This film is about these tiny but powerful all steel crossbows - 200lbs/90kg draw weight, but fits in your hand. Properly known as a Balestrino, but more commonly known as 'Assassins crossbows"; but the big question is were they really for this? Let's test it!
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My reproduction was loosely based on the xi 286 in the Royal Armouries, Leeds. The information card of their bow reads.......
"The rarest form of crossbow - only about 18 survive from before the 18th century - is a miniature version, known as an 'assassin's' crossbow, or balestrino ('little crossbow'). The earliest known example dates from the late 15th or early 16th century. This all-steel crossbow has a possible draw weight of about 100kg and may have a range of some 300 metres, the same as a full-size crossbow.
Its small size allows it to be concealed within clothing, making it particularly suitable for assassination attempts. Balestrini were therefore controlled by authorities, like in Venice, which banned them in 1545. Later, in the 17th century, mere possession carried the death penalty.
Seemingly a balestrino was planned to be used against Queen Elizabeth I. Two conspirators, Richard Williams and Edmond Yorke, discussed '...how to kill her Majesty. Some spake of a little cross-bow of steel, that should carry a little arrow... a great way: and if the same did with a small arrow draw blood, being poisoned, she should not escape it'. In April 1594 the conspirators decided to attack the Queen with a small pistol and a poisoned rapier, but the attempt was foiled."
