[Adam D. Kent-Isaac]

I found this site which contains images of every suit of armour in the "Jacobe Album" which is currently held by the Victoria and Albert museum. This is an important find for me because nearly every other resource, online or print, of the Greenwich armoury contains but a small sample of the Jacobe drawings, usually just Leicester, Cumberland, Hatton, and Henry Lee. This site has all 30 of them, even the mysterious "Bale Desena", the identity of whom nobody has been able to figure out, and John III of Sweden (at that time, Duke of Finland) who was apparently close enough to the English court to have a Greenwich armour made for him.

These images are, for some unfathomable reason, all held by some massive online art-peddler which sells mass-produced prints of famous art, at very high prices. I don't know how these people were able to acquire every single drawing in the Jacobe Album, although it frustrates me that their site seems to be the only source for viewing these incredible images.

All the images are very crappy, blurry quality. You can make out the basic form of the decoration, but nothing detailed, which is a real shame. Also, many of the drawings' labels are mangled (Scudamore is misspelled as "Sfionner," Buckhurst as "Bucastle," and Bale Desena as "Dale Dessna." (I would really like to know who that guy was, and how he was able to get a Greenwich armour.)



Interestingly, many of these garnitures seem to have reinforcing bevors - not buffes - separate from the grandguard. And a few of them (Rutland, Sentlo, Bedford) have anime cuirasses!

I just really wish the V&A museum would release a full-size color copy of this album. I would gladly pay 100 or more for it.