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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Regarding tools I think of the notorious 'bombardiers stilettos' of Venice, and the mysterious scales of numbers on their blades. The gunners were a select group, and when the stiletto (used as an assassins weapon) was outlawed, allegedly these scales were spuriously placed on blades to warrant the legitimacy of the holders carrying of it. Thus, anyone could carry one as long as they claimed to be a 'gunner'.
The claim was these numbers were to gauge powder amounts, and the pitted state of some of the blades suggests plausibility due to the corrosive effects of powder. However, others say it was to gauge caliber for ammunition .
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Oh, here we go on yet another digression, I'm sure the Topic Police / Relevance Constabulary will be raiding this thread soon...
May I refer you to a wonderful little article, one of few focusing on gunners'
fusetti (and in English, thankfully) -- "Gunner's Daggers" by Marcello Terenzi, published in the anthology
Arms and Armor Annual, Vol. I (and may I add, the only volume) ed. Robert Held, 1973, pp 170-79 Just about everything you wanted to know about these things is there. The author was a renowned expert on Italian firearms in general. This article on the daggers is especially instructive because he includes examples of fake
fusetti from various periods, a great resource for collectors because the majority of these in the marketplace are spurious, in ways that are obvious to anyone who really understands them.
Given your interest in Spanish firearms and the importance of Cataluņa in arming the Spain's New World colonies, the book also contains Eudaldo Graells' "A Primer of Ripoll Gunlocks" in English translation which is most welcome since most of this author's writing has been published in Spanish or Catalan and are difficult to locate on the antiquarian book market.