So Lew, after all, the anchor is hanging on your wall (it even rhymes)
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Isn't that wall too full of stuff ? I still have a vacant one
and my wife has long allowed me to transform the living room into a museum
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Andrea Ferrara ... a talismanic conotation or an actual famous sword smith?
In my obvious ignorance, i am not for the mystic version, but more on the side of those who sustain that he was a real blade maker. For a start, the name (also) sounds like a plausible one. We know that most people last names were an alusion to the place they or their ancestors came from (such is my own case). Eventually Belluno is not so distant from Ferrara, right ?
But speaking of riddles with names, Jim, one thing amazing is the name associated with Boccia in Armi Bianche Italiane, Eduardo T Coelho. This is what you can call a very Portuguese name. Eventually Coelho means rabbit, and is spelled in portuguese, which is distinct from italian ... or spanish. I don't know this Italian work, but i can only understand that Boccia's partner was either a Portuguese or one with direct Portuguese origins.
I now this is not propperly a topic on anchors, but with your permission i would like to show here a mark associated with what is usualy called anchor (another atribution uncertainty). This one comes in a rare double tome work i have in Portuguese armoury, with listings and references of sword, guns and other arms makers since the XV century. This mark was engraved on a sword dated 1641, made by the smith Lourenço de Carvalho.
Isn't that (also) a sugestive mark?
Fernando