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Old 31st March 2017, 01:02 PM   #8
fernando
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
... I am NOT presuming to have any expertise of these subjects...
Jim, you can not presume that simply beause you are an expert; all we common mortals can do, is tease your faculties .
I don’t have Valentine’s work, or any other source from where i could have learnt that the Hernandez family was composed with Sebastian and Pedro and not of two Sebastians. My daring questioning such assumption is firstly because, according by both Palomares and also common sense, calling one person the older (el viejo) and the other the younger (el mozo) implicate that both had the same name. Not that Palomares nomina is not full of imprecisions but, so are other authors namely, for one, on what touches smiths ages and or their acting periods. Sebastian the elder could not have worked until 1600 (per Valentine) as also could not be alive in 1637 (per Palomares); according to a source i repute as accurate, he died in 1584.
This also takes somehow to questioning the working period of Pedro, if he were Sebastian’s son he could well have started working some time during (and learning with) his father’s activity, and not so much later. More consistent is the listing of Sebastian the younger, so much because, besides the said nomination of 'el mozo' he was entitled to use the same mark … whereas Pedro had a completely different array of punzones.
On the other hand, the spotting of blades made by Sebastian el mozo seem to be (for me) a hard task, as also that of his actual age or working activity, which would help a better confrontation of data.
The suggestion that Pedro is not mentioned by Palomares and del Canto (?) having as a reason the probability that he was absent from Toledo, may have some 'competition'; Palomares resourced the data one or two centuries after 'all' smiths existence and, what he did was checking on their archived marking irons and mostly on their blades, at least on (both) those he got hand of. It seems as, surprinsingly both Palomares father and son, despite having access to archives, including vital eclesiastic ones, didn’t resource much on such means. Perhaps a useful detail for perusal is to remind that it was Francisco Santiago Palomares who advanced with the material for the nomina but it was his son Francisco Javier who actually made it; and it was only several decades afterwards that this work was echoed, by Achille Jubinal whom, being a French man, corrupted some the smiths names spellings.
On the other hand, and as already mentioned in my previous post, it is clear that Pietro is not a mispelling of Pedro but an intentional attitude; whether being Pedro using an italianized version of his name to 'please' Italian clients with his export blades, an hypothesis suggested by a member in an earlier thread, or some Italian smith’s atempt to take advantage of the Spanish master prestige. It is simply implausible that Pedro Hernandez, as illiterate as he might (might) have been, made such surgical confusion with his own name.
Concerning Jean-Luc's discussed beautiful sword and waving considerations on its style and typology, is something i can not reach, due to ignorance and laziness to compare it to those in books, like Walace and Norman. But when brain storming on marks and smiths, we are aware that those are about blades, independently from the hilts they are mounted on as, so often the smith that forges the blade and takes historical advantage of having attached his mark and name on the result of his work, is not the same who makes the guards, or grips, or pommels or scabbards for the sword.

Attached a picture of Dom Francisco Santiago Palomares, at the age of 48.


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Last edited by fernando; 31st March 2017 at 02:50 PM.
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