Stiletto
An Italian dagger from the late 15th century with a narrow, triangular, edgeless blade meant only for thrusting; later famous as an easily concealed assassin's weapon.
Quick Facts
ItalyAbout the weapon
The stiletto arose in Italy at the end of the 15th century and is considered a developmental stage of the rondel dagger or the misericorde. The Italian word comes from the Latin stilus, the thin pointed tool the Romans used to write on wax tablets. Early stilettos had a one-piece cast metal grip, shaped and turned, and a blade forged into a dense rod with a narrow triangular cross-section, with no sharpened edge. The needle-like blade could pierce plate armour or a helmet's visor, and the stiletto was used to finish off a mortally wounded knight. It later became a favoured weapon of assassins: it could easily be hidden in a sleeve or doublet, it penetrated heavy leather and cloth clothing, and it caused fatal wounds that bled less. Gunners used a special stiletto to clean a cannon's touch-hole. In 1879 the city of New Orleans passed an ordinance banning the sale or display for sale of stilettos. Its shape also inspired 20th-century combat knives, such as the Fairbairn–Sykes knife of 1940 and the V-42 stiletto, and in the 1950s Italian switchblade knives with a stiletto-type blade were widely imported into the United States.
Related weapons
- Evolved from: Rondel dagger
- Evolved from: Misericorde