St. Peter's Dagger

[Oliver Pinchot]

Ariel, I did not suggest it could be South Asian. Nothing about the form or decorative motifs supports that. As for the Mamluks, it's a strong possibility, given that expatriate Persian smiths made many of the arms and armor we associate with that culture-- it is often, in fact usually, of the highest quality. That said, I left it at Persian, in the interest of remaining concise. Mamluk arms are really a distinct discussion.

Point well taken regarding nationalism; it has no place in scholarly discourse. The Staritsky dagger may be from X, with the "inscription" added later, or Russian work in the style of X. I owned one of those, unembellished but complete with the scabbard, many years ago. Massive thing, it was close to 2 feet long.

[ariel]

Oliver,
I was not even mentioning South Asia:-)
Central, -yes.

[Ian]

When in doubt, ask the source ...

Last week I wrote to the Procuratoria of the Treasury of San Marco asking for more information about St. Peter's dagger. It may have helped that I wrote it on the stationery of my employer, Temple University, but I got a kind reply back this morning. This note accompanied two PDF files:

I send you some information about the so called St. Peter’s Dagger, which is kept in the Treasury of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.

These pdf are taken from A. Pasini, Il Tesoro di San Marco in Venezia, Venezia 1886, and from Il Tesoro di San Marco. Il Tesoro e il Museo, ed. by H.R. Hahnloser, Firenze 1971.

Kind regards,

Chiara Vian


Procuratoria di San Marco Biblioteca

The two PDF are attached below. Unfortunately for me they are in Italian. I hope one of our forumites will translate them.

I will post the full PDF files as JPGs later today so that you don't need to download the files.

Ian.

[Ian]

These are the jpg files from the older of the two references obtained from the San Marco archives.

A. Pasini (editor). Il Tesoro di San Marco in Venezia, 1886, pp. 88-89.

Ian.

[Ian]

And here are the jpg files from the more recent reference.

H.R. Hahnloser (editor). Il Tesoro di San Marco: Il Tesoro e il Museo, Firenze, 1971, pp. 122-123. (Note: This reference is in a chapter by K. Erdmann entitled Opere islamiche)

Ian

[A. G. Maisey]

One of our members who is fluent in both Italian and English has agreed to provide either a translation or a precis of this text.

[Andrew]

Outstanding. Thanks to everyone.

This thread will be linked to in the "classic threads" sticky.

Andrew

[GIO]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

One of our members who is fluent in both Italian and English has agreed to provide either a translation or a precis of this text.

Here is the translation of the first part. The second gives no further useful info. except for some speculations about origin and use of the knife.
Should some friends like to have also the second part translated, just let me know.
I think that these texts add nothing to the discussion, and, since they are already a bad translation into Italian, some terms are not correctly used.