Lantern shield
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Laternenschild_01.jpg/220px-Laternenschild_01.jpg)
The lantern shield is a small shield combined with a lantern used during the Italian Renaissance (15th and 16th century Italy) especially for nighttime duels. A number of specimens survive. Their defining feature is a small circular shield – a buckler – combined with a lantern, or a hook from which to hang a lantern, intended to blind the opponent at night or in duels fought at dawn.
Some more elaborate examples might incorporate gauntlets, spikes, sword blades, and also a mechanism to alternatively darken or release the light of the lantern.
The most peculiar example is the one now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, made in the 1540s.
Swordsmen dueling at dawn are reported to have carried lanterns during the 16th and 17th centuries, and fencing manuals of the period integrated the lantern into their lessons, using it to parry blows and blind the opponent.[1] The manuals sometimes show the combatants carrying the lantern in the left hand wrapped behind the back.[2]
It is believed that the lantern shield was never actually used in combat, but rather for patrolling Italian city streets at night.[3]
Lantern halberd and are other weapons with an integrated lantern. Lantern pistol is 18/19th century flintlock pistol and there are two known versions.
See also[]
- Pata (weapon)
References[]
- ^ http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/Angelo.php accessed 7/25/2009
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-05-25. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) accessed 7/25/2009 - ^ http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/Angelo.php accessed 7/25/2009
External links[]
- Shields
- Renaissance-era weapons
- Types of lamp