of the most innovative and celebrated armorer of Milan, explores the new fashion of armor design that emerged in the second quarter of the 16th century and was based on the forms and ornament found in classical art. Describes all the pieces signed by Negroli, identifies lost works, and attributes additional works to him. Includes armor by other members of his family and pieces that demonstrate his influence. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Heroic Armor of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and His Contemporaries

Negroli, Filippo

Leydi, Silvio

Metropolitan Museum Of Art (new York, N.y.)

The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480-1620

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A lushly illustrated survey of exquisitely crafted weapons and armor from the Islamic world, which display extraordinary artistry and opulence From its origins in the 7th century, armor and weaponry were central to Islamic culture not only as a means of conquest and the spread of faith, but also as symbols of status, wealth, and power. More than 120 exceptional examples from the renowned collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art are presented in detail to demonstrate the remarkable craftsmanship and beauty of Islamic arms and armor. These diverse objects, which have never been catalogued or published in detail, span ten centuries and represent nearly every Islamic culture, from Spain to the Caucasus. Among these masterpieces are rare early works, such as the oldest documented Islamic sword, and fine examples of decorated helmets and body armor from late-15th-century Iran and Anatolia. Also included are lavish gem-studded weapons from royal courts in the Ottoman world and India. Each piece is handsomely photographed, with a detailed discussion of its technical, historical, and artistic importance. Made by master artisans in conjunction with leading designers, goldsmiths, and jewelers, these stunning objects demonstrate how utilitarian military equipment could be transformed into striking and extravagant works of art.

Islamic Arms and Armor: in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

ALEXANDER, DAVID

Kwiatkowski, Will

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