Silver Plate with a Battle Scene

On 28 February 1872 a farm labourer ploughing a field that belonged to the parish of Isola Rizza, in the plain south-east of Verona, drove the blade deeper than usual and turned up a stone. Under it, about 25 centimetres down, lay a hoard of silver spoons, gold brooches, belt fittings and this plate, almost two kilograms of silver and about 40 centimetres across. A local newspaper called it Etruscan.

In the medallion at the centre, hammered up from the back, a horseman in armour of small overlapping plates charges with a long lance, riding over a fallen enemy toward a foot soldier. It is the only battle scene known on late antique silver found in Italy. The museum shows it among Longobard objects and dates it to the late 6th or early 7th century. Some specialists think the plate was made in the eastern Roman Empire, possibly earlier, and point to the wear on its inner surface, a sign of long use at table before it went into the ground.