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The Weapons Collection
05/04/2011 01:30 pm
This collection is one of the oldest, but also one of the most complex collections in the Museum. Immediately after the purchase of the building at 18 Opaticka Street for the National Hall and the Illyrian Library, and the birth of the idea of founding the National Museum, some of the earliest donations made by patriotically-minded citizens included old weapons.
The complexity of the Collection is reflected in the diversity of the items, from the basic division into cold steel and fire-arms to further subdivisions within these two groups. The cold steel collection contains a number of specialised collections arranged by types – for example: swords, daggers, knives, sabres, yataghans, and weapons on clubs and poles, which further subdivide into maces, clubs, battle flails, axes, halberds, glaives, partisans, spontoons and spears. This part of the collection also includes bows and arrows, and several beautiful crossbows. Apart from offensive weapons, the Collection holds a large number of defensive weapons – chest and back armour, chain-mail, shields and helmets. These collections hold various specimens, catalogued by type, workmanship, and period of production and use.
The Collection holds the oldest matchlock rifles, the most luxurious wheel-lock rifles and pistols, the finest specimens of flintlock and percussion-lock fire-arms made by the best gunsmiths in Europe, and, what is most important, in many cases by gunsmiths in Croatia: in Zagreb, Karlovac, Otocac and elsewhere. The quality and beautiful workmanship of these fire-arms made by Croatian gunsmiths can be compared with those of the best gunsmiths from Belgium, France, Italy, Germany and Austria.
Javno
Slobodno
On line
4.000 items
19th century
database, photo
jpeg, tiff, bmp, doc
From the original
In institution
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