‡ A RARE NORTH ITALIAN SALLET, CIRCA 1460-80, TWICE STRUCK WITH THE MARK "PR" BENEATH A SPLIT CROSS

‡ A RARE NORTH ITALIAN SALLET, CIRCA 1460-80, TWICE STRUCK WITH THE MARK "PR" BENEATH A SPLIT CROSS formed in one piece with a rounded crown rising to a low medial ridge, pierced at its apex with a later rectangular slot for a crest, extending downwards and flaring slightly outwards at each side to just above the level of the shoulders, projecting rearwards over the nape as a short integral "tail" and cut at the front with a broad face-opening, its rear struck with the maker’s marks, the gothic letters 'PR' beneath a split cross at each side, and pierced around the lower half with two rows of holes for lining-rivets (worn, cracked at the front along the medial ridge for 5.5 cm, a further curved open crack at the lower left of the face-opening, further small cracks, delaminations), 24.0 cm high Provenance Howard M. Curtis (no. 281) Literature Howard M. Curtis, ‘2500 Years of European Helmets 800 B.C. - 1700 A.D.’, North Hollywood 1978, pp.134-135 (listed in the Curtis Collection) Walter J. Karcheski Jr. and Thom Richardson, The Medieval Armor from Rhodes, Leeds, 2000, p. 12. The same marks occur on a visor formerly in the Armoury of the Knights of St John, Rhodes and now preserved in the Royal Armouries Leeds. The visor is discussed, with the marks illustrated, by Karcheski & Richardson 2000, p. 12 no. 1.15 along with related pieces struck with the same mark. The present helmet is erroneously cited by the authors as being formerly at Churburg (no. 59) and later with Curtis, though the marks are not those recorded in the Trapp & Mann Churburg catalogue of 1929.