In the early sixteenth century, shields painted with entire biblical, mythological, or historical episodes became fashionable in Western Europe. This parade shield, one of the finest of its kind, is delicately painted with an intricate panorama of the storming of New Carthage, attributed to the North Italian artist Girolamo da Treviso after a drawing by Giulio Romano of Mantua. Both the siege scene, which depicts an event that occurred in 209 B.C. during the Second Punic War, and the equestrian combat that decorates the reverse of the shield are executed in an unusual and delicate technique of applying shades of white, gray, and black over gold leaf, with details incised to reveal the gold beneath the pigments. Six similar shields that were probably made at the same time as this example can be also attributed to Girolamo da Treviso, who worked as a painter and sculptor for various noble Italian patrons. Unfortunately, neither the patron nor the reason for this commission is known, although the Kienbusch shield was once part of the famous armory of the Medici dukes of Florence. Donald J. LaRocca, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 121.