Note 347 — THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE OF PULCI.

{308}[Byron could not make up his mind with regard to the translation of the Italian sbergo, which he had, correctly, rendered "cuirass." He was under the impression that the word "meant helmet also" (see his letters to Murray, March 1, 5, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 413-417). Sbergo or usbergo, as Moore points out (Life, p. 438, note 2), "is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, etc., all from the German halsberg, or covering for the neck." An old dictionary which Byron might have consulted, Vocabolario Italiano-Latino, Venice, 1794, gives thorax, lorica, as the Latin equivalent of "Usbergo = armadura del busto, corazza." (See, too, for an authority quoted in the Dizzionario Universale (1797-1805) of Alberti di Villanuova, Letters, 1900, iv. 417, note 2.)]