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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2011
The publication of the Italian armour from the Castle of Chalcis recalls the existence of other antiquities of similar date and origin discovered in the same place, and now preserved in the British and Ashmolean Museums. While the objects described by Mr. ffoulkes are all military, those with which we are here concerned were made for civil uses. They are personal ornaments, and illustrate in a pleasing fashion the knightly civilization in Greece during the Venetian supremacy in Euboea.
page 391 note 1 The circumstances of the discovery of these objects do not appear to be accurately recorded. They were purchased by the late Sir A. W. Franks and the late Mr. C. Drury Fortnum after the middle of last century as parts of a find made not long before at Chalcis.
page 391 note 2 ‘Frankish’ civilization; the word is used in its later sense to indicate Western as opposed to Byzantine culture.
page 391 note 3 The Lombards and Venetians in Euboea, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vii, pp. 309 ff.Google Scholar; viii, pp. 194 ff.; ix, pp. 91 ff. See also Sir Rennell Rodd, The Princes of Achaia, and W. Miller, The Latins in the Levant, in which books bibliographies of works in other languages will be found.
page 392 note 1 von Schlosser, J. in Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses. xx, pp. 220 ff. (Vienna, 1899)Google Scholar; see also other references given in the British Museum Catalogue of Ivory Carvings of the Christian Era, no. 400, p. 137.
page 396 note 1 For the type see Marshall, F. H., Catalogue of Jewellery (British Museum, 1911), pl. LIII–LVGoogle Scholar.
page 396 note 2 The garniture consisted of the buckle and mordant, and a number of plaques, rosettes, clous, bars, &c., which might be of great variety in form, and pierced, enamelled, or enriched with precious stones. An account of a. d. 1351 has an item: pour faire et forgier la ferreure d'une ceinture d'or sur un tissu azuré dont les cloux sont de dauphins et de liz, à une greneture ronde enverrée d'esmail (Compte royal d'Étienne de la Fontaine, f. 8). See Victor Gay, Glossaire archéologique: s. vv. ceinture, clou.
page 398 note 1 Possibly Clara bella, as on the maiolica dishes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
page 399 note 1 Buchon, Nouvelles recherches historiques sur la principauté française de Morée, &c. (1843), Atlas, pl. xl, fig. 13, reproduces a shield of arms with a similar bird, seen above ‘la porte de Chalcis sur l'Euripe’, where it was surmounted by the lion of St. Mark. The enamels are possibly connected with the same Venetian family.
page 399 note 2 Remains of a fabric inwoven with gold thread appear at the back of several of the enamelled plaques. We may recall the fact that the girdle was often of silk, to which the metal was riveted. In the accounts of the Dukes of Burgundy for the year 1367 we read of money paid to one H. Orlant: pour faire asscoir sur un tissu tout nuef la ceinture d'argent dorće à aigles de Mgr., et pour ycelle toute dorer et river sur ledit tissu, et pour un tissu de soie, pesant 7 onces, pour asscoir ladite ceinture (B. Prost, Inventaires mobiliers … des Ducs de Bourgogne, no. 665). Cf. ibid., no. 2024: pour 5 onces 3 quars de soye perse, pour faire un tissu de ceinture pour cloer d'or. Girdles belonging to Henry V of England are described as of silk, soy noier, tissu pourpre, &c.; one has les tissus overtz de hautelice (Rotuli Parliamentorum, iv. 218, 219, &c).
page 399 note 3 Hampel, J., Das mittelalterliche Drahtemail, 1888Google Scholar; de Radisics, E., in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 3rd Period, xxiv, p. 276Google Scholar; Pulszky, Radisics, and Molinier, Chefs-d'œuvre d'orfèvrerie à l'Exposition de Budapest, 1884; Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst, vii, 1894, p. 139Google Scholar. The British Museum possesses other appliqué plaques with this enamel on a North-Italian girdle ornamented in addition with niello-work of the fifteenth century. This girdle also formed part of the Franks Bequest.
page 400 note 1 It is not necessary to assume that all inscriptions on Italian jewellery are in Italian: French mottoes were used, e.g. Loiate passe tout, A bon droyt, and Plus ault in the Visconti inventory quoted below.
page 401 note 1 British Museum, Catalogue of Early Christian and Byzantine Antiquities, no. 171.
page 403 note 1 Corio, B., Storia di Milano eseguita sull' edizione principe del 1503 con prefazione del Professore Egidio de Magri, vol. ii, p. 350 (Milan, 1856Google Scholar).
page 403 note 2 Labarte, J., Inventaire du mobilier de Charles V, pp. 30, 32 (Paris, 1879)Google Scholar.
page 403 note 3 Prost, B., Inventaires mobiliers et … Comptes des Ducs de Bourgogne, no. 2297.Google Scholar
page 403 note 4 Rotuli Parliamentorum, vol. iv, pp. 215, 218, 219, 220, 221, 227Google Scholar.
