Harnisch der Mailänder Rüstung

Archduke Ferdinand II bought this Classicizing armour from Giovanni Battista Panzieri, called Serabaglio, in 1560. It is a highlight of Milanese midsixteenth-century armour production. Surviving letters show that Serabaglio collaborated with the damascening specialist Marc Antoni Fava.

With the help of Anton Fugger and the Milan office of the Welser banking house, Ferdinand paid Serabaglio and Fava 2400 kronen. The extant letters do not tell us what this enormous sum was for, but from 1583 onwards this garniture is described in the inventories of Ambras Castle as ‘bought from the merchant Serebj’ (so vom kaufmann Serebj erkauft), which we must assume refers to this acquisition.

The Milanese Armour consists of a half-armour and a burgonet (inv. A 785), a bard with saddle (inv. A 785c), a round shield (inv. A 785a), a mace (inv. A 1153b), a sword (inv. A 746), an estoc (thrusting sword; inv. A 747), and a pike for hunting boars (inv. A 752). This means the garniture comprises the equipment of a high-ranking cavalry officer who was armed with a sword and an estoc and carried a baton (a ceremonial mace). The round shield is decorated with four oval medallions showing Judith and Holofernes, David and Goliath, Samson and Delila, and Hercules and Cacus. The broad rim is filled with recumbent ancient warriors, trophies, Classicizing busts, and medallions depicting Marcus Curtius, Hercules, Titus Manlius Torquatus battling a Gallic warrior, and Cleopatra’s suicide.

While studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts) in Vienna in the early 1880s, Gustav Klimt produced a sketch of the Milanese Armour. He had seen the armour at Lower Belvedere Palace, where the Ambras Collection was on display before being moved to the newly erected Kunsthistorisches Museum.