Parade shield with buckle, depicting the Rape of Hippodamia, leather painted in grisaille and gilt on a dark green ground, North Italian, 1500-35.

Wooden Shield, covered with strips of canvas, primed with gesso and gilded with gold leaf, which turn is partly covered with glazes and paint. The part which is meant to show up as gold has been left unglazed. Flesh tones are shaded with brownish black hatchings. On the front of the shield, Hippodamia is depicted being raped by a centaur, while Hercules tries to defend her, underneath a series of arcaded columns, with a city in the background. On the back is a bare rectanagular wooden patch where there would have been straps, around which is painted the story of Mucius Scaevola. The buckle has become detached.

This object was bought from William Blundell Spence, an English dealer based in Fiesole, near Florence, in February 1869 for £100.

Historical significance: Although this parade shield or buckler is unsigned and undated and its original provenance remains unknown, it is lavishly decorated and must have been associated with a prince or nobleman, wishing to show off his pomp and splendour by staging a religious or military parade. Most surviving bucklers are thought to have been made in Florence and Venice, and perhaps the finest examples are Caravaggio's Medusa, now in the Uffizi gallery, or Giovanni Stradano's battle of Scannagallo, dated 1574, in the Odesclchi collections in Rome. Although not of the same callibre as these two, this shield must have been a striking object with a shining glaze and gilding underneath. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths represented the triumph of order over barbarism, and was a suitable theme for a pageant, particularly during the sixteenth century, a time when Italy was prone to invasions from Northern Europe and a prince would want to be seen as a protector of his people and restorer of order.

Parade shields or bucklers, known in Italian as rotelle were worn by soldiers and retainers of princes and noblemen in military and religious parades. On occasions, they served as prizes for victors in jousting tornaments, like one presented by Alessandro dei' Medici, Duke of Tuscany, to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in 1536. The battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, was widely known owing to popular translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses , which provides a particularly bloodthirsty account, and popular during the Renaissance because it represented the triumph of Order over Barbarism.

Comparable shields
See also the similar convex parade shield with a battle scene, Louvre (Paris) N1139, (c1530 Mantua) attrib to Girolamo da Treviso, formerly belonging to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, acquired by Louis XIV 1671. (See Louvre, Paris: Autour de Raphael, 1983-4, pp. 127-8).

Parade shield 'Tempera or oil-paint with gilding probably on papier mache or wood. 62cm diameter. Lent by His Grace the Duke of Norfolk to the exhibition, Thomas Howard Eart of Arundel (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Nov 1985 - Jan 1986), no16. Painted with a Roman battle (outside) and Marcus Curtius (inside). Formerly owned by Thomas Howard Eart of Arundel, and depicted in the family portrait c1643 by Fruytiers (exhib. cat. 11). Notes Vertue's recording (and casting doubt on) the tradition that the shield was given to the Earl of Surrey by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The inventory of the Arundel collection records 10 wooden painted and gilded shields, and two of iron.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian princes, with their enthusiasm for all things having to do with classical antiquity, enjoyed spectacles and pageants that copied Ancient Roman victory parades or triumphae. Soldiers and attendants carried parade shields, which often depicted scenes from Greek mythology or Ancient history, and their function was display rather than physical protection. This example depicts the story of Hippodamia, who was raped by drunken Centaurs (mythical half men, half horses) at her wedding.

174:A,B-1869