Riefelharnisch, Riefelküriss

The original owner of this armour was John Frederick, Duke of Saxony. In 1532, John Frederick succeeded to the dukedom as the last Elector of Saxony from the Ernestine line of the House of Wettin. He joined the Protestant Schmalkaldic League against the emperor but was roundly defeated and taken prisoner at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547, after which he was compelled to abdicate in favour of his cousin Maurice, the first elector from the Albertine line.

The backplate of this fluted cuirass is inscribed with the date 1530 and the monogram MG, presumably a reference to Matthias Gerung, a painter and woodcarver from Munich. The gauntlets are stamped with the arms of the city of Nuremberg. Stylistic reasons allow us to attribute the armour to Hans Ringler, an armourer active in that city. It is very similar to armour we know Ringler had produced for Otto Henry, Count Palatine, pieces of which are now in London and Paris.

In 1530, the year this armour was ordered, Augsburg hosted the Imperial Diet at which the Protestant estates presented Emperor Charles V with the Confessio Augustana, the first confession of faith of the Lutheran church. The Catholic side categorically refused to accept it, which led to the founding of the Schmalkaldic League in early 1531, a defensive alliance of Protestant princes and free cities. In 1533, the alliance designated John Frederick as one of its leaders.

In 1593, the armour now in Vienna was mentioned as being in the fourth vitrine in the Armoury of Heroes that Archduke Ferdinand II had installed at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck: ‘John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, Elector, complete armour’ (Hanß Fridrich, Herzoge zu Sachsen, Churfürsten, ganze Rüstung).