Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 1).djvu/304

This page needs to be proofread.

which we have placed in the rather mysterious category of the "barbute" (Chapter XI, Fig. 423). Other Italian sculptural representations of a bascinet with such a face guard can be seen on the monumental slab of an unknown knight, now preserved in the Pinacoteca of Turin (Fig. 267), and on the effigy on the tomb of Manno Donati in the church of St. Antony at Padua (Fig. 268). Donati died in 1370.

Fig. 266. Reconstructed bascinet with raised chain mail visor

In the fashion of about 1340. Collection: Frederic Stibbert, Esq., Florence

Fig. 267. From a monumental slab

The Pinacoteca, Turin

Fig. 268. From the tomb of Manno Donati

The church of St. Antony at Padua

A small bascinet of this type, found in Northern Italy, was at one time in the market. The skull was much damaged and repaired; but it was a thoroughly genuine piece and most interesting, as showing the two hooks for retaining the nasal-guard when raised (Fig. 269, a, b).

In addition to the bascinet's plain form of skull-piece, we must draw attention to the fluted and otherwise decorated examples that occur in a few instances on effigy and brass, but of which no actual helmet is extant. That bascinets with enriched skull-pieces did exist in reality, as well as in the mind of the sculptor, there can be little doubt; for they figure constantly in contemporary brasses and portrait illuminations. The type of head-piece referred to is a bascinet with the skull-piece either fluted or in some way fancifully decorated. This kind of helmet is well illustrated on the brass of Sir John d'Aubernoun the younger (1327) in Stoke d'Aubernon Church, Surrey (Fig. 270), and also on that of Sir John de Creke (1325) (Fig. 271) in Westley Waterless Church, Cambridgeshire. In both these cases the skull-piece is definitely fluted, and finishes at the apex in an applied cruciform pinnacle; both these bascinets are cut