Corsèque (c. 1520): Art, History and Details

Corsèque (c. 1520) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The corsèque is a pole arm with a symmetrical three-pronged head consisting of a central double-edged blade and two sharp, upturned wings. The side blades served several functions: as guard to protect the soldier's hand when a thrust was delivered with the central blade; as a hook for unseating a mounted opponent; and to trip the opponent's horse. The corsèque was used mostly in Italy and France from the 1400s to the early 1600s. The version here is sometimes called a chauve-souris after the French word for "bat," since the side blades are thought to resemble a bat's wings.

Object facts

• Title: Corsèque
• Date: c. 1520
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel; round wood haft; tassel
• Dimensions: Overall: 269.2 cm (106 in.); Blade: 36.5 cm (14 3/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.1535

A detail from the museum

The corsèque is said to have originated in Corsica, from where it takes its name.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. Vol. 2, 16th century. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], [1900-1915].
• Gilchrist, Helen Ives. A Catalogue of the Collection of Arms & Armor Presented to the Cleveland Museum of Art by Mr. and Mrs. John Long Severance; 1916-1923. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1924.
• Fliegel, Stephen N. Arms and Armor: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: The Museum, 1998.

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.