‡AN ITALIAN STILETTO FORMED ENTIRELY OF STEEL, MID-17TH CENTURY, PROBABLY BRESCIA

‡AN ITALIAN STILETTO FORMED ENTIRELY OF STEEL, MID-17TH CENTURY, PROBABLY BRESCIA with tapering blade of stiff-triangular section, formed with a baluster moulding at the forte, chiselled hilt comprising quillons formed as monsters with bulbous heads at the terminals, openwork grip formed of a vertical arrangement of two allegorical figures of dumb and deaf divided by globular mouldings and bands of beadwork, in leather-covered wooden scabbard, probably the original (now in two pieces, with chiselled iron locket and chape 19.0 cm; 7 1/2 in blade Provenance George F. Harding Jr., Chicago Transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1982, Acc. No. 1982.3481 A stiletto with a very similar grip, probably by the same maker, is preserved in the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, Milan. See Boccia and Coelho 1975, no. 662-3.