Armorer's vise

In sixteenth century Italy the technique of cold-chiseling sculpturesque subjects remained primarily the province of the armorer. Sculpturesque ornament extended even to the tools of the armorer’s craft. The jaws of this iron vise are decorated with a mermaid and a merman, while another merman adorns the back. The vise is inscribed with the date 1588 and the name of its maker, Jacopo da Ferrara, about whom nothing further is known, though his name suggests he had left Ferrara when this piece was made. Although the three creatures of chiseled iron are less finely finished than many of those of the sixteenth century Milanese armorers, who were world famous for the beauty and delicacy of their sculptured ornament, they are far more lively in conception. In the taut, powerful anatomies of the mermaid and merman braced against each jaw of the vise, Jacopo was able to express all the straining power of the mechanism they adorn.