Tudor Era Italian Renaissance Rapier

Early 16th century AD. A Western European rapier of possible Italian manufacture, with 16th-century open basket-hilt sword, still fitted with the blade; straight double edge sword with pointed blade, presenting a hilt with straight quillons, divided by three grooves and closed at the extremities; the side guards are well preserved, together with the arms of the hilt and the knuckle bows, linked to the central écusson; on both sides, it shows three additional reinforcement rings on the lower part of the hilt, bowing towards the flat blade; the grip cover, made of metal wire, is still intact around the original wooden core; the very well preserved pear-shaped pommel with eight sides, one of them decorated with a stylised flower formed by a centre and seven petals; it is surmounted by a knob; the blade shows, on both sides, a very short fuller not arriving more than the one third of its whole length; on one side of the blade is impressed a crown, followed by the mark of the sword maker, and, between two stylised crosses, the inscription MARIA. See Oakeshott, E.,The sword in the Age of the Chivalry, Woodbridge, 1964 (1994); Dufty, A.R., European swords and daggers in the Tower of London, London, 1974; our specimen has various parallels with rapiers in the world museums, like the ones published by Dufty (1974, pl.24-28) in the Tower of London, as well as with particular samples in the Met (like the Italian specimen inv. 2010.200) or the ones in the musee d'Art et d'Histoire de Neuchâtel. 1.6 kg, 1.19m (47"). From an important private family collection of arms and armour; acquired on the European art market in the 1980s, and thence by descent; believed from Liege, Belgium; accompanied by an academic report by military specialist Dr Raffaele D'Amato. The rapier (Italian striscia) is a long-bladed sword characterised by a very complex hilt built to protect the hand that holds it. Although the blade may be wide enough to cut (much less than the medieval swords), the striscia was mainly a lunge weapon. The blade, usually double-edged, could be sharpened along its entire length, or only from the center to the tip. Approximately 1.20 meters long and about 1 kg in weight (museum specimens that have reached us vary from 1.7 to 0.75 kg), it appears longer and thinner than the sword from the past centuries but heavier than the spadino, a lighter weapon that came into use in the 18th century. This sword in Italy was also designed spada da lato (sword on the side), a term used to design, in general, the sword of civil use in the 15th and 16th centuries. The weapon still has many similarities with the heavy infantry sword, or with the infantry stocco used by the soldiers, but, compared to these, it began to use the first bridges and rings to protect the fingers of the hand. This is precisely due to the lack of metal protection (iron gloves) typical of combat in war. The name derives from the civil habit of bringing this sword to the sides of the gentlemen. In Spanish it is called espada ropera, literally 'coat’s sword', where ropa is equivalent to the Italian roba, a male overcoat used in the Late Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Age. From this Spanish derived the word rapierin French and English language, indicating both the sword on the side and the subsequent seventeenth-century striscia.
Condition Report: Fine condition.