Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Philip · 19th April 2017, 04:55 PM

This thing has a story to tell! The seller is essentially on the right track, so much of this gun appears to be Italian in origin, or at least Italianate in inspiration (recall that the Balkans is but a short jaunt by sea from the east coast of Italy). The position, extent, and style of relief carving on the buttstock, along with the low comb, are characteristic of fowling pieces from the Tosco-Emilian region of Central Italy, and we see the same preference for lavish carving, and also heavy use of showy brass overlays, on pistol stocks from the Marche region which faces the Adriatic. A good reference with lots of illustrated examples for these regional styles is Nolfo di Carpegna's "A Summary of Notes of Central Italian Firearms of the Eighteenth Century" in ART, ARMS, AND ARMOUR (Robert Held, ed.), 1979.

The chiseled ornament on the tip of the lockplate seems to be a rudimentary effort by a Balkan gunmaker to copy a similar and much-better-developed concept on Italian flintlocks (both the "true" f.l. and the snaphaunce "alla fiorentina" type common in Central Italy).

The two-stage barrels with ribbed octagonal section are copied from the well-known Brescian style of the 17th cent. The gunmakers of Brescia had the reputation for being the best barrelsmiths in Europe during that century (surpassed by the Spanish in the following century) -- the several generations of the Cominazzo family were legendary. Not only were Brescian barrels exported by the wagon- and boatload to northern Europe and the Otto Empire (the Pope even leaned on these guys and their Venetian merchant partners for selling arms to infidels), but the Cominazzo mark was widely faked everywhere, especially in the Balkans and Turkey. Most of the barrels you find with that name (or variants thereof) are bogus, especially if seen on run-of-the-mill oriental long guns.

What distinguished a top-flight Brescian barrel? Superb metallurgy that allowed the barrel walls to taper to almost card-stock thinness at the muzzle, and bores of small-to-medium gauges (for the era). They had weight at the breech so they balanced well along with being able to handle a healthy powder charge and get that bullet moving, without the danger of bursting which was always a worry back then.

A good general reference to Brescian guns, with an exhaustive list of maker's marks, genealogy of the Cominazzi and Franzini, and a discussion of fakes and decorative patterns, is Nolfo di Carpegna's BRESCIAN FIREARMS, Edizione di Lucca 1997. A rarity for Italian gun books -- it's in English! Got mine at a reasonable price, new, on BookFinder.

19th April 2017, 04:55 PM	#6
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	This thing has a story to tell! The seller is essentially on the right track, so much of this gun appears to be Italian in origin, or at least Italianate in inspiration (recall that the Balkans is but a short jaunt by sea from the east coast of Italy). The position, extent, and style of relief carving on the buttstock, along with the low comb, are characteristic of fowling pieces from the Tosco-Emilian region of Central Italy, and we see the same preference for lavish carving, and also heavy use of showy brass overlays, on pistol stocks from the Marche region which faces the Adriatic. A good reference with lots of illustrated examples for these regional styles is Nolfo di Carpegna's "A Summary of Notes of Central Italian Firearms of the Eighteenth Century" in ART, ARMS, AND ARMOUR (Robert Held, ed.), 1979. The chiseled ornament on the tip of the lockplate seems to be a rudimentary effort by a Balkan gunmaker to copy a similar and much-better-developed concept on Italian flintlocks (both the "true" f.l. and the snaphaunce "alla fiorentina" type common in Central Italy). The two-stage barrels with ribbed octagonal section are copied from the well-known Brescian style of the 17th cent. The gunmakers of Brescia had the reputation for being the best barrelsmiths in Europe during that century (surpassed by the Spanish in the following century) -- the several generations of the Cominazzo family were legendary. Not only were Brescian barrels exported by the wagon- and boatload to northern Europe and the Otto Empire (the Pope even leaned on these guys and their Venetian merchant partners for selling arms to infidels), but the Cominazzo mark was widely faked everywhere, especially in the Balkans and Turkey. Most of the barrels you find with that name (or variants thereof) are bogus, especially if seen on run-of-the-mill oriental long guns. What distinguished a top-flight Brescian barrel? Superb metallurgy that allowed the barrel walls to taper to almost card-stock thinness at the muzzle, and bores of small-to-medium gauges (for the era). They had weight at the breech so they balanced well along with being able to handle a healthy powder charge and get that bullet moving, without the danger of bursting which was always a worry back then. A good general reference to Brescian guns, with an exhaustive list of maker's marks, genealogy of the Cominazzi and Franzini, and a discussion of fakes and decorative patterns, is Nolfo di Carpegna's BRESCIAN FIREARMS, Edizione di Lucca 1997. A rarity for Italian gun books -- it's in English! Got mine at a reasonable price, new, on BookFinder.