Extremely rare Italian Fencing shield Targa 16th century

An extremely rare 16th century Italian rectangular Fencing shield or buckler ‘ Targa’ or ‘Brocchiero grande’. Identical bucklers of this type are illustrated in fencing manuals of the early 1500’s most notably that of Achille Marozzo (1484–1553) from Bologna or Modena. His book ‘Opera Nova dell’Arte delle Armi’ published in 1536 shows swordsmen fighting with identical shields in combination with sword. The buckler is typical in being wooden and rectangular with a central ridge vertically along the front, covered with parchment or vellum, with iron mounts. The handle of this example is of horn, the reverse with two areas on the struts to take a thumb. The front is fitted with a hooked iron sword catcher/sword breaker. An attached label ‘Dorgerloh’sche Stiftung Königsberg in Preußen’ shows that this shield was in a famous Prussian Collection.

european