spurs affixed without Straps 65 



the various periods in which they were in vogue, and numerous 

 examples of them are to be found in our museums of the 

 present day. 



It remains to describe certain peculiar forms that I have 

 come across, and which were, I imagine, the inventions of 

 some of those eccentric individuals who have existed in all 

 ages, and who have delighted in having their clothes, or arms, 

 or accoutrements of a different pattern from their neighbours'. 



One of such spurs is to be found in the Museo Nazio- 

 nale in the Bargello at Florence, and of which an illustration 

 is given on Plate 38. It is an iron spur, probably of the 

 end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, 

 with a straight ornamented neck about four inches long, carrying 

 a seven-pointed ornamented rowel about an inch in diameter. The 

 arms are of unequal length, one of the ordinary length, about 

 three inches, ending in a plain rounded plate, without any 

 arrangement for the attachment of a strap. This arm, together 

 with the other one for the same distance, is ornamented at 

 intervals with a raised pattern, as shown in the illustration. 

 The other arm is prolonged seven inches into a plain straight 

 piece, oval in section, about three-eighths of an inch wide and 

 three-sixteenths of an inch thick, ending in a plain rounded 

 end. This prolongation was doubtless passed into a long socket 

 in the side of the boot. The total length of this spur, from 

 the rowel to the end of the prolongation, is thirteen inches. 



Another very unusual form of spur is in the Stibbert 

 Museum at Florence. It consists of an ornamented heel-plate 

 about three inches high, from the centre of which projects a plain 



