The Armored Horse in Europe, 1480-1620An integral part of Renaissance culture, the horse was not only a beast of burden and means of transportation but also a sign of rank and status. For the nobility, horsemanship was an essential skill, both militarily and socially. Since horses played a pivotal role in warfare, tournaments, and ceremonies, they often wore armor as elaborate and expensive as that of their riders. From the late 1400s to the late 1500s, European horse armor became so technically and artistically sophisticated that its finest productions now rank among the greatest achievements of Renaissance decorative arts. The forty objects presented in this volume comprise all the main types of horse defense, each intended to protect a different part of the animal's body. Their range is broad-from a set of rudimentary peytral and crupper plates made of leather (the only examples of this kind in the United States) to an elaborately decorated steel shaffron produced for the Polish prince Nikolaus "the Black" Radziwill. Placing these objects in context is an essay tracing the history of European horse armor from its revival in the twelfth century (after its disappearance with the fall of Rome) through its flowering in the Renaissance to its eventual obsolescence in the early 1600s. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website. |
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Archduke armored saddle armorer's marks Arms and Armor Augsburg barded horse Bashford Dean Bashford Dean Memorial belonged Brescia cantle plate Collalto complete bards constructed Count Palatine crinet crupper cuir bouilli Dean Memorial Collection defense dotted ground ear guards elements embossed Emperor escutcheon plate etched decoration example fifteenth flanchards foliate scrolls Gamber German Augsburg Gift of William gilt half-shaffron Helmschmid Hofjagd horse armor horse's joust Konopiště Kunsthistorisches Museum lance mail trappers main plate man-at-arms matching medial ridge Metropolitan Museum motifs Musée de l'Armée Neuburg Castle Nieśwież nose Nuremberg ornament Ottheinrich panels Paris REFERENCES pauldrons peytral and crupper pieces plate armor poll plate pommel plate probably protected Radziwill Real Armería rear Riggs rivets Rogers Fund rondel roped Rüstkammer saddle steels Saint Petersburg shaffron shape side sideplates sixteenth century strapwork style surfaces surviving SWP EX COLL textile tournament trophies Vienna William H