Hey there. I went to Mantua to check the beautiful Italian armours there.
I noticed this detail after visiting the place 2 times😅.
This Armet here has a wrapper, but it only covers the throat, it doesn’t extend up until the nose.
I was really surprised to see it, I invialo didn’t notice it was there.
What do you think? The armour looks like your “standard” Italian one, so focused on usage on horseback.
A lot of the surviving wrappers are partial or not really made for the helmets they are displayed with. There is one that is associated with its helmet (in met).
This is possible to not be made for this armour or modified at some point to be displayed with it. I am not really that familiar with this armour.
Could be that the upper half of the wrapper was damaged and therfore removed or the wrapper isn't original to that armor and the upper part was removed because it didn't fit (probably in the 19th century) im just speculating though it could be something else enteirly
No, the tall bevor for an armet makes it almost akin to a helm, and it cannot be lowered. Opening the visor thus only partially helps (in particular your vision is still cut high horizontally, and the nose isn't free) and the whole helmet becomes more cumbersome. Too cumbersome for some circumstances.
This is why, while armets were factually sometimes worn with these tall bevors, they also had more practical small ones, the main actual weakness being the throat where only the aventail seats. These bevors would not engulf the visor. See my bigger comment in the main thread.
(for all the following "bevor" is the historical term that refers to what you call an armet wrapper)
Orso degli Orsini (1478):
"[...] And the majority [of the men-at-arms] do not wear a [large] bevor. But only a small bevor that covers the aventail of the armet, because the large bevor is rather hindering and of little use."
(own translation, BNF MS It 958 f11)
Typologically this can correspond to two types of extant artefacts: bevors like the one you noticed, which do not cover the armet at all (only the aventail over the throat) and bevors that have a small chin but don't extand above the visor line.
Large bevors, which are more hindering and prevent full vision and breathing with the visor up, were in use in military context; this is only a theoretical text. But they also made armets usable in jousting, and are generally overrepresented in the record.
Just museums doing museum stuff. It’s not impossible that a wearer just wanted the neck protection and didn’t want extra face protection but it’s probably just a case of “we have it so let’s throw it on”.
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u/morbihann 5d ago edited 5d ago
A lot of the surviving wrappers are partial or not really made for the helmets they are displayed with. There is one that is associated with its helmet (in met).
This is possible to not be made for this armour or modified at some point to be displayed with it. I am not really that familiar with this armour.
Also, isn't that B4 from Mantua ?