


An Extremely Rare Sword ('Grosse-Messer' Or 'Kriegsmesser') Austrian, Late 15th Century
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Find your local specialistAn Extremely Rare Sword ('Grosse-Messer' Or 'Kriegsmesser')
Footnotes
The best-known sword of this type is the one made for the Emperor Maximilian by Hans Sumersperger of Hall in the Tyrol in 1496. Similar swords called Kriegsmesser are depicted being carried by swordsmen in Hans Burgkmair's famous woodcut series The Triumph of Maximilian, published about 1515, No. 38 (see back cover illustration) and seem to have been used by the Imperial guard in Vienna under the Emperors Frederick III and Maximilian I. For more information see O. Gamber, Die Mittelalterlichen Blankwaffen der Wiener Waffensammlung, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen In Wien, vol. 57, 1961, pp. 30-33. For a very similar sword struck with the same mark see Lionello G. Boccia and Eduardo T. Coelho, Armi Bianche Italiane, 1975, No. 134 (illustrated), p. 340