[Oliver Pinchot]

Thanks are certainly due to Ian for contacting Signorina Vian at the Library of Saint Mark. Having dealt with administrators of various collections in Italy many times over the years, I think the forum has just witnessed a verifiable miracle here (something entirely appropriate to the conversation, after all....) Props, Ian, for eliciting a response in so short a time.

I've spent a few days studying what each of these entries on the St. Peter's Dagger has to say, and following up what references they offer. In the interest of time, I will not translate them but leave that to the member Alan mentions; suffice it to say that it would have been far easier for these learned minds simply to admit that they can't attribute the dagger to a specific time or place.

The 1886 entry is notable for two observations:

1) that the dagger is documented as having entered the collection by 1620,
and
2) that the inscriptions are written in Syro-Armenian.

The first point allows the dagger to be dated to or before the early 17th century, generally validating our attribution. It also allows us to step around all sorts of arguments for the dagger dating not later than the early 1st century c.e., which it would have to do in order to have belonged to St. Peter. The second point is telling: it may explain the inability of these scholars to translate the inscriptions or, just as likely, what compelled them to identify the characters as Syriac (which, given what I can observe from the photos, they are not,) thus avoiding the thorny problem of ascribing the dagger to an Islamic culture, something which would pose a great many more inconvenient questions than it answers. Suffice it to say that the 1886 catalogue approaches the question more on the basis of establishing the dagger as a holy relic than anything else.

The 1972 entry is less inclined to a doctrinal approach, however it states quite clearly at the outset that the dagger is lavoro orientale non meglio definibile meaning, it is "oriental" work, but not definable [identifiable] beyond that, by the authors. This remarkably timid pronouncement is followed in a subsequent paragraph by the equally doubtful "perhaps Syria." The inscriptions are reproduced, but very poorly; they do not allow for much interpretation. We know from the actual photos that the grip is quite worn, however the characters at least appear to be much clearer than those in the sketches. Considerable space is devoted to footnotes, #1 of which refers to correspondence with a Mr. Uhlemann, Director of the Deutsches Klingenmuseum in Solingen, who calls the dagger insolita, or "unusual." He proceeds, in appropriate academic form, to say exactly why it's unusual, but offers no other conclusion except that it may originally have been a lancehead.

While they have certainly proved worthy of consideration, I cannot view these descriptions of the St. Peter's Dagger with particular respect; their authors were bound by the most basic art historical methodology; one designed and intended for Western European art. Whether this was for dogmatic reasons or simple orientalism, is beyond our knowledge. Even Islamic Art history, which had evolved a distinct methodology by the mid-20th century, could not, and did not, answer the simple question of what this dagger is. That was sorted by collectors, as well it should be.
A contemporary colleague of the authors of the 1971 catalogue, highly-regarded Islamic Art historian Ernst Kuhnel, wrote in the preface to his Islamic Art & Architecture (Die Kunst des Islam) (1963: Braunschweig, xi):

The importance of weapons in the artistic activity in the Near East is very widely known, and if its importance were to be given corresponding treatment [in this work], it should have a large chapter to itself. On the other hand, it is less the lovers of Islamic art than collectors of weapons who will be prepared to give these objects close attention, and the latter will find better and more thorough instruction in the specialist literature than can be given here.