Fantasies in Steel: The Age of Armor – A lecture with Curator Jeffrey L. Forgeng 

Tuesday, January 10, 2023 

6:30 to 7:30 p.m.| Registration Required  
Members $30, Non-Members $45  

Arms and armor has a perennial draw on the human imagination. It was mythologized by the cultures that produced it, and it remains a vibrant part of modern mythologies through stories, cinema, and digital games. But what of the realities behind the myth? Who made the armor, who wore it, how well did it work—and how did it come to be in Jacksonville half a millennium later? Join Jeffrey L. Forgeng, curator of The Age of Armor, as he takes you on a personal journey through highlights of the exhibition and the centuries of human stories forged into the steel of these objects. 

Jeffrey L. Forgeng, the Higgins Curator of Arms & Armor and Medieval Art at the Worcester Art Museum, has been responsible for the Higgins Collection since 1999. His nationally touring exhibitions have included The Age of Armor; A Double-Edged Weapon: The Sword as Icon and Artifact; and Now Thrive the Armorers: Arms and Armor in Shakespeare. He is currently developing WAM’s permanent arms and armor gallery. Dr. Forgeng is the author of over a dozen books, including The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship: Royal Armouries Manuscript I.33; Pietro Monte’s Collectanea: The Arms, Armour, and Fighting Techniques of a Fifteenth-Century Soldier; and The Book of Horsemanship by Duarte I of Portugal.