Warfare in Medieval Poland as well. Even their horses were smaller and lighter. Different armament was used by infantry, which marched onto the battlefield in close order formations of shield-bearers covering heavy cavalry detachments, or mobile units of bowmen and cross-bowmen, and sometimes irregulars, who used different weapons specialized to fight both foot soldiers and cavalry: (war hammer, war scythe, glaive, fork, flail, morgenstern, guisarme, halberd, bardiche). Defensive armaments of the infantry consisted of shields (wooden, round or oval, through light bucklers, up to heavy pavises), quilted jackets and gambesons or brigandines. A characteristic helmet of the foot soldier was the kettle hat -
Altarpiece of the Halberd to the Papal States. The resistance had been brutally suppressed, many of the rebels having been beheaded by order of the papal legate. The upside-down halberd has been thus interpreted as a symbol of peace. The monumental composition is taken directly from the tradition of Holy Conversations in the Venetian School, inaugurated by Antonello da Messina's San Cassiano Altarpiece. It shows the Madonna and Child on a high throne, with two angels holding the crown (a 15th-century Flemish painting element also in use in Italy). In the lower part are four saints: Stephen, John the Evangelist, Simon the Zealot and