historically important helmet of Gilbert von Saint Hilaire resurfaced

[AHorsa]

Here we go:

The oldest, in the archives of the city of Vienna preserved inventory of the bürgerliches Zeughaus, dates into 1686 and 1701, do not mention an armour of Saint-Hilaire and just as little there is a corresponding notice
in the register of the Kammerei-invoices until 1648 which contains all the weapon-acquisitions of the city which, as long as they refer to weapons, where published by Carl Uhlirz in the "Berichten und Mitteilungen des Alterthumsvereins zu Wien" , Bd. 27 to 31. Apfaltrer, in his 1740 published essay "Civicum Augusta Viennensium armamentarium", p. 23, indeed touches besides the liberation of King Ferdinand from his besetment through the estates/classes the part which Saint-Hilaire took at this, but he strikingly does not say that his cuirass is stored in the bürgerliches Zeughaus. Such a notice is not to find until Weiskern, "Topographie von Niederösterreich 3" (Vienna 1770), p. 103 and then also in Schweiger, "Andeutungen zur Geschichte des bürgerlichen Zeughauses in Wien" (Beiträge zur Landeskunde Oberösterreichs unter der Enns, 3. Bd., 1833), p. 33f., and as well in the, in the Archiv of the city of Vienna stored, Zeughaus-inventories of the years 1822,1835 and 1843. But, based on those vouchers, the alleged harness of Saint-Hilaire was displayed together with a horse-harness and following the inventory of 1822 it was <painted black allover and set with gold> and had a <spike-helmet with visor, collar, shoulder-, arm- and leg plate, breast and back, all in black and with golden stripes>. From this description it is unlikely, that the cuirass which was overtaken from the Heeresmuseum in 1866 and displayed here is identical to to that one which was put in the Bürgerliches Zeughaus under this name. Why the later one from the second half of the 18th century was attributed to Saint-Hilaire, we don't know. The stamp/makers mark shown at page 12 is not mentioned by Böheim, Nürnberger Waffenschmiede des 16. Jh; a similar one is shown in Cronau, Geschichte der Solinger Klingenindustrie, Table 1 No 3, namely supposedly from a Blade (?) dated to 1480 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg. There is no etched monogram on the cuirass. "