Posts: 805 Location: new orleans
Sun 16 Mar, 2014 1:22 pm
I just got back from a trip to Florence Italy were several members of the samurai armor forum met for a conference and a visit to the Stibbert Museum. Francesco Civita, the curator of the Japanese Section of the Stibbert graciously allowed us to rummage through the collection, he had several very old and valuable samurai helmets out on tables for inspection. Quite a few hidden treasures were spotted in the dark recesses of the Japanese section. There is no way to adequately describe the museum, it was formerly the home and private collection of Frederick Stibbert from the 1800s to the early 1900s.
Several dark and dimly lit rooms were full of armor and weapons, some out in the open on the floor, others in glass cases and on the walls. I asked Francesco if he had any examples of Japanese armor with riveted mail, he led me and several other participants over to a group of life like mannequins completely equipped in samurai armor and showed us one in particular. The arm, shin and thigh armor were all composed of riveted mail. After closely examining the mail the conclusion was that it was not European or Indo-Persian mail, here are a couple of images.
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