Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt’s Milanese Armour - a few historical notes

by Stephen C Spiteri

The importance of Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt’s armour in the Palace Armoury Museum, Valletta, recently restored by a team of experts from the Royal Armouries, Leeds, lies not only in the fact that this damascened harness is the most beautiful objet d’art to be found on display in the said armoury but also because it constitutes, to date, the best-documented exhibit in the whole collection.  Its story, however, has only recently come to the fore. Hitherto, what was known about it origin was largely based on Guy Francis Laking’s brief note published in his ‘Catalogue of Arms and Armour’ nearly a century ago after he was called to Malta by Lord Grenfell, the Governor, to study and evaluate the collection. (1)

Laking’s assumptions regarding the origin and dating of the manufacture of Wignacourt’s armour were based largely on stylistic criteria but these, in the light of the new historical information, have now to be set aside.  Although the historical documents do confirm that the armour was produced in Milan, they reveal instead that it was ordered immediately after Wignacourt’s election to his magistracy in 1601 and received in Malta late in 1602, thereby repudiating Laking’s claim that the harness was made around 1610-1620 – little wonder, then, that Laking’s attribution of the armour to Geronimo Spacini has been highly questioned  by modern scholars of armour!

The documents containing this new information, to be found in a series of manuscripts in the archives of the Order of St John, were first discovered in March 1998 by Prof. David M. Stone of the University of Delaware. In 1999, he gave several lectures in the United States (to be published shortly) on the iconography of Caravaggio's Louvre portrait of Wignacourt in which these documents were featured.  I also had the opportunity to come across and examine this documentation independently in the course of my own research for the preparation of a second publication on the history of the Palace Armoury and its collection.

Grand Master Wignacourt first expressed his desire to acquire a splendid harness in a letter dated 16 February 1601 - less than a week after his election! Wignacourt was particularly eager to procure his armour from Milan where, according to him, they made ‘bellissime e buonissime armature.’  To this end, a knight was dispatched from Malta with a pattern containing the Grand Master’s measurements (‘misure d’arme per la mia persona’) and specific instructions for the production of ‘una armatura per nostra persona, che ci armi dal capo fino a’ piedi, la quale desideriamo non solo sia de fine e perfetta tempra, ma di vistosa e bella mastria, con tutti quelli adornamenti d’oro … leggiera, nobile e forte.’  Above all, it had to be ‘degnia d’esser vista’, in other words, a showpiece. 

It is very important to note the word ‘leggiera’ in the above description, for this leaves no doubt as to which of the two existing ‘Wignacourt’ armours housed in the Palace Armoury collection is actually being referred to - one can, therefore, safely dismiss the heavy siege armour from consideration. (3)  One can similarly dismiss the so-called ‘Verdelin’ armour featured in the Louvre portrait, and also in the Palace Armoury collection, for this harness is of a style that dates to the 1580s and, furthermore, was tailored for a significantly larger man.

Still, it was not to be solely a parade armour, as often stated, for Wignacourt’s clear instructions stressed that it had to be equally useful in battle since the Maltese islands were then once again experiencing renewed Turkish hostilities. Evidently, although an old man, Wignacourt, like Grand Master Jean de Valette before him, was still a hardened warrior eager for battle. Even so, the Grand Master was particularly anxious to receive the armour before the feast of St John, presumably, so that he could wear it whilst parading around the streets of Valletta during the Order’s most important festive occasion.  His optimism, however, was soon to be frustrated by a series of long delays. To begin with, the Order’s Ricevitore in Genoa was late in receiving ‘la mostra’ from Malta and when the armour was finally ready, it proved more difficult than anticipated to find a vessel to transport it to Malta.

From the available correspondence it appears that the harness was produced and completed in a relatively short span of time, perhaps even bought off the peg and then specially decorated with Wignacourt’s arms, for in August 1601, Frà Fràncesco Lomellino was already in a position to inform the Grand Master that the armour had reached Genoa from Milan in two cases, ‘una piccola, et una grande’.  The letters speak of ‘due casse dentro alle quale é un armatura e due armetti che si sono fatti fabricare a Milano’, thereby clearly demonstrating that the harness had a second helmet, which unfortunately has not survived.  It is interesting to note the use of the archaic term ‘armetti’ (derived from the old French word ‘armette’) to describe the helmets.  By the time that the document was drawn up in 1601, the armette was an out-dated form of head armour no longer in use.  In most probability, the second helmet was actually a burgonet, as is the case with the so-called Verdelin armour, of which a matching falling-buff has survived.

In November the two cases just missed the ‘passaggio delle galere … di ritono in Sicilia’. From Genoa, they were to be shipped either to Messina or Palermo and from there to Malta aboard one of the Order’s galleys. In May 1602, Torriglia informed the Grand Master that the armour had been shipped to Sicily aboard the ‘Nave Sta Maria … padroneggiata da Vincenzo di Marino Raguseo’.  Concern was expressed in Malta for the proper handling of the precious cargo in order that ‘non possino patire particolarmente di humidità’ but when the two boxes finally arrived on the island on one of the Order’s galleys, the armour was found not only to be untouched by rust but, much to the Grand Master’s great delight, ‘molto ben conditionata.’  

Perhaps the significance of this documentation lies more in the fact that it helps establish a clear dating for a particular style in the development of Milanese armour design and production.   Unfortunately the documents fail to reveal one important detail, namely the identity of the master armourer, or the ‘bottega’ where the armour was produced and decorated. Hopefully, further research in Italian archives and libraries may serve to unearth this crucial information and, in so doing, help us move beyond attributions based solely on stylistic comparisons. 

Notes

1. For more information of the Laking’s visit and publication see The Palace Armoury, a study of a military storehouse of the Knights of the Order of St John (Malta, 1999), pp.137-57.

2. Laking, G F, Catalogue of the Armour & Arms in the  Armoury of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem (London - 1903), entry 413;

‘ THE FULL SUIT OF ARMOUR made for Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from 1601- 1622. It is of Italian fashion, and made in all probability by the armourer Geronimo Spacini of Milan. Consisting of the breast and backplate, full arms and pauldrons, showing the laminated plates in the bend of the arms, gorget, closed helmet, tassets, full taces, genouilleres, jambes, sollerets, and a garde-de-rein of articulated scales (No. 382). With it is a circular buckler (No. 393), the chanfron of the horse armour (No. 392), and a reinforcing plate for the left shoulder (No. 394), to be used in running a “course.” The decoration is extremely rich, though the design is wanting a little in reserve. The surface is divided at intervals of 21 inches by longitudinal bands deeply engraved and fully gilt; these bands are crossed at a distance of every inch by straps passing at right angles between the longitudinals fashioned in outline to the segment of a circle, giving at a distance a scale-like appearance. These straps, each half an inch wide, form the field of the finest gold azzimina damascening inlaid with arabesque scrollwork, and introducing at intervals the fleur-de-lys, engraved and gilt. The ground upon which this gold enrichment is applied being deeply blued, and the surface punched to field, matted with small circles. The spaces between this trellis-like ornamentation are occupied with trophies of various arms, musical panoplies, fruit, flowers, and in places galleys manned by eight oars. All these trophies appear to be suspended by slender festoons of drapery. In the centre of the breastplate is a canopy with an arched top, on which is engraved and gilt tile figure of a Knight of St. John ; below this is the fleur-de-lys. In the centre of most of the principal plates is another such canopy, in most cases containing a figure in Romanesque armour. On the buckler is engraved and gilt and incrusted with silver the arms of the Wignacourt family, surmounted by a coronet …... In the Wallace Collection of London is a suit made for the family of Manfredi of Faenza (No. 1146 in the Catalogue), that somewhat resembles it in decoration whilst in the Poldi-Pizzoli Museum of Milan is another suit that more closely resembles it in workmanship….. c.1610-1620 ‘

3. Laking, op.cit.,  ‘This extremely, interesting harness, perhaps one of the heaviest suits of its kind in Europe, for when in its entirety upon the wearer its weight was a little over 110lbs., belonged to the redoubtable Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt. Very deeply engraved on the breastplate, and as though hanging from the neck, is represented a chain on which is hung an oval badge chiselled with Alof de Wignacourt’s arms quartered with those of the Order of St. John ; this shield and arms were no doubt formerly filled in with opaque charaplevé enamels in their proper heraldic colours. Around the borderings of the various plates is a continuous escalloped band, each segment of the circle finishing in a trefoil. This design was originally gilt, the remaining exposed surface being blued. The gorget, the left tasset, and the lower plates of the espaliers, still retain their former colouring, the breast and backplate, shield and helmet, unfortunately at some time or other having been polished to a brightened surface …. The helmet is of an interesting type, the form evidently borrowed from that of the salade of the 15th century. Upon the side of the skull-piece is engraved a fleur-de-lys, an emblazonment found on the shield of the Wigracourt family. It may not be without interest to note the individual weights of the various plates in the suit - The breastplate, 25 lbs.; The shield, 27 lbs.; The backplate, 22 lbs.;The tasset, 6 lbs.; The helmet, 25 lbs.; The espaliers (about), 8 lbs.; The gorget, 3 lbs. ’

4. The sources to the historical documents cited in this brief paper will be published in a forthcoming new book entitled ‘Armoury of the Knights’  by the author.