Halber Kinderharnisch, Kinderrüstung

Archduke Ferdinand Charles was the elder of two sons born to Leopold V, Archduke of Austria, and his wife Claudia de’ Medici; he was thus a nephew of Emperor Ferdinand II.

The armour was produced by a Milanese master-craftsman around 1575, and half a century later it was passed down to Ferdinand Charles. According to an inscription on the inside (DEL S. PAVOL FRANCISCO CHARNESECI), now lost, it once belonged to Paolo Francesco Carnesecchi, a son of Pietro Carnesecchi (1508-1567), who became a Knight of the Order of Malta in 1641.
In 1628, ten days after the birth of Ferdinand Charles, Mary Magdalena, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and sister of Leopold V, dispatched this armour to Innsbruck as a christening gift for her nephew.

The armour may originally have been part of a small garniture. This is suggested by the shape of the right shoulder, which is smaller than the left one and would therefore belong to a cavalry armour. The surface is blued and decorated with fire-gilt bands. Some of the original textile parts of the armour have survived, including the lining of the helmet, the tassets, and the straps.

Ferdinand Charles succeeded his father in 1632 and took over gubernatorial duties from his mother when he came of age in 1646. He financed his profligate lifestyle by selling or mortgaging Austrian sovereign rights, for instance in the Prättigau, the Lower Engadin, and the Puster Valley. He was a fierce believer in absolutism, reducing the participation of the Estates to an absolute minimum. He never called a diet again after 1648 and had his chancellor Wilhelm Biener illegally executed after a secret trial.