This is the armoury in Graz, Austria--heaven for those of us with an interest in 16th and 17th c. arms and armour. You must make a pilgrimage and enjoy Austria's other great delights.

Start here:

http://www.zeughaus.at/frameset_e.html

Click on the "Some Objects in 3D" button in the middle of the page. This takes you to a page of armour. Each object pictured can be rotated 360 degrees for inspection! When you get to the large photo of the object you're interested in, your cursor turns into a hand. Click and move the cursor in the direction you want to turn the object.

There are many other nice features on this site, which appears to be mainly an advertisement for the armoury's full interactive CD-ROM collection, which sounds awfully tempting, even at over 70 Euro. I might need to save up for that....

I have visited Landeszeughaus last year (which is fairly late considering I live in vicinity, only 300 km away). I really had a great time there and I plan to visit it again with some friends from reenactment circles. I've heard that if you ask politely, you can get a piece of equippement or a weapon "for a try" - some of my friends had an oportunity to wield 16th century longswords and zweihanders. OK, I will not bother you with my fantasies any more, I'll get to the pictures.

I hope they are not too big for average modem users. Please notify me if I have to remove or edit them.

Enjoy. :D

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Some 16th century mail.

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A forest of spikes!

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Group photo!

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15th century big longsword

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Various swords.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Didja see?! Didja see?!

ooooh what toys!!

Sean,
Thanks for posting this link. That cavalry sword looks grand!

Blaz,
Thank you as well for posting the pics!


Bill

That era is now my favorite. I'm moving earlier and earlier the more I learn

Thanks for the pics, Blaz! The sheer volume of arms and armour at the GL is too much to take in on a single visit. It was for me, and at the time I didn't really understand what I was looking at. Now I'd probably need about one month per floor. I look at this stuff and think, "Gee, you have so MANY burgonets, axes, swords, pikes, harnesses, etc., wouldn't you just let me take away as much as I can carry? You'd never miss it!"

It's Ahnold's hometown, so a Hummer would probably be the way to go. ;)

Hum... Yes... Ahnold. He gets mentioned often around there. Even all the restaurants make apfelstrudels by his grandmothers recipee. And and they're nothing special...

Landeszeughaus is amazing, even the wooden racks and all the furniture is mostly original from 16. to 17. century. We really have to thank the people of Styria (land in Austria) and citizens of Graz for preserving these treasures through all the rough times of war and economical instabilities when most of the rest old arms and armour collections finnished in a melting pot.

Back to the pictures:

You thought I had finished?

Hum, I just found out for the first time that you can attach max. 8 images. Bummer. :p

:D

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The most beautiful thing in the armoury (in my oppinion, of course).

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Yours truly, Blaz Berlec.

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Impaling beauty!

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Closeup of some swords.

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Leaf-bladed halberds?

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Plateplateplateplateplate!

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Grim stuff!

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Closer look at zweihanders.

More great pics Blaz, thanks.....keep them coming......more swords!

Bill

I think I'm going to faint, Blaz. Great stuff!

"We really have to thank the people of Styria (land in Austria) and citizens of Graz..."

Let's not forget the Turkish Empire, which made Styria the concentration of so much martial attention. ;)

Hi there.

Landeszeughaus Graz must be great. I intend to visit it on June. For the time being I enjoy the CD-rom which is really interesting. From time to time I spent hours clicking through it.

So, Jessica, you think the CD-ROM is worth the price? Does it allow you to magnify individual pieces or otherwise get a closer look? I'm very interested in this, but I might wait until the US Dollar is a bit stronger against the Euro :eek:

Ah, now THIS is the REALLY COOL Stuff here! Graz is the Mecca of cool 16th and 17th Century goodies! Oh for a short visit! I made it to the Graz exhibit here in the States in '92 both in San Francisco and DC, so I got a nice whetting for my appetite, but "one of these days" I need to make it to the Great Storehouse of Cool Stuff, aka the Landzeughaus in Graz!

Thanks for posting all that great stuff!

Gordon

I also want to point out a couple of things I noticed in the pictures that Blaz was kind enough to post. First that the maille is welded, rather than riveted (at least this is what it looks like to me). Any comments from our Maille Experts?

Secondly, I want to note that the photo of the full suits of plate in line, that the closest armour not only has an armet with attached, via rim/lip gorget, but it looks to ME at least to be very, very Greenwich in style. Might be my imagination, but there it is. Could of course be French/Burgundian too, but it has that Greenwich look to me, at least.

Just my thoughts, and I certainly welcome comments! Thanks,

Gordon

Gordon,

"I want to note that the photo of the full suits of plate in line, that the closest armour not only has an armet with attached, via rim/lip gorget, but it looks to ME at least to be very, very Greenwich in style"

The helmet on the middle harness in the picture appears (to me),to be nearer in style to Greenwich armour,though it is still obviously of German origin(note the apparent 'clipper bow' profile of the visor !). The other helmet is definately German in style.

The CD definately sounds like a ' must have ' item to me.Ok it is 70 Euros,but that doesn't sound too unreasonable to me,but then I have just got hold of a copy of Boccias "L'Armatura di Santa Maria delle grazie di Curatone di Mantova e'L'Armatura Lombarda del'400",and nothing IS unreasonable compared to this tome !! :\

Great pictures of a great, unique, collection !Many thanks for sharing them with us.

Regards as ever,

Russ

NB: I have a flamberge zweihander blade in my workshop which usually draws admiring gasps when seen, but have you seen how many they have at Graz !! :eek: This is definately a must see museum !!

Hello Gordon

The Mail is defnitely rivetted. You can see several of the rivets, especially on the left side of the pic. The distinct shape of the overlap area on each ring with the raised ridge running in line with the ring is see often on Eruopean mail rings.

Best
Craig

Russ or Craig maybe you guys know the answer to this. Gordon had asked me if the line of armours in Blaz's pic( the one's gordon thought had somewhat of a greenwich style to them) were contract/munitions pieces like the set of three quarter armours for heavy cavalry by Hans Prenner. I don't have the foggiest, it seems like the armets locked down over the gorget to form a turner would be pretty hard to "off the rack "as far as fit goes but I don't have any idea.


Blaz, do you have more pics like these?They're fantastic!

Russ; Thanks for the info about the helmets. I appreciate the details you gave. I was pretty much looking at that prow of the visor, as it has much the same silhouette as some of the Greenwich armours I've seen illustrations of. Thanks for the new knowledge!

Craig, thank you for noting the details of the maille. I didn't notice any rivet heads, and it looked rather like a forge weld to me. Might be the computer screen I'm looking at that doesn't allow me to see the finer details, so thanks for the correction.

And also, thank you Allan for putting out my query to you to the folks here... it would seem odd that the armoury would have such fine armours in it for issue, but then, who knows. Also they could be simply a place where "old stuff" was sent when no longer needed by the original owners.

All new info and views are welcome, so thanks!

Gordon

OK, I have another treat for you!

In short (I don't have time to explain now), this is the gallery of pictures, taken in Landeszeughaus by my friends from medieval martial arts school Druscina Zlate Ostroge (Fellowship of the Golden Spur). There is about 60 hi-resolution pictures, all much better than mine futile tries. Unfortunately the text is in Slovenian, but I can translate it if you are interested in some particular picture.

Do not get distracted by the shiny dame costumes - they were put in museum for some special occasion.


Pictures are about 1000 x 1000 pixels in size, and can be up to 250 kB or more long. So be patient. But the gallery itself is made from small thumbnails, so don't be afraid to take a peek:

http://www.zlate-ostroge.org/galerije/graz_g2003.htm

[ Linked Image ]


Link to the first page of the site:

http://www.zlate-ostroge.org

(btw, their site is down occasionally. Sorry for the inconviniences)

Feel free to click about, there is an interesting gallery of their performances.

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That's me on the sawdust, eating iron-rich diet!