[fernando]

Old 29th May 2012, 06:31 PM #239

Posted by:
fernando
Lead Moderator European Armoury

Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal

My perspective of the mark on the forte not looking Arabic script was not the suggested & but the geometric incomplete figure rright below, by (me) being originaly influenced by the letter T of Toledo. The symbol above, which i can understand that Ibrahiim sees it like a &, would have been for me some kind of crown ... again influenced by traditional mark fashions. However for as much as it looks like the ampersand, i could never imagine such figure stamped in XVII century swords.
But of course this could also be a German (Solingen) blade, mounted with a Spanish (not to say Portuguese) hilt.
I am convinced that the localizing of the "snake symbol" of the blade would help to decipher the riddle.
The symbol on Ilyad's saif would be a distinct thing. Its zig-zag lines are angulated, not waving, which makes it a different attitude.
As quoted by Jim, while the Passau wolf has been copied all over, the perrillo of Julian del Rey did not reach so large universe. Furthermore, each of them has a rather different basis; while the Passau wolf, despite its several variations, appears to be an unequivocal zoomorphical specimen, the perrillo gives place to determined speculation. Germán Dueñas Beraiz, in his work on Julian del Rey, while suggesting that:
A- the guy was a morillo (Moor), a Jineta sword smith who worked for Boabdil, was converted to christianism by the Catholic Kings after the take over of Granada, thus receiving the last name of del Rey (of the King, or King's),
B -presents some doubts on the zoomorphic figure being a dog or a lion.
The figure of a lion was (and still is) an heraldic symbol present in several Spanish cities and could have well been the quality inspection mark of Zaragoza, where Julian del Rey worked, as reminded in Palomar's nomina.
It is also suggested that Palomar might have adopted a position for the animal, in his drawing, not exactly as it should appear.
On the other hand Edouard de Beaumont connects the perrilo in the blade of a jineta present in the National Paris Library to Julian del Rey while in his Granadine personality, giving logic to the later appearance of the dog in Julian's swords.
To complicate (even more) the things, i here attach one more (of other) mark/s used by Julian del Rey, this one present in sword kept at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris.
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