Do any of you know of any academic work done on the 14th century bascinet and visor in the Wawel museum? I saw it in person last December, and was very impressed. Unfortunately, my camera wasn't working, and none of my photos turned out! Are there any photos/articles out there on the net?

It is nearly identical to one in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Brescia (see link below for photo) and there is a third similar one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
http://gallery.the-exiles.org/view_album.php?set_albumName=weapons

The visor (at Wawel) has eye slots that were probably enlarged several times. It is apparently the only piece of 14th C. armor in Wawel, and the text accompanying the display says that it is a late 15th C. work (an obvious error). I paged through about 15 Wawel "yearbooks" (all in Polish - sigh), and didn't find any write up on the helmet. Do any of you know anything more about it or those at Vienna or Brescia?

Best regards

David

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I am intrigued, as I haven't heard of a write-up on this particualr piece. Unfortunately, while there is likely to have been some academic work on it, it is probably (like the Wenceslaus shirt) done in Polish. While it is exciting that we are given glimpses of harness we haven't been able to study for over 50 years in the West, it is also frustrating that the academics who have taken a serious look at the armour never considered an English audience for their theories. Equally frustrating is the English speaking scholars who don't take the time to study these now accessible pieces, but stick to their own easily accessable collections.

What needs to be done is a survey on any surviving 14th (and 15th) century armour in Europe - just a simple cataloging of all the pieces under two boards. Even that would prove a monumental task, but it is an essential first step for growth of understanding of the topic.

As to the Brescia bascinet, I believe Boccia covered it in his book on arms manufacture in Lombardy, but, like the Montova, it is in Italian (which, if you have a background in French or Spanish you can at least get the gist of with a dictionarly alongside).

Do you have an address to get this Museum's catalog? Regardless of whether it is in Polish or not, it is a place to start. Many large cities in the US have a considerable Polish community, and it shouldn't prove impossible to get at least a couple of pertinant passages translated.

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You're absolutely right on the need for more scholarship on armor in "Eastern" collections! Perhaps my best bet is to write the curator and go back there with my more professional photo setup to get pictures & measurements myself. Trouble is, the "real life" work which took me to Krakow in the first place was such a ordeal that I'd have to return strictly as a tourist & that's not cheap! I sometimes get the feeling my work only exists to support my hobby??!!

I'm not too optimistic that there's an in-print catalog of the armory. I scoured the shops in Wawel & didn't find anything at all.

As far as an encyclopedic catalog of 14th C. European Armor, I _think_ such a project was underway. John Vernier had some sort of editorial involvement a while back - perhaps he's still in touch with the author/compiler? If it were ever finished, I'd love to be one of the first on the list to order a copy!

What interests me here, aside from the cool asthetic of the visor & its sharp lines, is that the bascinets at Vienna, Brescia, and Wawel are so similar! One might hypothesize that they were from the same shop. It would be interesting to see how much of their provenance could be traced.

The bascinet in Vienna (No.9, A 12-S.40) is listed in the catalog (Katalog der Leibrüstkammer, Teil 1, 1976) as "Meister A, Mailand" - whoever that may be. Seems they wanted to differentiate him from "Meister B"

A photo of this bascinet can be seen by following this link:
http://content.communities.msn.com/DavidsArmorSite/14thcenturyarmorpictures.msnw

Any thoughts?

David

As for the complete cataloging of all 14th century armour, I think the person you are referring to is Doug Strong. He posts here sometimes. He showed me the notes he had for this project, and there are apparently quite a few bascinets (like 40 - 50) that are in private collections or small out of the way eastern European museums. Let's hope this noble project sees fruition, it will greatly enrich our understnding of the variety of bascinets that were produced.

Anybody out there know of obscure pieces? I'd love to hear from you

What stuff have you got from Les Invalides in Paris?

It's an appallingly badly published collection in English, and I don't think the French literature is that much better - the museum culture there only really cares about napoleonic stuff, anything before or after is a sideshow - the place has three galleries for WW2, two for WW1, four for pre-1600 and...well, I stopped counting napoleonic galleries after 16, and I wasn't halfway through 'em.

They've got three decent-size galleries of armour, but presentation is appalling - each gallery basically has an A5 board showing the parts of an armour and a page of text, and that's all the labelling, even in french.

Their museums often have lovely stuff, but - apart from their art museums - in terms of presentation, education and conservation, they are about where we were thirty years ago, in the early 70s.

Any update on the cataloging project??

I'll keep you posted as we get closer

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Doug Strong
doug-strong@comcast.net

http://armourresearchsociety.org

While surfing an AMAZING web site, I came across two additional 14th C. helmets in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg which are either moved/sold, or are simply not on display at this time. The catalog numbers for the two helms are: W1273 Eisenhut, and W1564 Bascinet (Beckenhaube).

To view images of the armor go to:
www.bildindex.de (a WONDERFUL site – over a million images from art and architecture from Germany). Here is a set of instructions to navigate to the pictures – be sure to click on the ‘+’ symbol on the folder icon – do not click on the text until ‘ab 1000 ante’.

Click on orte
then on N
then Nürnberg

then sammlungen
then Germanisches Nationalmuseum

then Kunstgewerbe
then Waffen und Rüstungen

then Rüstungen und Rüstungteilen
then ab 1000 ante

Enjoy!

Would you consider swapping CD-Rs of images from this site? Would certainly save some bandwidth for us both. I've only downloaded about a 100 meg, but perhaps I could throw in some others to sweeten the deal!

1 - Metropolitan Museum of Art
1 - Wawel Castle, Krakow, Poland
2 - Kunsthistorisches, Vienna

Better late than never.

Ron

P.S. I have lots of Polish armour info, but the books seldom have a decent index so finding things can be difficult. Knowing the museum was very helpful.

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Brian, the four you mention are the ones I know also. Notice the visor on the Brescia example is very similar to those at Vienna and Wawel.

Ron, the "Great bascinet" you mention is indeed the one under discussion.
What's the full reference for the book you cite?

"Collections of the Royal Castle of Wawel"
('second enlarged edition')
original polish title: Zbiory zamko krolewskiego na Wawelu
Copyright by "Arkady", Warsaw 1975

Introduction: Jerzy Szablowski
Photographs selected by: Andrzej Fischinger
& Jerzy Szablowski
(its from communist Poland and they don't sem to have identified an author.)

The info by the picture is (Plate) "195 Great bascinet (grand bacinet, Hundsgugel) Italy 1390-1410". The photo is about 7"x8" & I can scan it if you like. It is almost identical to the link to the Italian one above. The large rivets are different as is the peak detail.

The info in the back is (Plate) "195 Great basinet with dog-faced visor (grand bacinet) Italy, c. 1390-1410, with armour's mark. Wrought steel; 25.5cm x 22.5cm. Formerly in the Franz Till collection in Vienna, later in the Bruno Konczakowski collections in Cieszyn; bought together with his collection of arms in 1961. Inventory no. 4252 (3246)"

That's all there is. I got my copy from www.polartcenter.com. Understand this is a coffee table book, not a research book. But the picture is good and this may be a pointer to more information.

Based on the bibliography, it looks like the original Zbiory zamko krolewskiego na Wawelu was written by S. Swierz-Zalewski (Krakow 1935) He wrote other similar books around that time.

Ron

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I did a library search for the book and it seems to be relatively common, being translated into both English and German and regularly published, the latest being 1994.

I have a scan of the bascinet already and it seems to be the picture from that book. It's great to now have some good info to go with it, thanks.

By the way to update the progress on my book (as listed above in this thread) we are hung up in photographic publication rights. Who knows when it will be out.

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Doug Strong
doug-strong@comcast.net

http://armourresearchsociety.org

quote:

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Originally posted by Erik Schmidt:
This is a great topic. I hadn't seen it when it was originally posted either.

Brian, the four you mention are the ones I know also. Notice the visor on the Brescia example is very similar to those at Vienna and Wawel.

Erik

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Erik,

The four are somewhat of a focus for me at the moment. I am trying to dig up as much information on the provenance of each as humanly possible.

Not only do the three you mention have eerily similar visors.... there are three that have almost identical bowls with the fourth sharing a unique feature.

The only one I have come across in the literature so far is the A12 from Vienna, in;
Williams, Alan (2003)
Laking, G. F. (1920)
Thomas, B & Gamber, O. (1976)

The only info I have in regard to it's provenance is that it is by master A(which means little, as David Meyer notes above), Milan. Acquired from Brixen, south Tirol.

I will actually be in Vienna by April, so if you have specific questions, let me know. I can run the provenance question by the curator. Anything else?

Erik

How nice to see my 2002 topic resurrected! Could you please email me a scan as well?

Have you found more information on this piece or others in that part of the world?

I sent you a copy.