**A NORTH ITALIAN PARADE HALBERD, EARLY 17TH CENTURY, PROBABLY VENETIAN with curved slender axe-blade pierced with numerous shaped panels and engraved with scrolls, formed with a shaped lug top and bottom and fitted with a chased bronze grotesque boss on each side, pierced and engraved rear fluke decorated en suite and fitted with a further pair of bronze bosses, the centre fitted with a transverse bolt terminating in a pyramidal spike on each side, central blade of flattened-diamond section, pierced with three central slots and engraved with scrolls rising from a mask, fitted at the base with a characteristic openwork collar comprising six bars each interrupted by a cherubic mask, engraved socket, on an early wooden haft covered with red fabric, studded with brass nails and retaining three tassels and its iron shoe (haft worn and repaired, shoe incomplete) 55.2 cm; 21 3/4 in head A halberd of similar form is preserved in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan, cat. Nos. 526 and 527. Two others were sold in these rooms, 28th June 2006, lot 347 and 7th December 2006, lot 214 respectively.