The Stibbert Museum

The Stibbert Museum was created by Frederick Stibbert.  He was a young man that inherited his family fortune and dedicated his life into collecting objects, antiques, paintings and artifacts. The collection he created is presented in two spaces, the museum part of the villa and what once were the family’s personal rooms. The visit starts with a huge room that contains several paintings on the walls. It then continues on with rooms filled with European armor, and following are Middle Eastern armoury. There is an enormous room called “sala della cavalcata” (“room of the ride”) which was a room created in order to make a connection between the museum area and the villa. In this room there are 12 knights on horses, first 4 are presented with Italian armor, mid 4 have German armor and the last 4 have Middle Eastern (Islamic) armor.

It was fascinating to me to see the difference between the European and Middle Eastern armoury. The European armours were mainly from Italy, Germany and France, and they were from late Medieval period (15^th century) to Early Modern period (16^th to 18^th century). The helmets, even though from different periods, had basically the same shape with small differences in details. They were made of steel in a round shape as the head, usually with a higher elevation in the middle that simulates a Mohawk in steel. The front part of the helmet where the face was located differs one from another in small details. Some of them even had animal faces designs; others had pointy shapes, a more sharp shape.

Going forward with the European armour, the complete body suit was made of fully articulated rigid plate-armor made of metal, an evolution to primary leather body protections. As armies got bigger the metal quality went down, therefore needing to be thicker. The armours from this period (around 15^th to 18^th century) were extremely heavy and difficult to move and be agile with it. Warriors needed much training before being able to fight with this heavy metal protections. As in Europe the battles were more characterize by body to body fights, with less distance in between warriors, there was a higher need for this heavy armour. These armours protected the body very well but gave less flexibly on movements, and on riding and flight on a horse. Their swords were also extremely heavy. They were made out of steel and had long and straight shapes.

When it comes to the Middle Eastern armoury, it was quite different from the European. The helmets in the armoury of Islamic origin had a pointy shape on top. It resembles to me a funnel shape pointing up. They were not closed on the front as many helmets of European origin, and they had quite more patterns and decorations such as feathers. Some helmets had additional protection on the neck area. It was consisted of a round shape “metal fabric”, it hanged like fabric but it was made of small metal chains attached close together.

The complete body suit armour was apparently much lighter than the European ones. They look like big sweaters made out of steel chains attached very close together, not leaving any space in between. As their battles were much more characterized by combat on horses, they needed to be more agile and flexible; therefore their protections couldn’t be too heavy or too rigid as the European. The Islamic swords had a much more curvy shape than the straight thick swords Europeans used in battles. Reason is the difference of interaction and movements used during combat. The curvy shape of the Islamic sword made their “spin movement” faster and effective. While the straight European sword was more effective in body to body combats during wars in Europe.  

The Islamic arms and armors were decorated using a variety of techniques such as damascening, gilding, inlay, gold and silver encrusting, as well as setting with jewels and enameling. Even the armours the horses used had so much decorative details and were very colorful.

BY Jessica De Moraes