GLOBAL GALLERIES

This surprising museum – in the equally surprising city of Graz, Austria – houses the world’s largest collection of medieval armour and arms. Even the building in which it sits is interesting – it was established as an armoury in the early 1640s. There are 32,000 pieces dating from the 1400s to the early 1800s situated over four, historytrodden floors. Visitors will be swept away with the sheer amount of suits of armour, helmets, shields and chain mail, along with a barrage of swords, including twohanded, sabres, broadswords and bayonets, artillery such as cannons and mortars, an incredible range of pistols and gruesome polearms. There is even full-size horse armour, which must have been incredibly heavy. museum-joanneum.at/en

Below: Horse armour at the Styrian Armoury, Conrad Suesenhoferm Innsbruck, Circa 1510, from the property of Georg von Stuebenberg-Wurmberg. ©Harry Schiffer.