Buckler

This remarkable buckler is unique to the island nation of Malta, and generally speaking, it is considered to be a relic of the Great Seige. The centre boss is separate from the rest of the shield, and I believe if I were to look in behind, I would find a mounting for a "gonne", a little muzzle loading firearm. The brass strips are not just for decoration, but they would catch a rapier blade or dagger just fine, and hold it. The chances are this piece (or rather pieces) was originally spun to shape and then embossed, though thats not guaranteed. Spinning was not unknown in the renaissance, heck, even the Romans spun helmets on lathes, but as you can imagine, there were not really a lot of places where you would use large spinnings like this. A buckler would be one of them. Though I do admit that as an exercise in shrinking, this project would be hard to beat!

The armourer would have panel bashed those large triangular pieces into a mould cut into the end grain of a piece of firewood , though when I tried in on a piece of scrap here in the shop, I found it was pretty easy to get the effect over a standard English pattern anvil, so obviously, a German armourer's stake would work just fine.

The chain mail shirt in back is worth of a whole 'nother post!