"I wish that Your Majesty, whenever he puts on this armour, will put his enemies and foes into such a horror that they will not be able to repel Your Majesty's attack nor be able to bear the sight of this magnificent armour," Anna Jagiellonka (1523-1596) wrote on 28 September 1574 in a letter to John III Vasa, King of Sweden. This Renaissance armour for rider and horse is today a stunning decoration of the royal armoury - Livrustkammaren - in the Royal Palace in Stockholm.

Sigismund Augustus' armour's journey to Sweden
. The armoury is filled with first-class collections of white and firearms, royal costumes and everyday objects, carriages and sleighs and - of course - armour. There is no shortage of Polish accents here, spoils of war from the time of the Swedish invasion. However, the armour belonging to Sigismund Augustus found its way to Sweden legally. Anna Jagiellonka was reluctant to dispose of her royal brother's mementos, but she gave the armour, received in her will, to her brother-in-law, King of Sweden, with the proviso that he was not to give it to anyone but his son, i.e. only Anna's nephew. The dazzling gift was to remain in the family.

Sigismund Augustus and his art collection
Sigismund II Augustus (1520-1572) was renowned for his refined artistic taste and extraordinary love of weapons. He amassed an impressive collection of jewels, works of art and high-class militaria. It is worth mentioning that late medieval and Renaissance protective armour also had a representative and symbolic function and, due to its high price, testified to the social standing of the bearer.

During his stay at the Jagiellonian court in 1560, the papal legate Bernard Bongiovanni reported to the pope: I also saw 20 pieces of royal armour, four of which were of bizarre workmanship, namely one with beautiful carving and silver-plated figures, expressing all the victories won by the ancestors at Moscow. It cost 6,000 shkud (skud).

One of these four unusual ones may have been the armour from Livrustkammaren. It was made to the king's order by the internationally renowned star armourer of the time, Kunz Lochner (1510-1567) of Nuremberg.

The armourer's clients included the King of Bohemia and Hungary, Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg, Archduke Maximilian, princes and kings, including the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus and Duke Mikolaj Radziwill, known as 'the Black'.

Sigismund Augustus' copia armour
. The luxurious set of protective armour of the last Jagiellon, which was made in Nuremberg between 1550 and 1559, included several elements. The most important was a full plate armour for the man made of steel, brass, leather and silk. The armourer perfectly used techniques: forging, etching, gilding, enamelling. It was complemented by ladrowanie (horse armour) and a knight's saddle and stirrups. Sigismund Augustus must have looked dazzling in his richly decorated copic armour with a visor-type helmet. The royal person was also protected by a breastplate, foreskin, clavicle, epaulettes, epaulettes, mittens (fingerless gloves) and full leg protection with epaulettes, nagolenics and viscera.

The horse in the parade counter appeared as an unearthly, fantastic creature, clad in shining metal, with a spike and plume sleeve on the headpiece. Also attracting attention was the ear cover with its unusual decoration in the form of golden ram's horns. These symbolised vitality, masculinity and strength. Elements of the armour were connected by leather straps, such as the folge (plate) throat cap, or by bolts, rivets and hinges like the breastplate, side plates and rump guard. Above the tail, Kunz Lochner, the armour maker, placed the head of a lion, an animal that, in addition to being a symbol of courage and majesty, was the mark of this talented German armourer.

The entire steel surface is covered with the wallpaper decoration popular during the Renaissance. It is etched, cold enamelled and gilded. It consists of black and white elements contrasting with the natural colour of the polished steel. It is arranged in an intricate pattern like an oriental fabric with gold cartouches, in a thicket of mauresques and arabesques, stylised floral decorations. The geometric order of the eastern richness of the lines is given by gold ribbons also with floral ornaments framing and intersecting the planes of the different parts of the armour.

This precious gift, as wished by Jagiellon, was meant to inspire awe, but also delight. Although it is a parade armour with elaborate decoration, the design and solid workmanship make it of full combat value.

Sigismund Augustus liked to portray himself in armour. In the 16th century, this depiction, common in Europe, was an innovation among representative portraits of monarchs in Poland. The ruler presented himself as a leader, a victor, a model of a knight and a man.

Other Polish armours made by Lochner
. Two more Renaissance masterpieces of armour art are associated with the armour and the person of Sigismund Augustus. Kunz Lochner also realised an exclusive commission from Prince Radziwill the Black for a double armour for a man and an armour for a horse. It was decorated with more fine decoration than the royal one, enriched with coloured enamel. Parts of the suit of armour are today owned by museums in Vienna, Paris and New York.

The other dazzling 'steel costume', the work of Jörg Seusenhofer (1516?-1580), is the youthful armour of the last Jagiellon, commissioned in 1533 by the King of Bohemia and Hungary, later Emperor Ferdinand I, on the occasion of the betrothal of his daughter Elisabeth to the thirteen-year-old Sigismund Augustus. The full armoury ranked very high in the hierarchy of diplomatic gifts. It was a gift worthy of the monarch that Sigismund Augustus already was at the time thanks to his coronation in 1530, while his father King Sigismund the Old was still alive.

Since 1933, it had been the property of the Hungarian National Museum (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum), as it was mistakenly regarded as the armour of Louis of Hungary during the post-World War I settlements between the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In February 2021, it was handed over to Poland by the Hungarian government. Today, the gilded parade armour of the young king is the pride of the Wawel armoury in Krakow.