Help on mark on Italian sword ca. 1580

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

Jim,


It is hard to say if the Italians had a big export of sword blades, but I am sure they did export these blades to India.
When the Europeans copied each others stamps, and the Indians copied the different european stamps, so it can be very haard to say. However, we do see hints of Indian blades with European stamps, so these must have been copies of European blades.

For some reason, I am always of the impression that Italy was not particularly involved in any sort of mass export of blades. Most of what I have seen in accounts of Italian swords are that the blade makers produced their blades, which were then sent to hilt makers (for example in Brescia etc) and the sword in entirety was then to the client or armourer.
Many swords in the Wallace collection are seen with Italian blades but German hilts, sometimes even vice versa, so perhaps these were simply remounting exchanges.

I think the most prevalent evidence for exported blades would have been the Genoan (and surrounding cities) which is suggested by the noted copy of the famed sickle marks, which are notably copied by many Indian artisans on their blades.