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Old 25th August 2020, 05:32 PM   #32
Philip
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

I am familiar with the last painting of the St.Michael which as noted appears in "Armi Bianche Italiene', and I had thought of these cutlass type sabers as 'storta', a probably more collective term, and wonder if you might say more on that description.

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Thanks, Jim.

The literature in Italian uses both storta and coltellacio to describe these weapons. I believe that the former is a Venetian dialectical term. In the book Armi e Armature Lombarde (ed. Boccia, Rossi, Morin, 1980) both names are used to identify very similar swords on the same page!

You find multiplicities of terms for weapons elsewhere in the literature, most notably spada da lato / striscia in reference to rapiers. The latter term is most strictly applied to especially narrow blades, although some authors and many auction cataloguers are looser in their usage. Italian can be quite precise in classifying weapons types, the trouble is that the country being a collection of states (and distinct subcultures) until the last century means strong dialectical differences can muddy the waters.

One reason for ethnographic arms collectors to also be mindful of this is that terminology can be complicated in other regions which use many similar weapons but which have marked linguistic and cultural differences which are sharpened by physical isolation and limited access to formal education in a common culture. Examples can include India, China, and the great SE Asian archipelagos - Malay and Philippine.
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