Rondelle ( fr. Rondelle "round") - a disk fixed on a plate shoulder pad and covering an armpit in front. It originally appeared presumably on Milanese armor made for export, in particular in the church of Santa Maria della Grazia in Mantua, among the images of armor donated to the church at different times , there is an image of armor, the shoulders of which are decorated with rondels. The same rondels adorn the alla Francese (French style) armor of Frederick I, the Palatine of the Rhine , made by Milanese craftsmen in 1451.
Rondel is also called a steel disk on a leg on the back of the neck of Italian armets , which serves to protect the belt holding the chin from being chopped. This helmet was called - Armet with a rondel.
Later rondels became an integral part of the Gothic armor . The rondelle’s disk was attached to the shoulders and protected the owner’s armpits from injections or arrows. The convenience of its use was that when the heavy cavalryman went on the attack, the rondel did not interfere with placing the spear on the stop : it simply shifted to the side, and then returned to its place in hand-to-hand combat, leaving the hand vulnerable. If in early Gothic discs were made simply flat, then in later samples, the disc, like all armor, was forged in a figured shape and decorated, including a notch and engraving .
The reason for the wide use of rondels in Gothic armor, obviously, is that in such armor the shoulder pads were forged symmetrical - in contrast to the Milanese armor, where the left shoulder was intended for defense in the tournament and was forged more massive precisely taking into account that it would replace itself shield. Using the rondel to protect the right armpit - where it was impossible to construct another protection constructively - led to the fact that a symmetrical right disc appeared on the left shoulder pad.
Subsequently, rondels also adorned the shoulders in full armor of the 16th century. At the same time, a portrait of Cosimo I de Medici in armor on the rondelles (as well as on the shoulders) shows a lining with red skin - this was done so that the details of the armor do not clang against each other when moving.
See also
- Gothic armor
- On shoulders
- Armor history
- Armor
- Maximilianovsky armor
- Plate
Literature
- Beheim Wendalen . Encyclopedia of weapons / Per. with him. A. A. Devell et al. Ed. A. N. Kirpichnikova . - St. Petersburg: Orchestra, 1995 .-- 576 p.: Ill. - ISBN 5-87685-029-X .
- Winkler P.P. von Encyclopedia of weapons from ancient times to the beginning of the XIX century. - St. Petersburg: Leningrad Publishing House, 2009 .-- 432 p.: Ill. - ISBN 978-5-9942-0420-7 .
- Efimov S.V., Rymsha S.S. Weapon of Western Europe XV-XVII centuries. - Volume 1. Armor, blade weapons, weapons on the poles. - SPb .: Atlant, 2009 .-- 400 p .: ill. - Series "Armory Academy". - ISBN 978-5-98655-022-0 .