Quote:
Originally Posted by Teisani
"Armamentul din dotarea oastei Moldovei in timpul domniei lui Stefan cel Mare (1457 - 1504) by Carol W. König". In it we learn of a book by Romanian historian, Nicolae Iorga (Acte și fragmente cu privire la istoria românilor adunate din depozitele de manuscrise ale Apusului, Volum 3, 1897), where we find the text regarding Stephen's request towards Gregorio de Reza (Genoese consul at Caffa, Crimea) about comissioning sword from Genoese makers.
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Brilliant! I had König's paper on hand, but could not trace the references any further. It's great to have the full text available.
Here is another example of what might have been called a sword
a la facione Velachesca - from the history museum in Brașov, one of the Saxon towns of Transylvania. It dates probably to the late 15th or early 16th century. It is a classic example of Aleksic's subtype XXb: two-handed swords with broad, spatulate blades, having many fullers at the base. Blades of this kind can be found further west in Germany and Italy, but very many have hilts with squarish pommels and S-shaped quillons, which are particularly associated with the kingdom of Hungary. An example of this blade type can be seen in a Tyrolean painting, c. 1480.
https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/e...ork/jpxegN3GJ7
The square boss on an oblong pommel is another feature that seems to be almost exclusively Eastern European - I'll write about this separately. A maker's mark can be seen on the pommel of the Brașov sword, which is also quite unusual.
- Mark