Miquelet Lock Pistol end 17th c

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Raf

... these Brescian type pistols continued to be made well into the eighteenth century with a variety of locks . Flintlock , snaphaunce with or without external buffers and as in your case a southern Italian toe lock.Having said that I agree that in the main this pistol probably belongs to the third quater of the seventeenth century. .

Raf, you have a lovely example here, thanks for sharing it. In terms of style and decoration, I would say that this pistol is more likely to hail from central Italy than Brescia, although armorers in that area did on occasion make products for export, catering to outside tastes -- for instance the quantity of cup-hilt rapiers of high quality for sale to the Spanish market, and also in Spanish-dominated southern Italy.

The "toe lock" you mention is likely the so-called "roman" miquelet lock, something which vied for popularity in central Italy as well, along with the Florentine snaphaunce. Roman-style locks were not much favored in northern Italy, although gunsmiths catering to the luxury trade, working in Madrid and Lisbon, also made them in limited numbers.