Hand-Forged Cinquedea Short Sword

A broad, short, double-edged sword made in northern Italy from roughly the middle of the fifteenth century into the sixteenth, associated particularly with Verona and Venice. The name means five fingers and describes the blade's width at the ricasso: a full example is broad enough to lay five fingers across where it meets the guard, which is dramatically wider than any other European blade of comparable length. The rest of the form is just as distinctive — a guard that arches forward toward the blade rather than crossing it, an arc-shaped pommel cap, and ranks of broad flat fullers stepped across each face. It exists across a size range, from pieces short enough to be called daggers up to genuine short swords like this one, and the whole range is historical. Very few makers attempt it, which is the main reason most people have never seen one outside a museum.

No, and it is the one place this piece departs from the record, so we would rather lead with it than bury it. A true cinquedea measures roughly three and a half to four inches across the blade at the ricasso. Ours is broad but not that broad. Everything else is correct: the arched guard, the arc pommel, the stepped fullers, the proportions and the length are all right, so it reads as a cinquedea and is recognisably one. What it is not is a blade-width reconstruction. We build the full five-finger version to order, and the difference is not subtle — a properly wide cinquedea is a startling object, far more so in the hand than in a photograph, and if you know the type it is the version you want. It is the first build option above and it costs surprisingly little more, since the work is in the forging rather than the material.

No, and this is the most interesting thing about the type. The cinquedea was a civilian weapon and a status object, carried in Renaissance Italian cities by merchants, officials, gentlemen and their sons. It went with civilian dress rather than armour, it was worn where it would be seen, and a great many surviving examples are lavishly decorated with etched and gilded classical scenes, foliage, mottoes and coats of arms — work that would be absurd on something intended for a battlefield. In a period when carrying a sword in the street was regulated, a broad short blade sat in a useful legal and social space: unmistakably a weapon, obviously expensive, and not a soldier's arm. It is one of the very few historical weapons whose job was partly to be looked at, and understanding that explains everything about how it is shaped and finished.

Real work, unusually for decorative-looking fullering. On a narrow blade a fuller removes metal from the centre where it contributes least to stiffness, and one fuller does nearly all of that job. A cinquedea blade is exceptionally wide, so there is a great deal of relatively idle metal spread across the face, and cutting several broad channels in ranks removes a meaningful amount of it while leaving raised ribs between them that stiffen the blade like the flutes in sheet metal. The result is a blade far lighter than its width suggests and stiffer than a plain flat blade of the same section. That is why the arrangement appears on this type and almost nowhere else: it is a solution to a problem only very wide blades have. It also happens to give the etcher a framed panel to work in, which is not a coincidence.

Partly protection and partly proportion. A cinquedea blade is so wide at the shoulder that a conventional straight cross would have to be very long to project past it, and would look wrong and catch on everything. Arching the guard forward follows the line of the blade instead, so the arms reach out over the widest part and cover the hand without the guard being oversized. It also puts the arms where they can catch a blade sliding down toward the hand rather than shedding it off the ends, in the same way forward-curved quillons do on a medieval dagger. Visually it ties the hilt and blade together into one shape, which is a large part of why the type is so recognisable in silhouette. Ours is forged rather than cut from bar stock, which is why the arms taper and thicken along their length.

Horizontally, flat across the small of the back, hung from the belt so the hilt sat near the right hip and fell to hand naturally. A blade that wide does not hang vertically on a belt without being awkward, and horizontal carry keeps it out of the way when sitting, riding or walking through a crowded street. It also has the effect of displaying the scabbard, which on a decorated piece is part of the point. This one ships with a belt panel that will hang either way. If you want the historical horizontal arrangement, tell us and we will build the scabbard and straps for it, which is a different set of fittings rather than an adjustment.

At 18 inches of blade and 26 inches overall this is a short sword, and we list it as one. The type spans the boundary: cinquedeas were made from around ten inches of blade up to around twenty, and the small ones are properly called daggers. Our own rule across the catalogue is that past roughly sixteen to eighteen inches a piece stops being a dagger in any useful sense and should be built as a sword with a grip proportioned to match, which this one has at 8 inches with a 4.5 inch grip. If you want the dagger end of the range, order twelve to fourteen inches and we will shorten the hilt with it. That is genuinely the same weapon in a different size rather than a different product.

Yes, and no historical blade repays it like this one. The surviving cinquedeas are among the most decorated arms in Europe: classical figures, grotesques, foliage, inscriptions and heraldry worked into the fullers, frequently gilded, sometimes across the whole face of the blade. The stepped fullers give an etcher framed panels to work in, which is why the tradition attached to this type rather than to some other. We etch by hand in our own workshop. Send us a subject, an inscription, a coat of arms or a reference image and we will quote it. It adds to the lead time and it is the single change that most transforms the piece, particularly on the full-width blade where there is simply more canvas.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, brought to temperature in the forge, quenched in oil and tempered back so the edges are hard while the body stays springy. On a blade this wide the tempering matters in a specific way: a broad flat section has a great deal of surface and relatively little thickness, so it wants to be springy rather than hard through, and a blade tempered too far would take a set under lateral load instead of returning. The originals were made from the finest steel available in fifteenth century Italy, which was genuinely good and genuinely variable; a modern homogeneous alloy is stronger and far more predictable. It is not stainless, deliberately.

Yes. The tang is the full width and shape of the grip with rosewood scales pinned through it, and the line of steel shows between the scales along the outline of the handle. That is also how the surviving examples are built: cinquedea hilts characteristically use riveted grip plates over a broad flat tang, often with the tang itself pierced in patterns and the scales shaped around the piercings, rather than a narrow tang with a fitted pommel. So on this point the construction follows the record rather than departing from it. If you want the pierced tang, that is a custom order and it is a striking detail on a piece that is already about being looked at.

Sharp and ready, with both edges put on a stone by hand at the forge. If you would prefer it shipped unsharpened — for display, for a gift, for a group where a live edge is not permitted, or because of the rules where you live — say so in the order comments and we will do it at no extra cost, and rebate the point as well if you need it. Given that this type was a display weapon as much as a fighting one, a blunt cinquedea is a perfectly authentic thing to own, and a good many buyers of decorated pieces order it that way.

In our own workshop in Tokha-3 on the northern edge of Kathmandu, Nepal, by around ten smiths, most from families that have forged blades for generations. Everest Forge has operated since 2010, and we forge, grind, heat treat, fit the hilts, etch and cut the leather in the same building. An Italian Renaissance sword made in Nepal deserves the same word we give our bowie, our seax and our kopis: this is not our own tradition and we do not pretend it is. It is worked from the record, which is why this page tells you plainly which measurement ours does not match and offers to correct it.