The lantern shield is a type of buckler combined with a lantern, in use during the Italian Renaissance (15th and 16th century Italy). A number of specimens survive. Their defining feature is a small circular shield with a hook from which to hang a lantern, intended to blind the opponent at night or in duels fought at dawn.
Some elaborate examples are known, some with integrated gauntlets, spikes, added blades, etc. The most peculiar example is the one now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, made in ca. the 1540s.
Swordsmen duelling at dawn are reported to have carried lanterns during the 16th and 17th centuries, and fencing manuals of the period integrated the lantern into their lessons, using it to parry blows and blind the opponent. The manuals sometimes show the combatants carrying the lantern in the left hand wrapped behind the back, which is still one of the traditional positions for the off hand in modern fencing.
Famous quotes containing the words lantern and/or shield:
“My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at tea-time and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“The lichen on the rocks is a rude and simple shield which beginning and imperfect Nature suspended there. Still hangs her wrinkled trophy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)