Schiavona Broadsword (1700s): Art, History and Details

Schiavona Broadsword (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This broadsword or basket-hilted sword is a type that was often carried by the bodyguards of the Doge of Venice who came from the Dalmatian Coast of present-day Croatia and were then called Schavoni in Venice. The complex barred guard slopes forward and protects the hand.

Object facts

• Title: Schiavona Broadsword
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Arms and Armor
• Technique: steel, brass, leather and wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 100.3 cm (39 1/2 in.); Blade: 84.4 cm (33 1/4 in.); Grip: 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.); Guard: 14.8 cm (5 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Arms & Armor
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1916.698

A detail from the museum

This sword has what is known as a "cat's head" pommel, a spherical knob that serves as a counterweight at the opposite end of the sword from the point.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of Arms and Armour. [Boston, Massachusetts]: [Frank Gair Macomber], 1900.
• 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.