Toledo Rapier Info

[fernando]

Hi Philip,
Your mentioning the dog as an impure animal for the Islam world is a very interesting start for the posing of different theories about Julian del Rey origins.
According to Maindron and Babelon he would never use the dog mark 'even' after being christianized. But a harder puzzle comes from a document issued in Zaragoza in 1549 referring a familiar conflict, between Julian del Rey, his father Miguel del Rey 'mayor' and his brother Miguel del Rey 'menor', all three sword smiths. This contradicts the assumption that Julian was patronized by Fernando el Católico. The said conflict was about the right to use the mark. Julian's brother, Miguel, demanded to share with him the use the mark, in which he was supported by their father. But Julian refused such right as he was the one to have inherited with father's will and so was the first one that started using it. A vital issue was that, in any case, the mark could not be used by both, as the smiths guild had a norm that the mark used by one smith could not be used by another. It is not know that the popularity of the mark was result of Julian's father ability or he (Julian) who raised its importance.
But mind you, the mark so much disputed was not the 'perrillo' but a cross, of small size in estocs and larger in swords, with 'coloured metal', which would mean filled with copper, as used in the period. This is not the only source that mentions than Julian used 'various' marks, a habit also adopted by his brother, although in 'less quantity'.
One version of such cross atributed to Julian can be seen in a sword in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris.
But of course the theme of the 'perrillo' mark is no doubt the one that made more ink run about, notwithstanding the doubts remaining about its zoomorphic figure, where even a lion is suggested to be the intended mark; this judjing by the hipothesis that Palomar made a wrong interpretation of the beast.
All the above is based in an article written by Germán Dueñas Beraiz, called new data on Julian del Rey and his person... which i bet you all know about it

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