**A COMPOSITE NORTH ITALIAN CAP-A-PIE FIELD ARMOUR, CIRCA 1570-80 comprising close helmet with one-piece skull rising to a high boldly-roped medial comb pierced towards its rear with three later transverse holes, associated and reworked visor, upper bevor and lower bevor attached by common pivots (replaced), the visor with a stepped, centrally divided vision-slit fitted at its right with a lifting-loop (replaced), the prow-shaped upper bevor pierced at its left and right sides respectively with seven and nine circular ventilation holes in rosette formation, the lower bevor secured to the skull at the right of the neck by a swivel-hook and projecting ring (restored; a similar fastening for the upper bevor missing), and three associated gorget-plates front and rear, collar of three lames front and rear, the lowest deeper than the rest, breastplate formed of a main plate of deep 'peascod' fashion, fitted at its arm-openings with moveable gussets, at the right of the chest with an associated lance-rest having incised decoration and an elaborately shaped base-plate, and flanged outwards at its lower edge to receive an associated fauld of one lame bearing a pair of pendent tassets each of four lames (restored using old plates), one-piece backplate boxed over the shoulder-blades and flanged outwards at its lower edge, large, slightly asymmetrical pauldrons (not a pair and slightly composite), each of seven lames of which the lowest four extend inwards only to the armpit, and of which the third is fitted at its front, in the case of the right, with an upstanding modern haute-piece mounted on mushroom-headed studs, and in the case of the left with a large modern reinforcing-plate extending upwards as an integral haute-piece and attached by a screw, pair of fully articulated tubular vambraces each fitted at its upper end with a turner of three lames (the top two of the left restored), and at its elbow with a bracelet couter of five lames, the left having screwed to its front a large modern reinforce, pair of modern gauntlets, each formed of a flared and obtusely pointed cuff with a separate inner plate, five metacarpal-plates (the first in each case pierced with a later hole for mounting purposes), a shaped knuckle-plate, scaled finger and thumb-defences, and leather lining-glove, pair of cuisses (the right restored) each formed of a long gutter-shaped main plate rising to a convex upper edge and fitted at its lower edge with a poleyn of five lames formed at the outside of the third with a small medially-puckered oval side-wing, and a pair of greaves each of full-length tubular form fitted at its lower end with a round-toed sabaton of nine lames, the main edges of the armour formed for the most part with roped inward turns, generally accompanied by roped ribs or recessed borders, and its subsidiary edges decorated at many points with pairs of incised lines See note at front of catalogue for information concerning stands Provenance Duke of Osuna Purchased by Mrs John W, Higgins as a present for her husband from Liberty & Co, London, on 1 March 1929 JWHA Inv. No. 207 Exhibited Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1928-30 Filene's, Worcester, Massachusetts, as part of Worcester Polytechnic School exhibit March 1938 Lee W. Court Associate, Boston, Massachusetts, September 1956 'The Pen and the Sword: Martial Arts Manuals in Medieval and Renaissance Europe', John W. Higgins Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, 26 October 2006 - 27 May 2007