guns, swords, armourers, etc. He adds a very curious statement that "most of the workmen came out of Germany" and M. Barbet de Jouy[1] identified the Garbagnaus who signed the suit made for Louis XIV with the German, Franz Garbagnaner, who worked at Brescia till 1688.
Cicogna also says that at Gron in the territory of Bergamo there were excellent swordsmiths, and that at Monte della Madonna, in the territory of Vicenza, Maestro Lorenzo da Formigiano, surnamed il Zotto (the dolt), made arms marvellous for their excellence. Not a few blades bearing his name still exist. It would appear that the Republic of Venice drew its supply of weapons chiefly from Serravalle in Friuli, north of Venice,[2] and from Belluno, a few miles north of Serravalle. It was at Belluno, at the forge or foundry of Messer Giovan Battista, surnamed il Barcelone, that the brothers Andrea and Gian Donato dei Ferari made admirable sword blades in the XVIth century.[3] It was no doubt in the workshops of these two places that the blades of the swords known as schiavonas were made. This type of sword was already known by the name of schiavona as early as 1526, for in that year the Marquis of Mantua sent two schiavonas well garnished and with good blades to his ambassador at Milan to be presented to the Marquis del Guasto, with excuses for the delay in getting them, as he had had to send to Venice for them, and these two were held to be the best that could be obtained there.[4] In 1595 a sword was purchased for Henry IV of France with a very rich hilt and "la lame esclavonne."[5] I think that there can be no doubt that these Venetian schiavonas, with blades by Andrea dei Ferari of Belluno, were the prototypes of the basket hilted Andrew Feraras of the Scots, but I have always doubted whether many, if any, of the numerous blades bearing that name found in Scotland and England at the present day, and many of them are blades of very high quality, were made in Italy. I imagine that the name Andrea Ferara became amongst the Scots a sort of guarantee of excellence, and was inscribed on many blades made for Scotland just as cast steel is inscribed on tools. This name, too, is found in conjunction with a great variety of punch marks, many of which bear a strange resemblance to German ones. Indeed one blade is known inscribed Andrea Ferara Solingen,[6] evidently made there for exportation to Scotland. The south of Italy does not appear to have produced arms to any great extent, but we learn from the inventory of the Duke of Alburquerque in 1560, that those round convex wooden bucklers, painted with classical subjects in gold on a black ground, which exist in many collections, were made at Naples. "A round Neapolitan
- ↑ Barbet de Jouy, Le Musée des Souverains (Paris, 1866).
- ↑ Cicogna, op. cit., and Tomaso Garzoni, Piazza Universale di tutte le Professioni del Mondo (Venice, 1585).
- ↑ Garzoni, op. cit.
- ↑ Bertolotti, Le Arti Minori alla Corte di Mantova.
- ↑ 5^e Compte du Roy de P. de Labruyère (V. Gay, p. 648).
- ↑ On Andrea Ferrara Swords, by George Vere Irving, F.S.A., Scot. V.P., and W. W. Faulder, in his preface to the Catalogue of the Exhibition of Industrial Art at Ancoats, 1881.
