Rare dague cinquedea, Italie du Nord vers... - Lot 69 - Pierre Bergé & Associés

Rare dague cinquedea, Italie du Nord vers 1500-1525. A rare North Italian dagger, cinquedea, circa 1500-1525. With triangular blade formed with a diminishing series of flutes over its length on both sides, divided into three stages, the forward stage finished bright, the two lower stages finely etched and gilt, the medium stage divided into two tiers, each displaying a differing scene from Roman mythology, involving the figures of Cupid, Psyche and Venus within one panel, another panel involving a small standard charged with an eagle, perhaps that of Ferrara, the basal panel on both sides filled with a pair of armed male figures supporting a circlet framing a shield, the latter bearing a coat-of-arms, a crenellated tower over a lion passant guardant holding a palm frond, together with the letters N and P flanking the tower, struck with a mark on both sides at the median, arched iron cross-guard formed of a pair of flattened plates enclosing the base of the blade (the tips shortened), shaped iron tang retaining a single gilt-copper strip overlaid along one edge and cast with the inscription VIRTUS SUPER..., strongly arched gilt-bronze pommel-cap cast in low relief and engraved over the sides, fitted with a pair of bone grip-scales retained by two rivets each with decorated heads, the head of one rivet formed as a tracery rosette (the other associated), and both sides inset with a pair of larger decorative brass tracery rosettes. L.: 47 cm - W.: 11 cm - W. blade at the base: 8.4 cm. The eagle on the etched standard is possibly the coat-of-arms of the Este family of Ferrara. The city of Ferrara was an important centre for the production and decoration of daggers of this type, cinquedea. The best quality etching on the blades is commonly related to an engraver wrongly named in modern literature as Ercole dei Fedeli. For an account of the exposure of this error see, BLAIR, Claude, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor, Arms, Armour and Base-Metalwork,