17th c. Samurai armor restored at museum in Rome

A rare suit of samurai armor in the Pietro Canonica Museum in Rome has returned to public view after a complex restoration. It is one of very few complete suits of Japanese armor in Italy, and the restoration required a cooperative approach blending traditional Japanese crafts and Italian conservation skills.

Housed in the 17th century “Fortezzuola” (fortresslet) on the Village Borghese grounds, the museum hosts works by the sculptor Pietro Canonica (1869-1959) and the eclectic personal collection of art and objects he acquired in his travels all over the world. The samurai armor is one of them.

It is a complete suit of armor with different parts to protect the body from head to toe. The helmet (kabuto) has a front crest with two long bronze prominences and a half mask (mempō) that covered nose and chin. The body is protected by a cuirass (dō), a gesan (the skirt that covers waist to thighs), haidate (thigh guard) and sode (shoulder guard), all characteristic elements of traditional samurai armor. The cuirass is signed by the renown 17th century master armorer Myōchin Munesuke, and the inscription dates the armor to between 1644 and 1648. The helmet is of later manufacture. It was made by Yoshinaga, a mid-19th century forger of the Myōchin Mytho School.

The shoulder straps of the breastplate and the belt are held together by blue silk laces and leather ties. The kneepads are padded and quilted with damask on the inside. The shoes are leather. The gauntlets and shin guards are made of studded iron plates.

The complex structure and variety of materials (several metals, leather, silk, wood, bone, linen, lacquer) made the armor challenging to restore. Weathering, poor historic maintenance, its perishable materials and a display stand that put pressure on its fragile components had severely compromised the armor. The restoration began last year, starting with an in-depth study by some of Italy’s greatest experts in Asian art. They discovered that it is in fact a hybrid set, assembled over time and later repaired and reworked. Some modifications date to the 18th century. Others date to the post-Meiji reform era when the Samurai caste was suppressed, forcing old families to sell their traditional armor.

This fascinating video breaks down all the component parts of the armor using a 3D model to visualize where each piece fits on the body, and then shows details of the front and back of the pieces in photographs.

* This article was originally published here