“The said Will. Austin, xi. Feb., 28 Henry VI., doth covenant to cast and make an image of a man armed of fine latten, garnished with certain ornaments, viz., with sword and dagger; with a garter; with a helm and crest under his head, and at his feet a bear musled, and a griffon, perfectly made of the finest latten, according to patterns, all which to be brought to Warwick, and layd on the tombe, at the perill of the said Austin: the said executors paying for the image, perfectly made and laid, and all the ornaments in good order, besides the cost of the said workmen to Warwick, and working there to lay the image, and besides the cost of the carriages, all which are to be born by the said executors, in totall xl li.”
A further clause refers to the agreement made with Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman, and goldsmyth of London, 23 Maii, 27 Hen. VI., who “covenanteth to repaire, whone, and pullish, and to make perfect to the gilding, an image of latten of a man armed, that is in making, to lye over the tombe, and all the apparell that belongeth thereunto, as helme, crest, sword, &c., and beasts; the said executors paying therefore xiii li.” The accounts of one of the executors show that the monument took twenty-one years to erect and finish, and that the total cost was £2481 4s. 7½d. Mr. Blore continues: “The monument of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, consists of an altar-tomb of grey marble, in the finest preservation. Within canopies admirably wrought, are whole-length sculptures of fourteen of the immediate relatives of the deceased, executed in latten, which was a species of fine brass metal, and richly gilt; these figures are disposed five on each side, and two at either end of the tomb. Underneath every figure, in starred quatrefoils, is a shield with armorial bearings enamelled on brass, and between the larger canopies, alternately, a smaller, containing an angel executed in similar metal with the portraiture of the mourners, and holding in one hand a scroll, on which is engraven in Gothic letter,
“Sit deo laus et gloria, defunctis misericordia.”
The image, excepting the hands and head, is in complete armour, with the garter encircling the left leg. The head rests upon a helm, surmounted by the family crest, and at the feet are a bear muzzled and a griffin, badges of the ancient house of Warwick. The armour may be considered as real, from the extreme care and exactness that have been bestowed on it by the original artist. Mr. Charles Stothard had the figure turned over, and found that the armour for the back was as carefully and minutely finished as that on the front. The suit exhibits the cuirass as shorter than we find it in later “Gothic,” while the taces are correspondingly more extended, and consist of five lames. The breastplate has a gracefully curved groove on either side, and a catch for the mentonnière on the breast. The mentonnière is usually omitted in effigies for obvious reasons. A remarkable feature of the effigy is that there are four tuilles; the larger two do not converge so abruptly to a point as they usually do rather later, but the smaller ones are more sharply pointed. The coudières are of the beautiful butterfly type, and very large; while the sollerets are far from being extravagantly tipped. The most unusual feature of this effigy is the early presence of pikeguards. The Earl died in 1439, so the figure could not well be copied from any armour he left behind him, for the general aspect of the suit would fix the date about 1450–60, which would correspond with the date of the contract for the tomb. As already stated, the figure was probably fashioned after models supplied by Tomaso da Missaglia, and seems to represent his later work. This impression is strengthened by the following comparisons with two harnesses at Vienna, viz.: a suit by this master, made for the Pfalzgraf Friedrich am Rhein, about the middle of the century, exhibits points of contact with the Warwick figure, especially in respect to the number of the taces; while another by Antonio da Missaglia, made about thirty years later for the Count of Gajazzo (died 1487), shows a relatively longer breastplate and fewer taces. The latter suit bears pikeguards, which the earlier does not. One may perhaps deduce from these examples that the Beauchamp effigy represents the later work of Tomaso. The illustration given in [Fig. 16] represents the effigy in an upright position. It is a reproduction of that given in Blore.
Fig. 16.—Effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick.
Tomaso and Antonio da Missaglia, the illustrious sire and son, were the great Milan armour-smiths of from the end of the first quarter to the close of the fifteenth century. To the first it seems certain that we are indebted for the form called “Gothic,” which was, however, merely a graceful improvement on the fashion immediately preceding it. There was nothing very abrupt in the transition, as was the case in the radical change from “Gothic” to “Maximilian.” The work of Tomaso is conspicuous for purity of style and nobility of form, and, from an artistic point of view, it has no rivals. Armour of his period was generally plain, but the more pronounced passion for decoration of the time found expression in the work of his son; an example of whose skill may be seen in the case of a helmet in the Tower of London, and at Vienna is the superb Gothic suit with pikeguards, already referred to, made for the Count of Gajazzo. Tomaso was, it is believed, the first master to use armourer’s marks. His monogram is the letter “M,” surmounted by a crown. The Negrolis, who worked after the Missaglias, seem to have been of the same family, and, as Boeheim points out, the name “Missaglia,” like that of Ferrara, seems to have originated as a “place” designation. Examples of the work of the Negrolis may be seen both at Vienna and Madrid. Their work represents the full swing of the “renaissance.”
Milan, where the Missaglias worked, is not the only town in Italy where there is a Via degli Armorari and a Via degli Spadari, showing that there were then separate guilds for armour- and sword-making in that country.
SIGMARINGEN SUIT.
This beautiful “Gothic” suit, by Lorenz Kolman of Augsburg ([Fig. 17]), is said to have belonged to one of the Counts of Hohenzollern-Eitel. Demmin refers to it as being erroneously ascribed to Eitel Frederick I. of the thirteenth century. The mistake is obvious, as there were no Counts of Hohenzollern-Eitel then! There were two Eitel Fredericks in the fifteenth century. On consulting the Stammbaum at Hohenzollern it appears that