I paid another visit to museo Marzoli in Brescia today just to discover that a new helmet has been added to a vitrine.

To my surprise I saw a "norman" XII century nasal helm still in decent conditions.

One piece construction, nasal broken and (badly) reassembled , an extremely rare piece unassumingly exhibited among ordinary celtic age helmets.

Please notice that each quality pic is more than 500k in weight.

Permissions to use this images for educational purposes are granted solely to the webmaster of www.myArmoury.com.


http://bghomofaber.googlepages.com/nasale_nuovo_esposizione.jpg

http://bghomofaber.googlepages.com/nasale_e_3.jpg

http://bghomofaber.googlepages.com/nasale_esposizione_n_2.jpg

Thanks for posting these photos, Bruno.

Bruno Giordan wrote:

... One piece construction, nasal broken and (badly) reassembled ....

The material on the nasal seems very thin, significantly thinner than on the main body of the helm. So, I have the impression that the break in the nasal was due to age/corrosion and possibly an error in handling the helm, rather than combat damage. Do you concur?

Thanks Bruno

This is a particularly nice example of this type of helmet and one that I have not seen before, as far as I know. Sometimes you realize you have been looking at a sketch of a piece for years when you actually see the original and then get interested in it.

Couple of interesting aspects to this piece that I would point out in an examination of it.

One the overall shape. This is a bit taler in the crest and not extremely pointed as they are often depicted. Certainly some did have this sharp peak but I think this is probably an excellent example of the more "sugarloaf" shape that probably predominated in period.

The holes punched around the lower edge would be the next thing. This is a very nice example of the quality of holes one often finds on armor. These would have been done for any internal lining or suspension system to anchor to or/and the addition of a reinforcing or decorative brow band. The punching of holes is much faster and efficient a method of construction than drilling and can be done with a hammer and punch. It often results in an irregular shaped hole and one can see a beveling to the edges as opposed to clean pass through holes.

The last would be as Steve has so rightly noticed the thickness of material. We often over estimate how heavy the material was on period pieces. Often times the edge bevel applied to many pieces of period armor or as in this case the beveling of the interior of a hole in the armor makes it difficult to judge the thickness. Perspective is a crucial thing to understand when looking at armor pictures and trying to transfer it to a three dimensional object.

Again Bruno Thank you for a great find.

Best
Craig

Thanks for sharing this Bruno.

While this helmet may not be as fancy or elaborate as many of the peices of armor we see posted here, it is perhaps one of the most important. Surviving helmets of this kind are in the distinct minority so anytime an example is found it can be significant. As has already been mentioned, there are some distinct design features that are very interesting.

You are all welcome, it was not a big trip, I don't live that far away..

My next serious trip will likely be Churburg (couple of hours by motorway or less).

Living here I can stumble into the middle age every day (some months ago I discovered a rare surviving simple span bridge from the late middle age, still intact, with a nearby XII century church to boot.

This in the middle of a ghastly looking industrial area ...

I still remember the day I had a walk inside an almost dry river during a drought, well, I stumbled into a well preserved trunk canoe.

At least from the middle age, design was prehistorical. A the local museum they were not happy since preservation is extremely costly....

Back to the helm: from a german webpage I have found a german companion to this helm, it seems to belong to the same substyle.

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