Armor for Man and Horse with Völs-Colonna Arms (c. 1575): Art, History and Details

Armor for Man and Horse with Völs-Colonna Arms (c. 1575) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

A knight depended on his horse both as a weapon and a means of defense. He therefore had to take great care to protect his charger. From the 1100s on, knights first covered their steeds in trappings of fabric and later of mail. By around 1400, full steel plate armor for horses was complete. It is possible that this armor made for both man and horse originally belonged to a "garniture," an armor with multiple customized exchange elements that could convert the basic suit to various field and sporting uses. With different pieces of the garniture attached, this suit could have been worn either in battle or in various tournament games. The total combined weight of both the man's and horse's armor is 114 pounds. The etched decoration of this armor is of a type that became fashionable in northern Italy during the late 1500s. It consists of ornamental bands of etched figures, animals, portrait busts, and armor trophies. In addition, a coat of arms is represented seven times in different places—the center of the breastplate and blackplate, the front and back of each pauldron (shoulder defense), and the center of the peytral (horse's breastplate). The coat of arms is that of the Colonna family quartered with another, still unidentified family. It probably belonged to an unknown member of the Völs-Colonna family from the South Tyrol, now part of northern Italy.

Object facts

• Title: Armor for Man and Horse with Völs-Colonna Arms
• Date: c. 1575
• Culture: North Italy, 16th century
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1964.88

A detail from the museum

The Vols-Colonna family crest is found seven times in prominent locations on this armor set for horse and rider.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dean, Bashford. "Mr. Riggs as a Collector of Armor." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 9, no. 3 (1914).
• Dean, Bashford. Handbook of Arms and Armor European and Oriental: Including the William H. Riggs Collection. New York: The Metropolitain Museum of Art, 1921.
• Stone, George Cameron. A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times, Together with Some Closely Related Subjects. Portland, Me: Southworth Press, 1934.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.