Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/240

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was of Milanese workmanship of about 1430, and that it was in all probability taken from a harness that might even have been the work of Petrajolo da Missaglia, the founder of that famous family of armourers.

Fig. 200. From a fresco in Rome

Traditionally assigned to Tommaso Guidi (Masaccio) but according to modern critics more likely to have been painted by Masolino da Panicale. It is certainly a work produced between 1420 and 1425

In their recently published work on the manuscript in the British Museum styled the "Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, K.G.," Viscount Dillon and Sir John Hope accept the Baron de Cosson theory as to the Italian make and fashion of the armour the Earl is represented wearing in his effigy, but maintain that no such suit of complete plate armour could have been in existence as early as the period of his death in 1439. Yet we can show an even more advanced type of Italian armour, almost of the Tomaso da Missaglia school, represented in a fresco in Rome which is known to have been painted between the years 1420 and 1425, and which, though formerly reckoned the work of Masaccio, is now ascribed to Masolino (Fig. 200). Look at the large pauldrons à la façon d'Italie, the armet head-piece, and the salade worn by the warrior on the extreme right, usually asso-