.Very nice Michael!! Thank you for posting this great katzbalger.
You know that that extremely unusual marking pattern is driving me nuts! so another sleepless night......
Cannot find anything in Wagner, Wallace or otherwise that refers to any such patterning on sword blades, though the cross and orb inlay is pretty much regular in these regions as noted in that period.
Is that pattern actually lozenge? it seems more like intersecting triangles.
The lozenge is of diamond (like the suit of cards) shape, and Wagner does make a note on p.73 in the grouping of symbols saying it represents good luck, and a rather bizarre medical reference to human anatomy!
Discounting any possibility of that association to the pattern, I think of the elaborate costume of the Landsknechts, not only in garish color combinations, but in some cases unusual geometric patterns.
This seems to have a kind of 'harlequin' type pattern, and while this may relate to this effect on the apparantly disturbing effect intended with the Landsknechts garish costumes, I am unable to discover reference to magic symbolism. It is clearly a geometric design, and that is a device often used in magic esoterica, but no luck yet finding it.
Can you offer any clues?
All the best,
Jim
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