Smallsword with interesting markings for comment

[Valjhun]

Thank Jim&Gene!

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Since Slovenia was of course close to Croatia, who for centuries furnished forces to military and forces for the Doge of Venice, it does not seem at all surprising for this sword to come from this provenance.

Well, slovenian coast area cities (Koper, Izola, Piran) were for centuries part of the Venetian republic. There are also a couple of Doges that were actually Slovenes in origin. There is a lot of speculation where the Venetian repubblic originated from in the dark ages. Some theories tell us that were Slovenes that actually built Venice in the first place and it is named after them. Not so unprobable if you think about the verbal root SloVENTia compared to VENeTIa and the fact that in latin the syllable SL or SLO is unpronounceable. And there are a lot of other pseudo proofs too, like the Karst plateau that was completely deforested and that the city of Venice actually stands on that trees etc etc
But try to go explain that to the Italians

As for the sword, I faill to see the Lion... Is it in the stylised engraving at the forte? .

[Hotspur]

I dunno, the blade could easily be in the mid eighteenth century range. See Bashford&Dean for a similar cross section. #66
http://swordlinks.com/courtswords/intro.html
http://swordlinks.com/courtswords/p14.html

Granted that the blade decoration is somewhat different and a different origin. Considering the other roccoco elements, I would not necessarily date the hilt and blade as seperate entities.

Here is a shard of one of those blades I could not resist.

Cheers

GC