Close helmet, for heavy cavalry use, later modified for use in the annual Giuoco del Ponte in Pisa. Formed of a skull with a bevor and barred face-defence attached to it by common pivots, and a single gorget-plate front and rear. The rounded, one-piece skull rises to a moderately high medial comb, decorated with file-roping at its crest. It is repaired at the brow and at each side with large riveted internal patches. Attached by a pair of round-headed rivets at its nape is a slightly tapering, tubular plume-holder with integral arms. The pivots that secure the bevor and face-defence to each side of the skull take the form of crude, low-domed rivets with large, circular external washers. The bevor is weakly shaped to the point of the chin and is repaired with a riveted internal patch at the centre of its U-shaped face-opening which has been cut at its upper end, removing a file-roped inward turn still surviving at its lower end. It is also repaired with riveted internal patches at its pivot-holes. Its lower rear corners have been cu t to allow it to fit the skull with which it is clearly associated. The later face-defence is formed of a simple frame to which vertical bars of a rounded section have been riveted by their spatulate upper and lower ends. A pierced D-shaped stud riveted at each side of the chin of the face-opening is engaged by a long, flat swivel-hook riveted at each side of the bevor. The flanged lower edges of the skull and the bevor are each fitted with a single short gorget-plate. The front gorget-plate is of crude make and clearly a later association. The lower edges of the gorget-plates have plain inward turns. That of the rear gorget-plates has a file-roped inward turn. The skull is decorated to either side of its comb with two groups of triple incised lines. Similar decoration borders the upper edge of the rear gorget-plate. The rear and upper edges of the bevor are decorated with pairs of incised lines.
History note: Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex.
J.S. Henderson Bequest
Depth: 29 cm
Height: 33 cm
Weight: 2.31 kg
Width: 21.5 cm
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1933-03-16) by Henderson, James Stewart
16th Century-17th Century#
Circa
1590
-
1600
The helmet has suffered much damage. It is bright with a fairly heavy pitting and patination overall.
Decoration
Parts
Hammered
: Formed of a skull with a bevor and barred face-defence attached to it by common pivots, and a single gorget-plate front and rear; hammered, shaped, riveted, with file-roped and incised decoration
Patinating
Formed
Inscription present: stands for Galleria Primi, in which armour for the Giuoco del Ponte di Pisa was kept
Inscription present: tag with number '9'
Accession number: HEN.M.73-1933
Primary reference Number: 18447
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Close helmet" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/18447 Accessed: 2024-12-23 05:40:36
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/18447
|title=Close helmet
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-23 05:40:36|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
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https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-18447
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