I see a variety of potential connections with German and Italian as well as indications of a Middle east root to the development of War Axes in Poland but I have to say that the likely driver for this type of weapon was probably the advent of armour... making it difficult to penetrate an armoured mounted Knight with simply a sword... The war axe
/hammer was ideal for this purpose.
Here is an North Italian version of late 16th C in the single picture and a group of 8 weapons from German, Italian and Venetian forms...from the same period. Met Museum.
Last edited by Ibrahiim al Balooshi; 29th September 2015 at 09:43 AM.
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