Hi Ibrahim,
It was indeed a great exchange of ideas, and especially talking about his esteemed grandfather who had apparantly lived in Morocco a good number of years. The 'nimchas' in Buttins catalog (1933) were all from either North Africa or Arab provenance asI recall. Actually the late Anthony North recalled the details of the suggestions of North Italian beginnings of these Arab swords in a 1975 article, noting that Buttin had pointed out the resemblances of the kastane and nimchas to the stortas of Italy of the late 15th century.
It seems that nimchas in North Africa often had full size blades rather than the shorter, cutlass type blades associated with onboard close quarters fighting. It seems these 'corsairs' often were involved more in raiding on shore than at sea.
I think that blades from Italy did enter the Red Sea trade, but these were not necessarily schiavona (which refers more to the hilt configuration) but full size arming sword blades. The presence of Italian trade had of course been in many regions of North Africa from early times, and the influence of Italian arms well placed among a number of weapon forms there.
All best regards,
Jim
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