Excerpt from Spanish Arms and Armour: Being a Historical and Descriptive Account of the Royal Armoury of Madrid Mr. G. P. Laking, in a recent number of the Art Journal, has shown that after the fire of 1839, a very large number of pieces were fraudulently abstracted and sent to London for sale - ultimately finding their way to armouries and museums as far apart as Rome and New York. If the truth were known it would probably be found that there was not a collection of any importance that did not include some of the spoils of the great treasure house established by the Kings of Spain. In furtherance of my object, I have laid under contribution a large number of authorities, and I cannot omit to acknowledge my obligations to the standard works of Meyrick, Hewitt, Demmin, Lacombe and Clephan, to the writings of Baron Davillier and Don Juan Riano, to the Iconografia Espanola of Don V. Carderera, and to Dr. Wendelin Boheim, of the Imperial Armoury, Vienna. I also desire to render a special tribute of thanks to Mr. E. B. d'Auvergne, who placed his expert knowledge at my service, and has rendered me invaluable assistance in my endeavours to make this compilation both accurate and complete. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."