Heraldry in Florence, Part Twenty-Three

Lest you think that all of the heraldry that we saw in Florence are just painted or just carved in stone (or both carved in stone and painted), here are a couple of coats of arms we ran across which are done in metal.

This first one is interesting because it is a relatively complex quartered coat. Based on what I could find in the Florentine armorials and ordinaries I have, the first and fourth quarters (the ones in the upper left and lower right) are the arms of Lucas Bartoli Ricciardi: Gules a griffin segreant or overall on a bend azure three [sometimes, four] fleurs-de-lys or. The arms in the second and third quarters look like they might be a variation of the arms of Pelli: Azure a fess between three wheels or, but the “fess” has a couple of waves on its upper edge, and I have not been able to find any variants with the cross and ladder/cross of Calvary surmounting the unusual fess. (I also looked under things like "wall" and "church" and came up with nothing.) So, at least at this point in time, I haven’t been able to positively identify those arms. Back to the books, I guess!

The second coat of arms will also require some more time going through armorials, if only to identify the main charge on the field. (It reminds me of some kind of a pith helmet, but I’ve not been able to find it in the Florentine ordinaries that I have, either under “hat,” “helm” or “helmet.” I’m confident that it is not a tree. Still, isn’t is a great rendering? I’d love to have my coat of arms done this way for a doorway or window at home. What a beautiful piece of work!