"Roman armour"

The so-called Roman Armour made for Archduke Ferdinand II is the only complete all’antica garniture for man and horse to have come down to us; it is a truly exceptional masterpiece of sixteenth-century Italian art. No comparable all’antica mail armour has survived, and there is also no other complete mail bard. The inventories of the collection housed at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck first list it as a ‘Roman Armour’ (Romanische Panzerrüstung) in 1583.

The garniture was made for Ferdinand II in Milan around 1547–50, possibly by an artist of the circle of Giovan Paolo Negroli. Ferdinand later became ruler of the Tyrol, but at the time this armour was commissioned the twentyyear-old archduke was serving as regent of Bohemia. We may assume he donned it for official festivities, perhaps when he was installed as regent in 1547.

The mail caparison is decorated with the Austrian standard. Shirt and bard are made almost entirely of mail, and its rings are exceptionally small (3 mm in diameter). The use of different materials (iron and brass) to create a pattern in the mail is highly unusual for a European work. This may suggest exposure to Middle Eastern influences, and several contacts with that region are documented for the court at Prague during Ferdinand’s regency. Note also the mask-shaped reinforcing shoulder plates, and how the front parts of the mail sabatons imitate toes. The brim and front of the burgonet are shaped like a giant monstrous face, the comb like the body of a scaly monster whose (originally inserted) head is lost. The tiny sleeve at the back of the helmet and the holes drilled along the crest once held plumes of feathers.