Introduction

In sixteenth-century Italy, bearing arms was no longer the preserve of princes, lords, knights or upper-class citizens. We know that weapons were owned and worn – both licitly and illicitly – by men from all social classes, including well-to-do merchants, members of the middling classes such as artisans, and even humble farmers. The diplomat and writer on manners Stefano Guazzo (1530–93) observed in 1574 how ‘peasants dare to compete in their clothing with artisans, and artisans with merchants, and merchants with noblemen, so much so that once a grocer has taken up the habit of carrying arms and wearing the clothing of a noble, you cannot tell who he is until you see him in his shop selling his wares’.¹ But just how widespread were weapons and armour in the middle and lower classes really? Although the answer is by no means a simple one, weapon ownership still predominantly appears to have been an upper-class affair. Nonetheless, weapons were also owned by a sizable minority of the popular classes, and when middle- and lower-class men armed themselves, they did so to enhance their personal and public identities, not unlike their elite counterparts. Consequently, these objects served to boost a wearer’s sense of security, status and manliness, no matter which rung of society they occupied.

Traditionally, donning weapons was a privilege reserved for upper-class men. Weapons were considered fashionable accessories for the elite wardrobe and, as a result, were considered crucial components of male dress. Countless portraits from the period emphasise this notion. In Giovanni Battista Moroni’s A Knight with His Jousting Helmet, for instance, the sitter dons a leather jerkin with mail sleeves over a black silk doublet and breeches (Figure 6.1). One arm rests upon a burgonet with an elaborate feathered headpiece, complete with matching gold rivets and buckles, and black fabric fastenings. His side sword’s steel hilt shines brilliantly against his luxurious black outfit, and the corresponding sheath that encapsulates its blade seems to diagonally cut across the composition’s lower half. Disembodied pieces of armour, including a greave, gauntlet and gorget, are scattered along the foreground. The message is clear: martial ability is a manly virtue.

Figure 6.1 Giovanni Battista Moroni, Portrait of a Gentleman with Armour (A Knight with His Jousting Helmet), 1554–58. National Gallery, London.

The practice of adding martial touches to portraits was not reserved for men with chivalric titles, however, as the artist and writer Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo quipped in 1584 that ‘merchants and bankers, who have never seen an unsheathed sword, to whom one would properly expect a pen behind the ear with a full gown, and a book in front [of them], have themselves painted in armour with batons in hand like generals, [a] thing truly ridiculous, and [which] manifestly displays such little sense and judgment, both in the painted and the painter’.²

In most early modern Italian cities, citizenship was a pivotal component required for the privilege of arms-bearing, and men who held upper-class professions (such as the merchants and bankers whom Lomazzo references) were often eligible for citizenship. Although a well-known custom in Florence, for instance, the documentary evidence confirming this dispensation is scant: the only place I have found where this privilege is explicitly stated is a Florentine sumptuary law of 1562, which noted that male citizens could wear a sword and dagger at their belt, and could possess gold, silver or gilt knives and horse trappings.³ The fact that this information is contained in sumptuary legislation instead of arms regulations indicates how commonplace the practice of donning arms was for elite men. For full Florentine citizenship was not a distinction granted lightly. To qualify, a man had to have resided in the city for thirty years, own and pay taxes on property of a certain value and be approved by the Council of Two Hundred or by the duke himself.⁴

Even with these laws and customs firmly in place, we know that non-elites also kept arms and armour. Paula Hohti’s recent study on the possessions of early modern Sienese artisans, for instance, recorded various arms, including swords, daggers and polearms in some of the Sienese inventories she examined. In 1551, a second-hand dealer by the name of Vincenzo di Matteo, for instance, owned ‘three swords, one with a sword belt’ as well as a dagger with a gilded, velvet sheath with a sword belt or strap.⁵ Inventories pose their own challenges when considering weapons, however, as these objects were technically illegal for lower-class inhabitants to own. Circumstances relating to eligibility varied and depended on many factors, including current state policies, the organisation of its militia and the geographical location of where inhabitants resided. Further complicating matters was the practice of awarding arms licences to individuals through special dispensation.

In order to explore these issues comprehensively, this chapter is split into three sections, each of which relies on different types of archival sources.⁶ Using contemporary legislation and the Medici ducal collection of letters, the regulation of arms, armour and other sorts of protective clothing is explored first. The large dataset of Italian inventories collected by the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project is then interpreted and contextualised under this lens. The final section explores petitions asking for permission to wear arms and armour by middling members of society from the records of the Otto di Guardia e Balia, the Florentine magistracy responsible for law enforcement and criminal affairs. By examining an assortment of sources, I hope to shed light on the role that arms, armour and protective attire played in the lives of the popular classes in early modern Italy.

The regulation of arms and armour

Even though weapons were commonplace in early modern society, most Italian city states banned or heavily restricted their usage. Indeed, the right of common individuals to bear arms was often seen as a major threat to government security.⁷ One of the earliest acts of the Florentine Duke, Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–74), after assuming power in Florence in 1537 – like that of many other new rulers – was to prohibit the possession of weapons by his subjects.⁸ The ban was first referred to in a public notice (bando) that year, but it was not until 28 May 1539 that a comprehensive edict dedicated entirely to the question of weapons appeared, under the aegis of the magistracy of the Otto di Guardia e Balia.⁹ The edict opened with a long-winded justification for the action being taken:

In order to avoid any possible confusion, all major offensive and defensive weapons (as well as their accoutrements) were listed by name. Firearms, both old and new models, along with gunpowder and other crucial accessories, occupy some of the first positions on the list. Other weapons included in the ban appear more appropriate for the battlefield than the urban centre. For instance, the ban restricted seven different types of polearms, explicitly listing each model by name. Although ostensibly cumbersome for urban use, it appears the need to ban such items was warranted. In a 1568 letter to Medici majordomo Matteo Bartoli, the Duke regent Francesco I de’ Medici (1541–87) requested that actions be taken to stop priests in Castrocaro from carrying and using polearms, an order seconded by Pope Pius IV.¹¹

Even previously legal arms were now strictly prohibited, and the penalty for not surrendering one’s weapons within ten days of the edict’s issue were pulls on the strappato (a form of corporal punishment in which a victim’s arms were secured behind his back and tied to a hook or a pulley that would hoist him up in the air and ‘drop’ him) and monetary fines, some as high as 300 scudi. The populace was encouraged to turn in offenders with the promise of receiving one-quarter of any fine as a reward. These were substantial sums: 300 scudi was roughly nine times the annual earnings of a builder’s labourer.¹²

More common weapons, such as ‘swords, daggers, knives, pointed instruments, stones, or clubs, or other similar sorts of offensive arms’ were also prohibited in the city and within the surrounding three miles, instead of the eight miles set out for the first group of weapons.¹³ This would appear to signify that these weapons were more widespread outside immediate city limits and, therefore, slightly more tolerated. Defensive armour and other types of protective clothing were another heavily policed item. Reinforced garments could be fashioned from a wide variety of materials, including iron or steel – in the form of mail and plate armour – leather, wood, bone and fabric.¹⁴ Protective elements could be worn under – or even stitched into – articles of dress. In the cassone of Lorenzo de’ Medici, for instance, a ‘damask fabric doublet lined in chain mail, for use in times of danger’ was recorded.¹⁵ Mail and/or steel plates were also added to berets or other types of felt hats, often called segrete.

In his combat treatise, master-of-arms Pietro Monte explained to readers that defensive clothing was being made throughout Europe and new modes of making were being ‘invented daily’.¹⁶ He noted:

In response to the growing trend for creating armoured clothing, another Florentine ban was published in July 1570.¹⁸ The proclamation outlawed ‘doublets, or jerkins, as one says, reinforced, padded, or made with artifice of any strength of small mail, or agore, or thick rings made with the force of waxed cord, or other mixture’.¹⁹ If caught with reinforced clothing in the city, or within the surrounding eight miles, perpetrators could be subjected to the penalties for carrying defensive armour, ‘namely, penalty of life, and confiscation of goods’, although this strict level of punishment was rarely enforced.²⁰

Producing such illicit garb was also prohibited, and it was forbidden to ask a tailor or ‘any other person, either male or female, from working on them in any way’.²¹ This was not surprising, as tailors, seamstresses, shoemakers and shop assistants could also be punished for failing to adhere to contemporary sumptuary legislation. Per a 1546 law on outlawed clothing, for instance, if tailors, seamstresses, shoemakers or their assistants turned in clients who commissioned illegal garments, those in the trade would be pardoned for their part in any wrongdoing.²² Analogously, if patrons denounced the workshops that agreed to fashion their forbidden vestments, they, too, were immune from being prosecuted. Grace was thus given to the party who denounced the other first, offering an incentive for guilty parties to betray accomplices.

Another law on protective clothing was issued in January 1585 and barred the wearing of colletti di dante.²³ These sturdy jerkins made from fallow-deer [dante] hide, as the edict explained, were ‘new types of leather doublets … heavy, out of the ordinary’.²⁴ They probably resembled or were inspired by brigandines: doublets strongly reinforced with iron plates, mail, bone, leather or even toughened cardboard, originally worn by ‘brigands’ – that is, by light-armed or irregular infantry such as archers, and later by pikemen and musketeers.²⁵ As such, they were ‘really made for the security of the person, and not for ordinary wear’ – hence the Florentine authorities’ strong aversion to them.²⁶ The ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ database inventories record three colletti di dante jerkins, presumably of the type which the Florentine authorities banned in 1585, among the possessions of a carpenter in Siena, and a clothes-seller and an innkeeper in Venice.²⁷

Weapons and the urban middle and lower classes

In the sample of 448 post-mortem inventories of urban middle- and lower-class households collated by the ‘Refashioning’ project, 122 (around 27 per cent) mention at least one weapon or piece of armour. In total 196 weapons were identified. Of the 196 items documented, seven were present in Venice, 80 in Florence and 109 in Siena. But since arms were illegal for non-citizens – such as most trade and craftsmen – without special dispensation, it is hard to know how far the inventories accurately reflect either the number of non-elite owners or the number of weapons owned by them. Given the harsh penalties in place for lawbreakers, it is possible that any illicitly held items were given away or otherwise disposed of before the notaries were called in to conduct their surveys. If illicit objects were found, they were to be turned over to the authorities at once.

Another incentive for getting rid of forbidden items was the fact that charges could be pressed for solely having knowledge of an illegal weapon that was kept in the household. In a Florentine firearms ban from June 1547, the comprehensive law outlawed wheellock arquebuses and schioppi, in addition to matchlock [da corda] and what appears to be early flintlock [da fucile, da pietra, and da acciaiuolo] styles that were smaller than one braccio and a half.²⁸ If the informed party did not denounce the perpetrator(s) within three days’ time of gaining such knowledge, he or she would be charged 150 scudi, half of the fee charged to persons illegally caught with firearms.

Geographical location, especially in terms of its proximity to the city centre, additionally affected arms legislation efforts. The ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ inventories were sourced from households located in the urban centres of Florence, Siena and Venice, which possessed much stricter laws compared to rural areas, the countryside and towns included in a state’s dominion. In the Medici-governed Sienese territories in 1560, for instance, anyone who lived at least eight miles from the centre could keep weapons in their home and carry on their person a sword and dagger, while anyone who lived even further afield was permitted to keep arms at home and carry whatever offensive or defensive weapon they wished.²⁹ The manner in which the restrictions became looser the further one ventured from the city centre reflected the more lawless nature of the countryside and the limitations of the state’s authority: in some instances, entire rural locales were allowed to carry arms.³⁰ But it also demonstrates the priority given to keeping the area within the city walls as free from weapons as possible – even to the extent of stationing several companies of Duke Cosimo I’s militia outside the city in various parts of the Florentine domain.

One’s city of residence similarly plays an important role in the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ data. Of the arms and armour recorded, 75 per cent of weapon owners were Sienese inhabitants. This is most certainly a reflection of the looser regulations in force there than of any sort of behavioural tendency. When Duke Cosimo I acquired Siena in 1557, increasing his domains by a third, the restrictions imposed on the city’s inhabitants appear to have been laxer than Florence’s. In a bando of June 1560 prohibiting archibusetti (small, hand-held arquebuses), for instance, it appears that the Florentine government continued to recognise the rights to bear arms which some Sienese had possessed before their city’s annexation.³¹ In fact, all of the intact firearms – ten in total – found in the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ sample were owned by a trumpet player, a bookseller, an oil producer and a blacksmith, all located in Siena.³² The home of the bookseller Giovanni Tantucci contained four guns in total. His comprehensive collection included two wheellocks, an early flintlock model and a matchlock, along with some additional accessories.³³

The most commonly owned weapons were undoubtedly swords and daggers, making up roughly 84 per cent of the arms and armour recorded (Figure 6.2, Figure 6.3). Despite the popularity of long and short bladed weapons in this period, and the variety of types, the documentary sources often describe them quite vaguely with the single term spada. A mason’s inventory in Venice, for example, simply records the presence of ‘una spada’ that was found, along with various items of clothing and shoes, inside a big, wooden chest that was unlocked with a key.³⁴ Only if the weapon was unusual in some way, or its fittings were noteworthy or valuable, was more detail recorded. Thus, for example, a Venetian innkeeper’s inventory from 1612 boasted ‘two scimitars in the Turkish style, with their sword belts’ (‘due samitere alla turchesca con suoi centuroni’), while a Florentine arms-maker by the name of Niccolo di Antonio had ‘one sword with a silver hilt’ (‘1 spada con manico di argento’) in his sitting room.³⁵ Damaged or timeworn elements were similarly noted, as was the case for a tailor in Siena who possessed ‘a blade of a sword without finishings’ (‘una lama da spada senza finimenti’)and an innkeeper in Florence with ‘a sword without a sheath and pommel’ (‘una spada senza fodero e senza pome’) that was found ‘in the room above the living room’ (‘nella stanza sopra la sala’).³⁶ Individuals with the financial means could have the blade of their weapon etched with ornate patterns, or its hilt and sheath adorned with precious metals or even jewels. Even if the matching pair of sword and dagger hilts set with 680 diamonds by the Medici goldsmith Giacomo Biliverti in 1601 was beyond one’s reach, it was still possible for someone on a modest income to add a touch of luxury, such as the dagger and pair of swords boasting silver hilts owned by a Sienese candle-maker in 1595, or the ‘dagger with its little belt and silver hilt’ (‘un pugnale con suo cinturino e manica d’argento’) belonging to a Florentine fishmonger (Figure 6.4).³⁷

Figure 6.2 Arms and armour recorded in an inventory of a Florentine innkeeper, 1571. Archivio di stato, Florence, Magistrato dei Pupilli, 2653, fol. 119v, 1571.

Figure 6.3 Arms and armour recorded in artisan inventories in Florence, Siena and Venice, 1550–1650.

Figure 6.4 An example of a dagger and scabbard with silver embellishments. Sword maker Wolf Paller, German, Dagger with Scabbard, c. 1575. Steel, silver, ray skin, leather, wood; length 38.4 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bashford Dean Memorial Collection.

Interestingly, the inventories of innkeepers often appeared to be chock-full of weapons. This almost certainly reflects the fact that innkeepers often acted as pawnbrokers, lending customers money against pledges of goods. Like clothing and jewellery, weapons were objects that could retain value, and as a result they were frequently pawned – especially by soldiers, given their itinerant and unpredictable lifestyle.³⁸ In 1533, the inventory of Marchione di Paulo, innkeeper in the town of Mulazzo in north-western Tuscany, catalogued six swords (including one ‘belonging to the house’), four pikes, two spears, three sword belts, one dagger in the Spanish style and another with silver furnishings, and one pistol. A further ten swords, twelve daggers, one white sword belt and a silver hilt were noted as being out at pawn.³⁹ In 1571, the household inventory of the innkeeper Nicco di Michielino recorded that twenty antique swords of various types (‘spade di piu sorte antiche’), fifteen daggers categorised as ‘old’, and two arquebus barrels had similarly been pawned.⁴⁰

Nine crossbows were also recorded in the inventories. In Siena, they belonged to an oil producer, linen weaver, sausage-maker, weaver and three different greengrocers.⁴¹ The oil producer Michele Biancardi’s inventory records a crossbow, as well as a sword and dagger, kept in a chest with various types of women’s items and fabrics.⁴² Also found inside a chest was a Florentine miller’s balestro da pallottole, a type of crossbow invented and popularised in Tuscany that used stone balls for ammunition.⁴³ These weapons were a popular choice for hunting, but were also used in acts of assault. In March 1562, for instance, an arquebusier named Cencio di Pierantonio received a 25 fiorini fine for having shot a certain Giovanni di Rimedio in Carmignano with the weapon the preceding November.⁴⁴

Defensive wear was also present, although uncommon. One such case was a ‘rusty’ and ‘damaged’ armour with a morion (an open-faced helmet typically fashioned with a crest) recorded in a list of items that had been pawned by a Florentine innkeeper.⁴⁵ Protective jacks of mail were owned by a dyer, soap-maker and baker in Venice, the latter of whom pawned his for 60 lire.⁴⁶ The soap-maker Zuan Francesco Fondi safeguarded his two protective garments, a jack and shirt of mail (‘doi zachi, cioe una camisiola et un zaho’), in a chest kept in one of the rooms in his house. Three colletti di dante, as mentioned above, were also recorded.⁴⁷

In contrast to the verbose legislation issued during the same period, the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ database demonstrates that as many as a quarter of inventory owners possessed arms and armour in their households. As mentioned earlier, however, it is difficult to ascertain whether these numbers accurately reflect arms possession in these social groups, as family members could be prosecuted if they knew such illegal objects were present in the household. In summary, the majority of the arms that were recorded were owned by Sienese men. This makes sense given the looser regulations in place there, as the city was absorbed by the Medici duchy in the mid-sixteenth century.

Arms licences and the lower and middle classes

Despite all the restrictions imposed by state authorities on the private possession of weapons, members of the city’s middling and lower classes were still able to petition the state for the right to bear arms. As with other types of personal entreaty and appeal to the government, these pleas were made via formal written petitions called ‘supplications’ (suppliche). In Florence, they could be submitted by dropping the documents through an aperture known as the buca de suppliche, located on Via Lambertesca, near the Piazzale degli Uffizi (Figure 6.5).⁴⁸ This was intended to provide Florentines with direct and discreet access to their duke – a ‘good custom’, as Duke Cosimo acknowledged in 1568, explaining that ‘any kind of person, for comfort and facility in negotiating, could write to us and have the letter arrive in our hands’.⁴⁹

The task of reviewing petitions relating to arms in Medici territories fell to the Otto di Guardia e Balia. Many petitioners requested licences or renewals of previous privileges, as seen in the case of the Flemish artist Giovanni Stradano (or Johannes Stradanus; 1523–1605). On 29 October 1565, while Stradano was busy creating decorations for the imminent wedding of Duke Cosimo’s heir, the future Grand Duke Francesco I, the court artist petitioned the duke for ‘a pardon to own [and] to carry offensive and defensive arms, namely a sword, a dagger, and a jack of mail, such as your most illustrious excellency had granted [for] many years’.⁵⁰ A copy of the original licence that Stradano was seeking to renew was attached to his supplication (Figure 6.6 and 6.7). Dated 14 March 1558, and probably written by the then secretary of the Otto di Guardia e Balia, Francesco Borghini, it declared:

Figure 6.5 An aperture for submitting supplications in Florence. Also known as the ‘buca de suppliche’. Located on via Lambertesca, near the Piazzale degli Uffizi, Florence.

‘Number 320’ refers to a past supplication submitted by the noted tapestry-maker Jan Rost dated 8 January 1558, which asked permission to equip with swords, daggers and jacks of mail four members of his household (domestici): his brothers Pieter and Jacob; his assistant Baltasar, ‘who live[d] above his workshop’; and Giovanni Stradano.⁵² Rost noted that all four men were Flemish and, somewhat curiously, that they would if necessary take up their arms ‘in service of your illustrious excellency’.⁵³ Rost’s request was granted on 13 February, five weeks after its submission; but whether his workshop actually needed protecting, or whether the permits were sought purely to demonstrate the status of Rost and his household, is unknown.⁵⁴ Interestingly, Stradano’s supplication to renew his licence was submitted in the year of Rost’s death, suggesting that he needed to transfer the authorisation into his own name. The outcome of his application, though, remains uncertain.⁵⁵

Figure 6.6 Giovanni Stradano’s supplication to wear offensive and defensive arms, Archivio di Stato, Florence, Otto di Guardia e Balia del Principato, vol. 2247, fol. 74v.

Figure 6.7 Copy of Giovanni Stradano’s arms licence issued in 1557. Archivio di Stato, Florence, Otto di Guardia e Balia del Principato, vol. 2247, unnumbered, between folios 74 and 75. Archivio di Stato di Firenze.

High-profile artists at court appeared to be likely candidates for arms licences. Another such case was the flamboyant Florentine goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71). After he returned to Florence in 1545, Cellini cherished his licence to bear arms, acknowledging the favour shown him by Duke Cosimo when he declared in a supplication in 1562 that ‘just as you had done for all your good servants, you granted me the right to carry weapons’.⁵⁶ As is evident from the goldsmith’s many other supplications, he took full advantage of his privilege to maintain a well-stocked arsenal. According to an inventory from 1570, he was keeping in the antechamber to his Florentine lodgings ‘two pistolesi daggers, a knife in the Turkish style, a sword, a dagger with silver mounts, a hand-and-a-half sword and a Moorish spear’ – although a note on the inventory indicated that Cellini did not have permission to own the last two items and they would be confiscated by the state, as a result.⁵⁷

The duty of reviewing such cases required much time and effort, and it was not uncommon for the duke to intervene personally in tricky cases, such as the supplication submitted in 1560 by a contadino (peasant) named Tonino Frosini from Meleto Valdarno, a hamlet in the countryside south-east of Florence.⁵⁸ As the ‘capo della casa’ (head of the household), Tonino explained, he had to attend several markets each day for work. This meant he often returned home late in the evening, making him susceptible to attacks from his enemies. He therefore sought permission to equip himself with a sleeved jack of mail, a sword and a dagger. As well as attesting that these weapons were to be worn ten miles outside the city, Tonino rather curiously admitted that he was not capable of using them – he wished only to be seen wearing arms, in order to give the impression that he was the sort of man who would defend himself at a moment’s notice. He did not intend to ‘offend anyone’, merely avoid further ‘insults and injuries in order to attend more securely to his affairs and to his wife and children’.⁵⁹

Forwarding Tonino’s supplication for Duke Cosimo’s attention, the secretary of the Otto di Guardia e Balia, Lorenzo Corboli, noted that many weapons were already worn by ‘would-be bravoes and bullies’, and that, if licences to bear arms were granted on the grounds put forward by Tonino, there would be ‘infinite [men] more frightened than him’ demanding the same right.⁶⁰ Allowing Tonino to carry weapons could only make the situation worse, the contadino ‘not being capable, as he says’, and so he recommended rejecting the supplication.⁶¹ The duke, however, chose to ignore Corboli’s advice, and granted the petition, for the supplicant’s safety and security.

Although protection and self-defence were the reasons most often cited for carrying weapons, their presence in early modern Italian society went far beyond their utilitarian function. Indeed, the Venetian humanist Andrea Navagero (1483–1529) went so far as to confess in his poem De imagine sui armata that he wore weapons in his portrait only because everyone else did so, ‘not because [he was] skilled in fighting’.⁶² One of the best ways to embody a manly persona, therefore, was literally to dress the part. But it would be an oversimplification to suggest that arms and armour were solely theatrical props that allowed members of civic society to pretend to be knights or warriors. Rather, as elements of fashionable dress, they were central to contemporary notions of masculinity and social status, giving expression to them in a multitude of ways.

One of the most significant features of this episode is the way it illustrates how the laws relating to arms-bearing, and its traditional associations with martial, patriarchal ideologies, were being reinterpreted to fit profoundly non-elite contexts. Tonino’s enemies were only briefly mentioned in his petition. Instead, he emphasised factors relating to his trade and to his masculine role as head of the household. This was perpetuated in the gendered language and assumptions of the state’s administrators, who stressed the peasant Tonino’s status as ‘capo della casa’ and ‘padre di famiglia’ and his role as protector and provider: in order to safeguard his wife and son, who depended on him for their welfare, he must first safeguard himself. And even though Tonino lacked the skill to defend himself with arms, it was understood just how powerful weapons could be symbolically, as merely the sight of them could guard men from harm.

The Otto di Guardia e Balia’s records demonstrate that a wide variety of residents submitted petitions to bear arms. In 1551, for instance, a thirty-year-old Portuguese priest by the name of Francesco Barradas asked to carry weapons on an upcoming trip to Florence.⁶³ Francesco noted that he had already received permission to bear arms in his parish but required the extension of this authorisation because he had to visit the archbishop in Florence for work. He stated that a rowdy group of men from his parish – who previously menaced him, almost taking his life – befriended a group of young citizens who resided in Florence. Because he lived in fear of his enemy’s Florentine allies, Francesco asked to carry his concealed dagger and have his manservant armed with his sword during his visit to the city centre. He demonstrated the urgency of this request by explaining that his enemies had been given permission from his Excellency to carry arms. It appears this reasoning fell short of convincing either the duke or the Otto di Guardia e Balia’s secretary, as the Portuguese priest’s application to carry arms in Florence appears to have been denied.

Conclusion

What is clear from all this is that, as items of male dress, weapons were objects which embodied bravery in the fuller sense of the word – that is, courage, strength and beauty – and that these attributes were transferrable to those who wore them. An essential part of martial, civic and patriarchal ideologies, the practice of bearing arms appeared to be an extension of a man’s personal and public identity, fundamentally shaping the privileges individuals received from state authorities. Yet, as we have seen, there were legal and illegal ways of navigating these strata. By understanding the social and cultural context in which these objects existed, we shed light on the complex role played by weapons, protective materials and masculine dress in early modern Italy.