Matchlock Petronels, Germany, ca. 1550-1600

[Matchlock]

A good North Italian military matchlock petronel caliver, ca. 1560 (it was misdated by the auction house).
Please note the coat-of-arms on the barrel, the long tubular rear sight and the male portrait stamped on the pan cover. The latter is common to all mid 16th century Italian petronels; as the Renaissance originated in Italia, and was the rebirth of the Ancient Greek and Roman styles, these portraits copied the way that the Roman Emperors had their portraits struck on coins!
Sold at auction with Czerny's, Sarzana.

m

[Matchlock]

Another North Italian 1560's military matchlock petronel caliver, preserved in 'untouched', heavily patinated condition throughout, but the stock heavily wormed and damaged, and with the downcurved buttstock missing, it was nothing more than a mere fragment.
Of course, it, just like the previously shown specimen, had the coin-like portait struck on the pan cover.
It was sold at auction today with Hermann Historica's Munich for 1,700 euro hammer price, plus 23 per cent commission.
Their expert did not even know it was ca. 1560 and Italian; their catalog description reads 'a German! matchlock musket!, 1st half 17th century'!!!
As I stated, it was not a long and heavy musket but a short, light and smallbore caliver.

I wonder whether we will meet that piece again on the market.
Anyway, by then it will of course be crudely 'restored', with the buttstock most certainly reconstructed the wrong way!, and robbed of all its charming patina that proved its great age ...

m

[Matchlock]

A very elegantly shaped, North Italian matchlock petronel caliver, ca. 1570, the pan cover also showing the coin-like Renaissance portrait.
Overall length 1.35 m, bore 16 mm, weight 5.1 kg.
Armeria Reale, Torino, Italy, inv.no. M.1 (3 attachments).

And another, maybe somewhat earlier, ca. 1560-70, the buttstock elegantly shaped. On this piece we also understand the function of the small eye screw at the underside of the buttstock. Many petronels feature this screw, as well as some early matchlock muskets before ca. 1600. As is depicted here, it was to secure the long and delicate trigger bar from getting lost, by attaching it by means of a cord. On our piece in discussion, this cord (or piece of wire) sadly is too short. The effect is that the internal leaf spring is held under permanent tension, and the serpentine is forced backwards, frozen in the firing position!
How can any museum curator possibly do such a mindless, horrible thing?! You know me well enough by now to have a premonition of what is coming next - and you are right! Here it is: museums!!! Grrr ...! mad:
Armeria Reale, Torino, Italy, inv.no. M.4 (1 attachment).



Attached at the bottom are three close-ups of the rear section of the octagonal barrel of another North Italian petronel caliver, an earlier piece of ca. 1550-60, and preserved in fine condition. Again, the pan cover is struck with a coin-style male portrait; this gun is in the collection of a friend of mine. I was allowed to dismantle it for research purposes, and took these potos.

m

[Matchlock]

For more valuable stuff on petronels, please see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...d=1#post169935

Best,
Michael

[Marcus den toom]

I added a more detailed picture of the pancover of the petronel fragment in post 6... Requiescat in pace quia novi possessor mos delebimus vos



and this link to an other petronel in the castello bolognini, inventory number 326 (325 and 329 are also of the same make)

http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it...e/LO330-00958/

[Matchlock]

Hi Marcus,

Thank you for linking this site!

By experience I know, however, how quickly such links can be 'dead' and gone; this is why I have always pleaded our community to take their time, copy and paste the information provided in those links.
So I brought the contents of your link here.

For those who do not speak Italian, I have summarized the infomation provided: this is another North Italian military matchlock pertonel caliver, of usual shape and features, ca. 1570 (the author gives a rather wide span of time, ca. 1550-1590). The stock is of walnut, and the gun is in the collection of the Museo Morando Bolognini, Bologna, Italy.
Alas, that photo does not depict anything more clear than the gun's outline. I guess, though, that by now, we have seen a couple of typical Italian matchlock petronels; this knowledge should enable us to identify and date them by their characteristic outlines.

And Marcus: your Latin saying sounds as if you liked that petronel fragment at Hermann Historica's a lot and would have given it exactly the right kind of curation. I am positive that you, just as I, would have preserved this piece in its 'untouched', though heavily damaged condition.
Well, look forward and see whether maybe another, much better preseved petronel is coming your way.

In my threads, my main aim has always been to provide all the information and dating criteria of the piece in discussion that I have. Whenever I feel that a thread of mine is 'full enough' for the community to use it as a reference, and ask specific and demanding questions, I am satisfied.
During my first years on the forum, Richard (Pukkabundook) was the one to bring forward questions that were so brilliant and demanding that I really loved having a hard time, giving my very best and answering them as competently and comprehensively as possible.
Richard, where are you??! Please do return to my threads!


Best,
Michael

[Matchlock]

After introducing the earliest forms of petronels from the 1550's to ca. 1570, I feel it is time to proceed to the latter types of ca. 1580-90. In some cases, petronels seem to have been built - or at least restocked - in around 1600. By the turn of the 16th to the 17th century though, they vanished, and in the armories as well as on the fields of war, the Spanish/Netherlandish buttstock with its characteristic triangularly flared, 'fishtail' form had taken over, both on the long and heavy large-bore muskets (overall length ca. 1.56 to 1.72 m!, bore ca. 18-20 mm, weight ca. 8-10 kg) as on the light, short and smallbore calivers (overall length ca. 1.30 m, bore ca. 14-16 mm, weight ca. 4-5 kg). The earliest types of that 'classic' type of widely flared musket buttstock seem to have originated in around 1560. The oldest known dated samples are a group of muskets in the Landszeughaus Graz, Styria, Austria, that were ordered from Nuremberg workshops, and two of them are dated 1567 and 1568 respectively on the barrels (top attachments). The preferred wood for stocks of military long guns from now on, and way through the 19th century, was common beech.

The first illustrative source of short arqubuses with flat and downcurved butts was Heller's painting of 1529, which marked the fist prestage of 'petronel' long guns. Scenes from it are attached at the beginning of this thread. Fully developed and notably longer, 'real' petronels were first illustrated in the late 1550's, as firearms of the Landsknechte (mercenaries). Also, an illustration by Franz Brun, in the Kriegsbuch (book on war) by Reinhard Graf von Solms, printed in 1559, depicts a very skilled Doppelsöldner-Landsknecht (a mercenary who had mastery in fighting with the sword and the gun, and therefore got double pay) carrying a decorated petronel, the stock obviously painted or inlaid profusely with arabesques and foliage (top attachment). This is, at the same time, the oldest illustration after 1529 to show a triangular powder flask.

From around 1560 and 1566, we know illustrations by Jost Amman, showing welldressed mercenaries with long matchlock petronels, a length of thick and early (!) matchcord wound around the forestock, and a staghorn powder flask attached to the belt at the back.
The form of the locks, with triangular finials, exactly corresponds to those on the Graz group of petronels from 1568 to ca. 1570 (lots of photos attached previously in this thread).

Many author's photos of petronels of the 1570's are subsequently attached in this and the following posts:

- two specimens in the Schweizerisches Jagdmuseum Schloss Landshut near Bern, Switzerland; the first ca. 1560's.
The second probably of Suhl/Thuringia make, ca. 1590-1600[/B] , one of the latest samples ever; the lock plate with raised central section, pretending to be a more valuable wheellock mechanism at a cursory glance; the rear end of the buttstock incomplete.

m