( via art-of-swords:)
Pages from the Fencing Manual “Fior di Battaglia”, The Flower of Battle
Author: Fiore Furlano de Cividale d’Austria, delli Liberi da Premariacco
Dated: about 1410
Place of Origin: Italy
Medium: tempera colors, gold leaf, silver leaf, and ink on parchment bound between pasteboard and covered with light brown calf
Measurements: 11 x 8 1/8 in
Flower of Battle is the third-oldest European fencing manual yet discovered (after the Royal Armouries Ms. I.33 and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Ms. 3227a) as well as being the most extensive from the Medieval period.
Like people today, people of the medieval and Renaissance periods read how-to books. This manuscript by the greatest fencing-master of the late 1300s, Fiore Furlan dei Liberi da Premariacco, instructs the reader in the intricacies of combat.
Lively illustrations of charging horses and armored knights accompany the text. Through words and pictures, the manuscript teaches a variety of fighting techniques including single combat on foot with sword, dagger, and ax, and also mounted combat in all its variations.
Nicolò III d’Este, ruler of Ferrara, ordered at least three copies of this text, including this one. Nicolò’s interest in such a manual was quite natural, since fighting played an important role in the education of young nobleman, and he himself was raising three sons.
Source & Copyright: 2013 © J. Paul Getty Trust
* See all of these elegant illustrations here: