Peter Finer 2010

the 1630s but it was certainly never entirely superseded, and perhaps not bettered until the development of other ignition systems in the nineteenth century.

Whoever invented and developed it, the Lorenzoni system soon became extremely popular: it spread rapidly from Italy across Europe and beyond and continued to be employed for over 150 years. For some reason, though, far fewer Lorenzoni pistols seem to have been made than long guns, certainly until the mid eighteenth century. Later, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, something of a fashion for pistols of this type, normally with nine-shot magazines, developed in England. Some were made by the very best London makers, including Henry Nock and Harvey Walklate Mortimer. Indeed, Mortimer seems almost to have specialised in them and at least twelve by him are known to survive, dating between 1783 and 1799, and two more slightly later ones by his brother Thomas Mortimer are also known.

The original owner of our Lorenzoni pistol is unknown. The escutcheon surround on the butt has not been filled either with a monogram or a coat of arms. It is, however, surmounted by a royal crown which suggests that the pistol was made with the intention of its either being sold to or being presented to a member of the British royal family and this intriguing possibility adds much to its interest. In the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, is a virtually identical pistol (acc. no. xii.3835), though now with a plain replacement cover to its priming magazine. It has the same silversmith’s mark under the butt cap and was either made as a pair to ours or as part of an identical set of pistols made for presentation to different recipients. It also has a similar crowned escutcheon surround to that on ours, but rather than being plain within it contains an oval silver plate engraved with the initials e, m and either r or l. These have not been identified and may possibly have been inserted later. The absence of any proof marks on the barrel of both ours and that in the Royal Armouries is typical of these English Lorenzoni pistols, none of which seem to have been proofed in the normal way, perhaps because the barrel could not be detached to be sent for proving. The name engraved on our pistol might suggest it was made by the London gunmaker James Grice who worked at 2 Whistler’s Court, Cannon Street, from 1793–6.

However, while these dates are entirely consistent with the fashion for such Lorenzoni pistols in England, they are too late for the style of the decoration or the silver butt and its cap which are of a type found on English pistols that date from the late 1750s to the early 1780s. It is known that the Birmingham makers Joseph and William Grice also sometimes marked their guns london and their working dates are more consistent with the general style of 140