Our Laethes design is based on the breastplate by Fillipo Negroli c. 1532-1535, made for Guidobaldo della Rovere, Duke of Urbino. This gorgeous armor features two bat-like wings that flank the torso, finely covered with scales and wildly glaring eyes. There are many interpretations of this armor's decoration, some saying it resembles written descriptions of the goddess Fame ("a vast, fearful monster, with a watchful eye meticulously set under every feather which grows on her, and for every one of them an a tongue in a mouth which is loud of speech and and an ear ever alert," Aeneid 4.181-83), others that it is based on the dragon hide armor of the Islamic warrior Rodomonte, which was covered in eyes like the wings of a seraph. Inscribed on the plaque in the center of the sternum is the Latin phrase "NVLLA BIBAM LAETHES OBLIVIA FLVMINE IN IPSO," roughly translating to "May I not drink of Lethe, for in this river lies oblivion." In Greek mythology, once spirits of the dead arrived in the underworld they would first drink of the waters of the river Lethe to forget their past lives, as well as to allow the living to forget them. This powerful phrase at once proclaims, "I do not want to forget who I was while I was alive, and I do not want others to forget me: my life is indelible." I hope you feel precisely that awesome when you wear this armor.
