content_output-097_6 (Q6978)

The Italian gun-smiths surpassed the Germans in the elegance of their forged and chiselled barrels, and generally in the design of the fire-arms they made. Their work is more particularly noticed in connection with pistols, of which the specimens extant are more numerous than those of guns or rifles. Of the two specimens illustrated here the first represents a beautiful example of a Venetian rifle of the sixteenth century. It has a wheel-lock in which the whole of the mechanism is arranged upon the exterior of the lock-plate, and may be easily understood by a