I Fiore, know how to read, write and draw, and have books on our subject, a subject that I have studied for at least forty years. Yet, I do not consider myself to be a perfect Master of this art, although some of the great lords who have been my students do hold me in such regard. Let me just say that if I had spent the same forty years studying jurisprudence, canon law or medicine with the same assiduity that I have dedicated to the art of arms, I would be a doctor in each of those disciplines. And I have undergone great effort, labor and expense in being a good student. But enough about this.
Fiore dei Liberi, Fior di Battaglia (Getty Ms)
Martial arts, or the “Arts of Mars” are often associated with Eastern forms. Despite this, every culture throughout history has had its own combat style, and Europe of the medieval and Renaissance period was no exception. Each martial art grows form its particular context, and the styles that arose out of Europe in this period are myriad. The IAS practices the medieval Italian tradition of l’arte d’armizare. It is a rich tradition, more than 600 years old and set down by Fiore dei Liberi, master of arms to the court of Niccolo d’Este.
During the early Renaissance, the Italian city-states were in a constant sate of flux and were defended by “free companies” of condottieri – mercenaries hired by the cities to defend and protect their interests. It is during this time that we find professional masters at arms training soldiers in the art of defense, including one of particular interest to us – Fiore dei Liberi (ca. 1350-1420). His manuscripts, dating to the early 15th century (1409) are the earliest known texts relating the Italian lineage, and are the third oldest after the Royal Armouries “Tower fechtbuch” (I.33) and the so-called “Döbringer”hausbuch (HS 3227a).
Disciplines
Fiore dei Liberi’s disciplines can be summarized by the treatise’s title: Flos Duellatorum in armis, sine armis, equester et pedester, “Flower of Battle in armour, without armour, mounted and on foot.” It is a holistic presentation of knightly combat in all its forms: grappling, dagger, sword in one hand, sword in two hands, spear, poleaxe and mounted combat.
Context
Martial arts are developed as a response to cultural needs, and these needs intersect with the technology of the culture to produce an art appropriate to the context in which it will be used. Some common contexts in which armizare was used included war, cases of civil unrest, dueling, sport, and the political/social need to demonstrate prowess in these areas. A given art can actually encompass all of this, as is clearly stated by Sigmund Ringeck, a 15th century German master: “Princes and Lords learn to survive with this art, in earnest and in play.” Other masters and authors have written about use of their arts both in potentially lethal and in sportive contexts also. It is well-documented that European society from the medieval, Renaissance and modern eras have employed various forms of law-enforcement officials, and in the ordinary course of their duties these men would have needed martial expertise that was scalable – that could be used to subdue rather than kill, but also to kill if necessary. And even the use of the arts of war does not necessarily dictate an all-or-nothing “scorched earth” policy: the condotierri of medieval Italy were businessmen who practiced war as a trade, and frequently resorted to less than total war in the execution of their battles, the better to preserve the assets (soldiers) that allowed them to do business in the first place.
The IAS remains faithful to the holistic nature of Fiore dei Liberi’s art.
Sir Fiore Furlano de Civida d’Austria degli Liberi da Premariacco was a Medieval master of arms, who has been credited by fencing historians over the last three hundred years as the father of Italian swordsmanship. His literary work, il Fior Bataglia (Flower of Battle), composed in early 1409, is one of the oldest, most extensive, and most clearly elucidated martial arts treatises from the Medieval period. Consequently, six centuries after his death, Fiore dei Liberi is one of the most significant figures in the modern study of Historical European Martial Arts.
Most of the biographical information we have on Fiore comes from his own manuscripts, though there is important information found in civic records. Fiore is believed to have lived between 1350 and 1420, but the exact dates of his birth and death are not known.
In the introduction to MS LUDWIG XV 13, he begins:
In his youth, Fiore the Friulan from Cividale d’Austria, son of the late Sir Benedetto of the noble family of Dei Liberi of Premariacco in the dioceses of the Patriarch of Aquileia, wanted to learn the arts of arms and of combat in the lists. He wished to learn how to use the lance, the axe, the sword, the dagger and how to wrestle; he wanted to learn combat on foot and on horseback, both with armor and without.
(Translation: Tom Leoni)
After this rather formal beginning, in which he also extols the virtues of his patron, Niccolo d’Este III, ruler of the principalities of Ferrara and Modena, his tone shifts to a more colloquial note for the rest of his manuscript. He tells his audience of his years of training with Italian and German masters, how he became sought after as a teacher of arms, and of the five duels he fought:
Out of envy, some Masters challenged me to combat with sharp swords in a gambeson and without any other defensive weapon besides a pair of chamois gloves. The reason was that I had refused to associate with them or to reveal to them any parts of my art. This happened no less than five times, and all five times I was compelled by honor to fight in strange places, far away from relatives or friends and without anything to rely upon besides God, the Art, myself, Fiore, and my sword. By the grace of God, I came through each time with my honor intact and without any physical injuries.
Fiore dei Liberi
In 1383, a Maestro Fiore de Cividale, dimicator (“fencer”) was listed in Udine as a commander in the civil war on the side of the alliance of towns in the Friulian Civil War (an alliance which included his birthplace of Premariacco). Fiore was placed in charge of the crossbowmen and town artillery, and his duties included procuring arms for the defense of the towns. Following the end of the war, Fiore became one of a group of mounted horsemen who were made a kind of medieval “rough rider” — a combination of traveling marshal and enforcer, charged with quelling insurgents and reestablishing Udine’s control of the countryside. Even today, there are streets in Udine, Cividale and Premariacco named “Via de Fiore dei Liberi” in his honor, though specifically what the towns are grateful for is unclear.
Following the civil war, the next record of the master at arms is from 1395 when he was at the famous duel fought in Padua between one of his students, Galeazzo da Montova, and the famous Marshall Bouccicault of France, an event that drew over 10,000 spectators. The duel was over an insult delivered by Bouccicault, accusing the Italians of cowardice. Although the men were to fight with lances on horse, Bouccicault became agitated with a delay and attacked da Montova while still on foot. Galeazzo managed to disarm Bouccicault, who grabbed a poleaxe from either an attendant or a guard (accounts vary), when the lords of Padua and Mantua intervened, ending the fight. The two met again in a duel in 1406, fighting with lances on horseback, and Galeazzo’s lance lodged in his opponent’s visor, dragging him from his horse. Galeazzo was declared the victor, and Bouccicault vowed to never wear a visor again, which helped facilitate his capture by the English at Agincourt in 1415.
In 1399, four years after the aborted first duel between Bouccicault and da Montova, Fiore was recorded in civil records as serving as a condottiero in Pavia. After this his association with the court of Niccolo III d’Este begins, although the nature of their relationship is unclear. Fiore’s manuscripts, citing a composition date of 1409 (1410 on the modern calendar), are dedicated to Niccolo and entered the Estense library, but there are no payments or land grant receipts citing Fiore in the Estense records, and it is unclear if he ever dwelt at the Este court.
There are no clear records of the master after 1409/10, however, one of his early 20th century biographers, Francesco Novati, claims to have seen records (currently lost) of his presence in France sometime around 1420 and this may be corroborated by the discovery of the fourth dei Liberi treatise, Florius de Arte Luctandi, in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Artistically, that manuscript can be dated to sometime between 1420 – 1430, and Fiore dei Liberi is referred to posthumously, but an exact date of death, and whether it was in Italy or France, is unknown.
FAMOUS STUDENTS OF FIORE DEI LIBERI Fiore tells us of six of his students, all knights or squires (squires were fighting noblemen who were not knighted; in equipment, training and employment they were virtually indistinguishable from knights). Each of the six was well-known in his day, and are still known to history, as condotierri – mercenary captains of arms in late Medieval Italy. They are:
• The previously-mentioned Galeazzo da Mantova: “the famous, valiant and hardy knight Galeazzo di Capitani from Grimello, better known as Galeazzo da Mantova,” who fought Marshall Bouccicault in Padua. Galeazzo was a member of the famous and powerful Gonzaga family, and his relative, Francesco Gonzaga, was the lord of Mantua.
• Nicholas von Urslingen, another German knight, who fought Nicholas the Englishman in Imola.
• Lancilotto da Beccaria, a squire from Pavia, who fought six passes of the blunted lance on horseback, “against the valiant
• Giovannino da Baio, a squire from Milan, “who had to face the valiant German squire Schramm for three passes of the blunted lance on horseback in the castle of Pavia. The same also had to fight three blows of the axe, three of the sword and three of the dagger—on foot—in the presence of the noble prince and lord the Duke of Milan and her ladyship the Duchess, as well as numerous other lords and ladies.” At the actual deed, the men chose to ride two additional lance passes and on the fifth, Baggio impaled Sirano’s horse through the chest, slaying the horse but losing his lance in the process. They fought the remaining bouts as scheduled, and emerged unscathed from the combat, due to the strength of their armour.
• Azzo da Castelbarco, knight, who fought in separate combats Giovanni Ordelaffi and the knight Jacomo di Boson.
In claiming these men as his students, Fiore is assuring Niccolo that his claims to skill as a teacher are not boasts, but grounded in a reality that his patron could readily understand – and as readily verify. You don’t use a powerful and important man such as Galeazzo da Montova as a reference if you can’t back it up.
Evidence of Fiore dei Liberi’s posthumous influence can be found in the close-related work of another Italian master at arms, Fillipo Vadi of Pisa, who lived two generations after the Furlan master. Elements of his manuscripts appear in whole or in part in a number of later compendia of fencing techniques, such as the warbook of the German nobleman Ludwig VI von Eyb the Younger (fl. 1500). Giving no other name to his art than l’arte dell’armizare or “art of arms,” his method survived well over a century, and his name survives to this day as a street name in Premariacco, Italy.
In 1409 (1410 on the modern calendar), Fiore dei Liberi completed a work entitled Il Fior di Battaglia (“The Flower of Battle”). Its title an obvious pun on his name, this large, illustrated manuscript was a summation of forty years of martial knowledge, including only those things the master felt “most useful” and “safe”. It was dedicated to the bellicose young lord, Niccolo III d’Este, the ruler of the principalities of Ferrara, Modena, and Parma – a powerful early Renaissance prince, knight, and commander of armies.
A page of equestrian or “a cavallo” techniques from Florius de Arte Luctandi.
Four copies of il Fior di Battaglia, which is the earliest surviving Italian source on the martial arts, survive today and form the basis for the modern study of armizare. Each has important similarities to and differences from each other. The key similarity is the organization of the material, which systematically covers, abrazare (wrestling & hand-to-hand fighting), daga (dagger, with an emphasis on self-defense and armoured combat techniques), spada a un mano (single-handed sword), spada a due mani (two-handed sword), spada in arme (sword used in armour), azza in arme (poleaxe used in armour), lanza in arme (spear used in armour), and finally all weapons a cavallo, or on horseback. The key martial techniques, called zoghi or “plays” by Fiore, are identical between manuscripts, but each manuscript contains plays and key information not seen in the others, and each is done in a different artistic style. Two begin with abrazare and proceed through the weapons to mounted combat, while two others go in the reverse order: from horseback down to ground combat, which reflects the order of combat in a judicial duel of the time.
Pisani-Dossi manuscript Held privately by the Italian family of the same name. A fascimile was produced in 1902 by Francesco Novati, along with an extensive introduction.
MS.Latin 11269 or Florius de Arte Luctandi Held by the French Bibliothèque Nationale.
The MS Ludwig XV 13 and the Pisani-Dossi MS are both dedicated to Niccolò III d’Este and state that they were written at his request and according to his design. The MS M.383, on the other hand, lacks a dedication and claims to have been laid out according to his own intelligence. The MSS Latin 11269 lost any dedication it might have had along with its prologue.
MISSING MANUSCRIPTS Two now-lost manuscripts by Fiore dei Liberi existed in the Estense family library during and after Niccolo d’Este III’s reign. The larger is almost certainly the presentation copy given to Niccolo. The smaller manuscript is something of a puzzle. Neither of them matches the four surviving manuscripts in physical description or page count:
Codex LXXXIV is noted in two catalogs of the Estense family library in Ferrara, one from 1436 and one from 1508, after which no information is known. The manuscript is described as 58 folios bound in leather with a clasp, with a white eagle and two helmets on the first page. This contains more pages than any of the surviving copies.
Codex CX is noted in the same two surveys of the library. This manuscript is described as 15 small folios on unbound parchment, with each page having two columns. This MS has smaller pages, and fewer of them, than any of the surviving copies.
GERMANSOURCES Elements of dei Liberi’s work also appear across the alps. Die Blume des Kampfes (“The Flower of Battle”) is a nickname given by modern researchers to a group of three German manuscripts that share a common technical syllabus and set of illustrations with Fior di Battaglia.
Cod. 5278 is the oldest of the three, dating to the late 1420s and contains simple line drawings reminiscent of dei Liberi’s work, but lacking many signature characteristics such as garters and crowns and generally less organized than the Friulian master’s work.
Dagger vs. Sword technique from German Ms. Cod. 10799 (1623), depicting one of dei Liberi’s teachings in full, 17th century garb.
The second manuscript is Ludwig VI von Eyb’s Kriegsbuch (“Warbook”), composed around 1500. The warbook contains a significant degree of overlap with the 5278 but with colored artwork and German descriptions of most of the techniques
Cod. 10799, dated 1623, is the final entry and is again textless, but is illustrated with fine watercolors depicting the figures in contemporary, 17th century clothing. It is also the most extensive of the three by far, Aside from the Blume des Kampfes material, the 10799 also has a good deal of extra content including portrayals of laying down and taking up the sword, Germanic sash wrestling, armored dagger and buckler, and the sword dance.
MANUSCRIPT STRUCTURE All 4 manuscripts share a generally similar structure, but with important differences in content and style. MS XV Ludiwg 13 begins with an introduction that covers folio 3, recto and verso, and folio 4, recto only. The 315 pen and ink illustrations, executed in a Northern Italian, possibly Venetian style, begin on 8 recto and continue to 49 recto9. Most pages have a grid of four images on them, with occasional groupings of two and three images, three instances of a single image and single a grouping of five images. The script is Batarde, a variation on Gothic script that was popular in the 14th through the 16th centuries.
The text of the Fior di Battaglia is organized into logical units of related actions, beginning with abrazare (wrestling and grappling arts), moving to dagger combat (with a large proportion of unarmed defenses against attacks), and then a bridging section of dagger against sword to bring us to techniques for the use of the sword in one hand, which is followed by the use of the sword in two hands. After this is a short section showing various combinations of sword, spear, and stick. At this point, at folio 34 recto, there is a thematic diagram of the key principles of the art.
The material to this point has shown unarmoured combatants. The next three sections show the use of techniques for fighting in and against a harness composed of mail and plate, using sword, poleaxe, and spear. After this we are shown equestrian combat principles, with the armoured figures now on horse. They begin with the lance and progress to the sword, followed by techniques for wrestling from horseback, including a means of throwing the other man’s horse to the ground. The manuscript concludes with a statement from Fiore pointing out that he is really a humble old man, and an entreaty to recall his virtue and nobility. The final folio shows a single image of two horses tied to a tree.
An example of a Magistro Contrario “Counter Master” wearing a crown and garter to denote his peadgogical position – from the dagger section of Florius de Arte Luctandi
Fiore’s introduction explains the visual program of his manuscript. He discusses key elements of the first section, the abrazare or wrestling, and then explains the visual notation he will use throughout the manuscript. Briefly, he employs a system of masters, scholars and players to demonstrate key principles and techniques of his system. Each section of the manuscript begins with one or more crowned “Fight Masters” who show principles and poste (or guard positions); these figures are unopposed. They are followed by one or more crowned “Remedy Masters” (Magistri Remedii) who show defenses against attacks, with the attacks being made by a “Player.” The Remedy Masters are followed by their Scholars, who wear a “device” or garter on one leg. The Scholars show the plays that stem from the defensive technique of the Remedy Master, and they execute these against the Players. Then follows is a “Counter Master” (Magistro Contrario), who wears both a crown and a garter, who shows the technique that defeats the original Remedy Master, and thus all of his Scholars. Fiore also refers to a rare Counter to the Counter Master (Contra-Contrario).
In 2018, IAS Founder Gregory Mele and IAS Adviser Tom Leoni began publishing a series of modern, English translations and commentary on the entire corpus of Fiore dei Liberi’s work, and those, such as Vadi’s De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi, derived from it. Find out more at The Flowers of Battle: The Complete Martial Arts of Fiore dei Liberi.
Armizare can be divided into three principle disciplines: close quarter combat, long weapon combat and mounted combat, each of which can then be fought either in armour (in arme) or without armour (senza arme). Close quarter combat forms the basis for many of the grappling and disarming techniques used in later sections of the manuscript, and the dagger section forming the single largest collection of techniques:
Abrazare(striking, throwing and grapping techniques)
Bastoncello (a short stick, approximately 12” long)
Long weapon combat begins with the introduction of the sword and swordplay forms the basis for all other long weapon combat. The treatise also includes several other “knightly” weapons used on foot, both in and out of armour, such as the spear and poleaxe. There are also several unusual weapons, such as monstrous, specialized swords for judicial combat, and hollow-headed polehammers, meant to be filled with an acidic powder to blind the opponent!
Finally, mounted combat, reintroduces many of the disciplines already presented, this time adapted for combat on horseback, again in or out of armour.
Abrazare
Lanza (lance)
Spada d’un mano contra lanza(sword vs. lance)
Spada contra spada
Ghiavarina (a partisan-like weapon shown on foot against mounted opponents)
Within these subsections, dei Liberi taught his art through a series of zoghi (“plays”) —formal, two-man drills akin to the kata of classical Japanese martial arts— that were both technique and tactical lesson.
Abrazare is of two kinds. One is done for pleasure or entertainment.The other is done in anger, or for one’s life, employing every trick, deception and cruelty imaginable. I want to talk about the second kind and show, in good order, how to come to grappling successfully in the most common situation of life-and-death combat.Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block. Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.
When you engage in abrazare, you must assess whether your opponent is stronger or bigger than you, and whether he is much younger or older. You also need to take note of whether he places himself in any of the guards of abrazare. Be sure to pay attention to all these things. And whether you are stronger or weaker, use the grapples that arise from the binds and be sure to know how to defend against those which the opponent uses against you.
Two of the four surviving copies of Il Fior di Battaglia begin with grappling, which in armizare is known as abrazare, literally: “embracing” or “playing at the arms”. As is seen in the quote above, the Founder distinguishes abrazare from “wrestling” (lotta), by describing one as being for sport or exercise, the other for combat and self-defense. He further expands what he means by listing eight requirements as the foundation of abrazare, the first two of which are physical characteristics and the rest of which are categories of techniques. These include:
Strength (Forteza)
Speed (Presteza)
Grips and Grapples (Prese)
Joint and Bone Breaks (Rompere)
“Binds”; ie: joint locks (Ligadure)
Strikes (Ferrire)
Throws (Mettere in Terra)
Dislocations (Dislogadure)
As can been seen, although grabs, joint locks and throws are components of abrazare, so are bone-breaking and striking; areas associated more with combative grappling than wrestling, per se. In contrast, notably absent in abrazare are elements commonly associated with submission wrestling, such as ground-fighting and chokes.
Part of the tactical choices — or limitations — in abrazare are related to both intention (self-defense) and adaptability to both civilian and military contexts, in this case reflected by being usable in armour and without:
The guards of abrazare, the Second Master (i.e., the Remedy) and his students, the Third Master (Counter to the Second and his students) and the Fourth Master (Contra-counter) act as the pillars of the art of abrazare, both in and out of armor. Similarly, they support the art of the lance, with their weapon, guards, Masters and students; the same they do for the axe, the sword in one and two hands, and the dagger. Overall, these Masters and students support the whole art of arms, on horseback and on foot, armored and unarmored–through the principles they follow in abrazare.
In this way, the 16 abrazare techniques that Fiore shows in the Flower of Battle both teach unarmed wrestling and form a foundation for all of the body mechanics and grappling that occurs throughout the rest of the art; so much so that in a very real sense, zogho stretto, or “close play”, in armizare can be thought of as “grappling with weapons”. It is impossible to understand armizare, as Fiore intended it to b used, without understanding the lessons of abrazare, and it is impossible to understand abrazare without understanding the implications in fighting in armour, perhaps more so than in any other tradition from the Middle Ages or early Renaissance.
I am the noble weapon called the dagger, who much desires close play. He who understands my malicious deceptions and my art possesses a good part of every subtle exercise at arms …Whoever sees me in the deed of arms, will see me make covers and thrusts with abrazare, taking the dagger from the opponent with turns and binds. And weapons or armour are worthless against me.
Fiore dei Liberi, il Fior di Battaglia
THE WEAPON In the early Middle Ages, the dagger (called a daga by the Italians) was often carried as a back-up weapon by spearmen and archers as a substitute for the sword; it was only in the second half of the 13th century that the dagger begins to be depicted as a sidearm worn with the sword, in form it usually looked like a sword in miniature. By the following century, wearing sword and dagger had become commonplace, and by the late 14th and 15th centuries, men-at-arms are almost universally depicted with a new sort of dagger – the rondel.
A dagger of Vadi’s recommended proportions by Arma Bohemia based on an example from the Bayerisches Armeemuseum Ingolstadt. German, first half of the 15th century.
The rondel dagger derives its name, subtly enough, from the “rondels” or discs that serve as both a guard and pommel (early examples, sometimes had spherical pommels, but this was uncommon by the mid-15th century). The two discs serve to “lock” the dagger tightly into the wielder’s grip, particularly when wearing armoured gauntlets. This locked grip allowed the wielder to strike with great force, particularly in an overhand grip, emphasizing the dagger’s principle role of punching through mail and the articulations of plate armour.
The length of the dagger should be just to the elbow, with an edge and two corners. The grip should be the length of the fist, as the shape is shown depicted here below.
Filippo Vadi of Pisa, De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi (c.1482)
The blade is less clearly defined, and can be double-edged, single-edged or even edgeless, turning the dagger into a giant ice pick! All are quite long, as the above quote from Vadi shows, and taper to acute points, since the emphasis is on thrusting. In general, however, there are several forms of rondel that are more common then others. The first and most common is single edged, with a thick, blunted spine, which may or may not flatten into a small “false edge” for the last two or three inches of blade length. The second is hollow-ground, triangular (“two-cornered”), and edgeless (or nearly so), designed specifically for punching through armour. Sometimes the last few inches of these blades flatten into a more traditional profile, giving the dagger a narrower surface at the point of impact for finding purchase. The third form is also a glorified punch, but seems to have been rare, and was of round or quadrangular cross-section. Finally, rondels do appear with a more traditional, double-edged dagger blade, but these seem to have been the rarest of all.
The techniques for using — and defending against — the dagger are equally suited to armoured and unarmoured combat.
The sword was carried on the left hip while the daga/pugnale was worn on the right. There were a number of ways in which it the dagger might be carried and suspended. In civilian wear, the dagger was worn on the waist belt, with or without a sword, usually beside or behind the purse. It could be hung vertically, horizontally or at an angle in between, as the owner preferred. If a sword was not worn, the dagger and purse might be rotated forward, even to the center-front of the torso. In armour, the dagger was often attached directly to a metal “plaque belt” or to the fauld of the armour, and again could be suspended either vertically or horizontally. During the 14thcentury, the dagger was sometimes attached to the body armour by a long leading chain, so that, even if it slipped from the hand upon being drawn, it could not be dropped. By the end of the century this fashion had faded away, and as the plaque belt disappeared in the 15th century, in armour the dagger began to be worn on either a narrow waist belt, or directly on the sword belt. In the 16th century, the dagger was often worn at an angle at the right side, or across the back, with its hilt turned to the left, both of these methods facilitating a left-hand draw, as the sword was drawn with the right.
Two techniques against a forehand dagger blow (Fiore dei Liberi’s First Remedy of the Dagger) as represented by Filippo Vadi of Pisa.
USE OF THE DAGGER IN ARMIZARE
Dagger combat, both unarmed against a dagger and with a weapon of one’s own, builds directly upon the lessons of abrazare, and forms the single largest section in each of the various copies of il Fior di Battaglia. The nearly 80 “plays”, or techniques, that encompass the dagger section are organized into nine Remedies — specific defenses against a particular type of attack. For example, the First Remedy teaches how to defend against a forehand blow with a dagger in a reverse or “ice-pick” grip, while the Third Remedy details how to defend against a backhand blow from the same grip. The Eighth and Ninth Remedies work against rising thrusts in a forehand grip, while the Fifth Remedy introduces how to defend if the student is first gripped by the attacker — a “mugging” scenario familiar in modern self-defense classes. Other Remedies demonstrate how to defend against attacks with the arms joined for more strength, for specifically fighting in armour, or for when one has already drawn their own dagger.
All dagger instruction is built around five principles, applied in order:
Disarm (Disarmato)
Strike (Ferrire)
Lock (Ligadura)
Break (Rompere)
Throw (Mettere in Terra)
The combination of these five actions allows him to introduce a complete curriculum of not only knife-fighting, but unarmed combat at striking range, joint-locks and arm-bars, entering techniques from out of distance to create throws and a series of disarms that will be used not just in close-quarter combat, but with longer weapons, such as the sword or pollaxe.
Of all the weapons devised by Man in the long lapse of the centuries, the sword is the only one which combines effectiveness in defence with force in attack, and since its Bronze Age beginnings has gathered round itself a potent mystique which sets it above any other man-made object.Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block. Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.
Ewart Oakeshott, Records of the Medieval Sword.
THE WEAPON The sword of early medieval warriors was a refinement of the yard long, double-edged slashing swords developed by the Iron Age Celts and the Germanic tribes of late Antiquity that supplanted them. In form, they were wide-bladed, single-handed weapons designed for fighting with a shield. Usually between 36″ and 42″ [91-107 cm] long, with a weight of only two to three pounds [0.9-1.4 Kg], the early knightly sword had either parallel or slightly tapered edges and an abrupt or somewhat rounded point used for hacking cuts and limited thrusting. The earlier blades were usually a relatively thin, flat cross-section with a wide central fuller to reduce weight and allow for great flexibility. Later swords either had only a partial fuller, with the last third of the blade ending in diamond or hexagonal cross-section, or were of diamond cross-section throughout, but maintained a deeper, narrow fuller running nearly the entire length of the sword. There was no specialized term for this weapon; it was merely called a sword.
Reproduction of a 15th century arming sword, courtesy Arms and Armor, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The same changing battlefield conditions of the High Middle Ages that led to the development of the longsword, also led to the development of new varieties of arming swords, as the one-handed weapon was now sometimes called, because it was as a sidearm worn while “in arms”. Fullers were often made short and wide, allowing the weapon to be stiffer near the tip as a new emphasis was put on the thrust. By the mid-14th century some swords carried this emphasis even further by replacing the fuller altogether with a riser, a raised spine, making a very stiff blade, and/or with sharply tapering edges, producing the silhouette of a broad isosceles triangle.
In the late 15th century, some arming swords had a simple ring affixed to their guard, so that the index finger could be wrapped around the cross for greater point control, without being endangered if the opponent’s blade sliding down its length. By the end of the century, this simple ring was also sometimes accompanied by a knuckle bow, and the first “complex-hilts” were born.
Introduction to wielding the sword in one hand, from the Getty Ms., f. 20.
USE OF THE SWORD IN ONE HAND IN ARMIZARE Although the Founder shows one-handed swordsmanship both on foot and on horse, it is notable that he does not go to pains to show a distinctive arming sword; instead the same “longsword” found throughout the work is shown used in one hand. In the section for fighting on foot, a single Remedy is presented, a master standing in a low guard, comparable to position of the sword in the scabbard, who is threatened by three combatants, each of who executes a singular attack – a cut, thrust or thrown weapon. With a bit of the braggadocio that often characterizes his verse, dei Liberi advises them, “Go ahead and come on one by one, if you know what you’re doing; even if there were a hundred of you, I’d still mess you all up with this guard, which is so good and strong,” and then proceeds to show how to use a single, rising parry to defeat their play.
Fiore dei Liberi’s likely purpose in the composition of this section was to show how the lessons of close quarter combat he had already taught with the dagger could be applied to a long weapon such as the sword; a weapon whose unique properties he would discuss more at length in the next section of his work. For modern students, however, when combined with the techniques shown for fighting with the sword when a-horse (which themselves appear in other medieval works detailing one-handed sword play), and the Master’s off-hand comment in one of his texts that this is the method for wielding “the sword without the buckler” it also supplies us with a survival of what could be called a “primordial school” of medieval swordsmanship; fundamental techniques for the old, knightly arming sword that had been developing for over a millennium by the time our first-known fencing text was composed, and which persisted throughout Europe because of their basic utility long after discernible “schools” or “traditions” had formed.
I am the sword and I am lethal against any weapon; lances, axes and dagger are worthless against me. I can become extended or withdrawn; when I get near the opponent I can enter into close play, perform disarms and abrazare. My art is to turn and to bind; I am expert in defense and offense, and always strive to finish in those. Come against me and feel the pain. I am Royal, enforce justice, propagate goodness and destroy evil. Look at me as a cross, and I will give you fame and a name in the art of arms.Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block. Description for this block. Use this space for describing your block. Any text will do. Description for this block. You can use this space for describing your block.
Fiore dei Liberi, Il Fior di Battaglia
THE WEAPON In the 13th century, the knight’s basic harness began to change. By the second half of the century, the helmet had grown into a great helm that protected the entire head. Small, plate defenses were added to the knees and elbows, and a variety of simple articulated defenses were being experimented with for body armour. All of these changes merely heralded the sweeping changes of the 14th century, which would end with the knight fully-encased in plate armour and well-trained foot soldiers dressed in a combination of quilted, mail and plate defenses that often equaled the knightly kit of a century before.
In the same period swordsmiths had begun developing a new, versatile weapon, the longsword. Wielded with one hand on horseback, the longsword was generally used with two hands when fighting on foot. While there are early references to two-handed swords from the 12th century, it was only with the adoption of heavier armour, and thus the diminished role of the shield, that the longsword came into prominence.
This new weapon generally measured between 44″ and 54″ [112 and 137 cm] in length, and was stout enough to deal with fully armoured foes. Yet at roughly three to four pounds [1.4-1.8 Kg] in weight, it was also fast enough to use against lightly and unarmoured opponents. Like the arming sword it evolved from, the longsword’s straight, double-edged blade was ideally suited for both cutting and thrusting. Blade shape could be flat and wide, narrow and hexagonal, or diamond shaped. Characterized by having both a long grip and a long blade, it was yet capable of being worn on the body. This versatility made the weapon extremely popular with the knightly classes; so much so that this so-called “sword of war” also became an element of civilian dress in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Reproduction of an early 15th century longsword, found in the Museo Civico L. Mazzoli, Brescia, Italy.
The two masters of the Dei Liberi School who have left us records seem to have favored somewhat different weapons. Fiore dei Liberi shows a relatively short weapon, with a blade little longer than that of an arming sword; in fact, the same sword used throughout the single-handed, two-handed and armoured combat sections of his manuscript. An excellent example of such a surviving sword, contemporary to Il Fior di Battaglia, resides in the Museo Civico L. Mazzoli in Brescia, Italy.
Filippo Vadi does not discuss one-handed swordplay, and prefers a longer weapon:
The sword should be of the correct measure with the pommel just under the arm, as it appears here in my writing. To avoid any hindrance, the pommel should be round to fit the closed hand, do this and you won’t be troubled. And know for sure that the handle should be a span long, use any other measures and you’ll be confused. To prevent your mind from being deceived use a guard as long as the handle and pommel together, and you won’t be condemned. The cross hilt needs be squared and strong, with iron broad and pointed; its duty being to wound and cut.
Following Vadi’s measurements produces a weapon between 50-54″ inches [127-137 cm] in length. Despite this difference, the two masters illustrate the same general techniques within their treatises, and practical experimentation has shown that any weapon within the 44-54″ [112-137 cm] length range can be used, shorter blades playing faster in close and allowing for single-handed play, longer sword playing better at a distance.
THE ROLE OF THE TWO-HANDED SWORD IN ARMIZARE
Four of the six Masters of Swordsmanship, detailing the use of the sword by 1) making an extended thrust, 2) gripping the blade to fight in armour, 3) wielding in two-hands by the hilt, 4) gripping the blade to wield the sword like an axe. )Getty Ms. 22v
Situated at the center of the manuscript, the sword is also the center-piece of the art of arms; capable of using the lessons of the dagger in close play (zogho stretto) but also the foundation for fighting with all long weapons, in or out of armour, on foot or on horse. Fiore dei Liberi introduces a series of six Masters who represent the various ways the sword may be used:
One-handed
Thrown like javelin
Held by the pommel to make extended thrusts
Gripped with one hand on the blade, making it a short spear to penetrate gaps in plate armour.
Wielded with two-hands on the hilt.
Wielded by the blade, using the hilt like a pollaxe to hook limbs or smash with the cross — another way to counter heavy armour.
The central components of these six, however, are wielding the sword in a one or two-handed grip, and grasping the blade with the left hand, to penetrate armour. Two-handed swordsmanship is taught in three segments. The first are the Masters of Battle, twelve poste or guards, each with a summary of how they are used in combat, which guards they counter and which techniques they favor. This is followed by a section on fighting at wide distance (zogho largo), containing plays for countering cuts, thrusts and safely breaking distance as an attacker. Compared to the extensive dagger section, there are only 20 plays, which at first makes it seem notably smaller than the comparable teachings of other late medieval masters-at-arms, until one reads Fiore’s final words on the matter:
The Exchange of Thrusts, a core technique of armizare.
Here ends the wide play of the sword in two hands. These twenty plays are all linked, and have remedies and counters both from the mandritto and the riverso side, counter-thrusts and counter-cuts to each action, with breaks, parries, strikes and binds. These are all things that can be understood very easily.
This concision and avoidance of repetition is typical of the author’s reductionist mentality; rather than repeat instructions, simply swapping “left” for “right”, he reminds the reader that these 20 plays can quickly become 40, and those 40, an infinite combination of counters and counter-counters, all of which expand the general teachings of the earlier Masters of Battle. Additionally, within the Pisani-Dossi manuscript the master adds several plays specific and unique to crossing swords from two mutual backhand blows.
A play of zogho stretto from the Pisani-Dossi Ms., 21v.
Following the teachings of wide-play, Fiore moves on to close play (zogho stretto), which includes a further 23 plays detailing a wide number of joint locks (ligadure), grapples (prese) and throws (metterein terra) first found in the dagger teachings, along with hilt strikes (colpi di pommo), and disarms (tor di spada) unique to swordsmanship.
Finally, for armoured combat, we have the introduction of six Masters of Battle, five new ones that all grip the blade in the left hand, and sixth, which is a carry-over from the teachings on the two-handed sword. As seen previously, each of these six Masters offers his own tactical advice on how to approach the fight, and are then followed by sixteen plays, many of which are further adaptations of plays previously seen in the teachings on the sword in one hand or of the dagger.
Although Fiore shows his armoured combat using the same weapon shown in unarmoured combat, at the end of this section he describes two strange forms of sword used specifically for fighting an armoured, judicial duel:
A mid-15th century sword specialized for armoured combat in the lists, similar to one of those described by Fiore dei Liberi
This sword is equally a sword and an axe. It should not have a sharp edge from the guard to about six inches[1] from the point; its point should be sharp and its sharp edge should be about six inches in length. The small rondel under the hilt should be able to glide to about six inches from the point, but not beyond that. The hilt should be well tempered and sharp, and the pommel nice and heavy with its points well tempered and absolutely sharp. The front of the sword should be as heavy as the back; weight should be between four and six pounds. And the man carrying this sword will wear armour proportional to his size and strength.
This other sword should have a full edge, save for an unsharpened section at the third below the point, where a gloved hand can comfortably grasp it. Its edge and point must be very fine, the hilt sharp, strong and well tempered and the pommel weighty and pointed.
Writing seventy or so years later, Filippo Vadi gives a description of a third form of armoured combat sword, which he illustrates his combatants wielding throughout the chapter. This particular sword is similar to a number of surviving boar-hunting sword, only of much more massive proportions:
SHAPE OF THE SWORD TO USE IN ARMOR The sword used for armored fighting should be of the shape shown below, that is: its length should be such that the pommel fits under the arm, it should be [sharpened for] cutting four finger from the tip and its handle should be of a span. The hilt should be as long as the handle, and it should be pointed on each side; and in the same way the pommel should be pointed, so that it is possible to strike with each of these parts.
Vadi’s description of the sword for use in armour, and a pair of combatants demonstrating their use. (De Arte Gladiatoria, 27v)
Finally, a small selection of techniques that address using the sword against unalike weapons — defending against a dagger attack while the sword is still sheathed, defending against a spear, and deflecting hurled javelins — are scattered throughout the manuscripts, rounding out the instructions on two-handed swordsmanship.
THE WEAPON
One of mankind’s oldest weapons, the spear long predates recorded history, let alone the Middle Ages, thus it is not surprising that sophisticated spear technique appears in a wide variety of Italian, German and English sources of the 15th – 17th centuries, nor that the commonalities far outweighing the differences. Medieval masters-at-arms clearly differentiate between two forms of weapon, simply designated as “short” or “long”, as well as two distinct sub-styles of spear play. The first method was used with both short and long spears and was for both using the cavalry lance dismounted, and when fighting in infantry ranks on the battlefield.
The second method was optimized for using the short spear in single combat, usually within the context of the armoured duel or feat of arms. As such, the thrusts are usually made with the support of the entire body, and the spear is often used like a staff to strike, hook or throw the opponent if the initial thrust fails. Whereas the common method is specifically designed to always stand with the point in-line to threaten an immediate straight thrust, the specialized short spear generally stand with the point off-line.
The spear (Italian: lanza or lancia) is a relatively simple weapon, composed of three parts: the point, the shaft (l’asta), and the heel or foot (pedale). By the 14th century the spearhead, also called the iron or pike (It: ferro or pica), was generally made of tempered steel and was kept quite sharp. Spearheads ended in a split, tubular ferrule that was usually attached to the shaft by one or two rivets. During the later Middle Ages this ferule was occasionally supported with the same long metal strips, or languets, used to reinforce the shafts of heavier polearms. Although this greatly reduced the likelihood of the point being broken off, both the rarity of such languets on surviving spear heads, and the corpus of techniques specifically designed to break off the spear’s head point, suggests that they remained uncommon on this simple weapon.
There are numerous styles of spearheads, but generally they were tapering, kite or leaf-shaped, of diamond cross-section with two-edges and a point. A less common form appeared in the late Middle Ages that was lentoid in cross-section, turning the spear into a giant, armour piercing spike. These variants of the spearhead were developed for specific purposes, but all emphasized the thrust.
The spear shaft was made of a straightened, round or octagonal hardwood pole, usually of ash. Generally, the haft was thick enough to sustain the weight of the head without bowing or breaking, but it was not nearly as thick as the shafts of other polearms. Haft length varied greatly, but an examination of iconography, used in conjunction with the surviving written advice given by the period’s masters-at-arms, suggests that an average length of six to twelve feet was common for most of the medieval period. Dei Liberi himself teaches the use of the short spear, a weapon that was approximately six to eight feet long.
The spear’s pedale, or heel was often shod in an iron ferrule or cap, and Fiore dei Liberi describes his own spear as such.[Getty Ms, 39v.] These caps ranged from simple rings of metal to a tapering conical cap with a balled end. This reinforced the haft, making the heel useful for striking or thrusting if the opponent forced the spearhead out of line and attempted to close.
USE OF THE SPEAR IN ARMIZARE
The final section on armoured foot combat is also the most concise.
A heel-strike made by the Magistro Contrario of the spear. (Getty Ms. 39v)
Whereas the attackers all stand in the two principle guards of the “common method”, Fiore dei Liberi’s “Masters” all use a short spear, just a bit taller than the wielder” and stand with the spear off-line, in six poste, all but one of which are adapted from the two-handed sword. All six of the guards, regardless of if they are carried high or low, to the left or right of the centerline, oppose an attack with one defense:
We pass out of line by first performing an offline accrescimento with the foot that is forward–as usual. All of us (guards on the mandritto or riverso side) come together with a thrust after the parry, since the lance cannot deliver any other offense.
He then shows a single Counter Master, who responds by striking around with the iron-capped heel of his spear.
And this, the master tells us, shall suffice for the spear.
am the axe, heavy, cruel and lethal, and I deliver bigger blows than any other handheld weapon. If I miss with my first attack, the axe becomes a useless liability. But if I don’t miss, my axe can come to the rescue of any other handheld weapon.
Fiore dei Liberi, il Fior di Battaglia
THE WEAPON The poleaxe (or pollaxe) was one of the principle “knightly” weapons of the 14th – 16thcentury, and is related to the “common” halberd. Amongst the Italian masters, its use is detailed in the works of Fiore dei Liberi, Filippo Vadi, Pietro Monte and the Anonymous Bolognese master, all of who simply call it l’azza or l’acca (the axe).
A weapon designed for use specifically in and against armour on foot, the poleaxe first begins appearing in illustrations in the mid-14th century, slowly gaining favor over the older two-handed “battle axe”, whose pedigree extended back to the Viking era. It was commonplace by the end of the 1300s, and was a preferred weapon for performing judicial combats and feats of arms during the 15th century. Although its popularity began to wane in the Renaissance, its popularity in the tournament lists lingered; as late as the 1620s, Francesco Postolfilo detailed its use in his book, IlTorneo.
The weapon can be divided into several parts, the haft (asta), the head, which was in reality a conglomeration of weapons, and the heel (pedale), which could be simple wood, but was often shod with iron or fitted with a long spike (calcio). As a response to plate armour, the poleaxe seems to have grown out of two other weapons: the aforementioned two-handed axe and the warhammer, and its head developed along two distinct forms. The first was an axe proper, with an axe-blade, whose profile could be straight or curved. The blade was generally somewhat thicker and smaller than those found on the halberd. The second form replaced the axe blade with a smooth or pronged hammerhead, like that of a warhammer, the prongs increasing the chance of biting into the armour.
Regardless of hammer or axe head, the weapon was known as a poleaxe, and the masters at arms taught a single method for its use. And regardless of axe or hammer, the rest of the weapon followed a single, common form. The other side of the head was usually a long, hooked spike (called a “beak” or “horn”; Italian: corno), and was topped by yet another spike, which could be either a tapered and edged spear-head or a simple spike of round or square cross-section. The head was attached to the haft by a pair of long iron strips, called langetes, which added security and protected the haft from being broken by other polearms. The haft was also often fitted with a rondel below the head, protecting the lead hand.
The overall length of the weapon could vary considerably. Fourteenth century art suggests a weapon of 4-6 feet [1.2-1.8 m] in length, and this accords with the weapons shown in dei Liberi’s treatises. Vadi illustrates a weapon slightly longer than the wielder, and later writers, such as Monte (1509) and Pistolfilo (1620s) recommend a weapon approximately eight feet [2.4 m] in length. The weight of surviving specimens suggests a weight of 4 – 6 lbs [1.8-2.7 Kg], creating a weapon surprisingly well counterbalanced; poleaxes often feels notably handier and nimble than the related halberd.
Like all knightly tools, poleaxes could be beautifully decorated with etchings and piercings, their elegance belying their deadly purpose.
USE OF THE POLEAXE IN ARMIZARE In discussing the poleaxe, dei Liberi jumps straight into the poste without any sort of preamble. The guard themselves are an interesting conglomeration of stances from both two-handed and armoured swordsmanship. There are very few surprises here, with each reiterating lessons they have taught previously, with other weapons, although breve lo serpentina warns that with the poleaxe even armour is no sure defense from its point, “which can penetrate breastplates and plackards.”
The individual plays for the axe are based around a single Remedy Master who shows the two combatants with their weapons crossed at the mid-points, much as we’ve seen with the sword. But whereas the swords crossed with the points up — as if concluding a half-blow — here the axes have their heads on the ground. The text reads:
These are the plays through which these guards fight. Each guard wants to try them, in the certainty of winning. If you can beat the opponent’s axe to the ground as shown, by all means do these plays. Do all the plays as long as the opponent does not stop you with a counter.
So whereas Fiore has already shown to how play from these six poste and come to a point-up bind in the the two-handed and armoured sword teachings, we now have a new tactical situation: the axe has enough forward weight and momentum that the weapons can be carried to the ground. This requires new instruction, and thus, a new Remedy Master. Most of the plays that follow come from this low crossing, which is itself just another variation of the position that emerges from the Breaking of the Thrust taught with the sword in two hands.
Axeplay instruction is completed by showing a transition to wrestling made by grabbing the opponent by his helmet’s visor and pulling him to the ground, followed by the strangest section in the manuscript: a pair of plays using a strange pollaxe fitted at the heel with a weighted rope and topped with a hollow head filled with “eye melting powder”; the recipe for which Fiore helpfully then provides!
Here begins the art of the noble weapon called the lance, which regularly opens the fight both on horseback and on foot. Whoever looks at it, with its handsome fine pennant, is bewildered with great fear. She delivers thrusts dangerous and strong, a single one of which can take a life. Therefore, let her first strike be accurate. I [the lance] will get the axe, the sword and the dagger all off the hook!
As the culmination of two of the surviving dei Liberi manuscripts, and the beginning of the two others, mounted combat is really a microcosm of the entire Art of Arms, encompassing the use of the lance, sword and wrestling, in and out of armour, all from the back of a trained, 1200-lb warhorse.
The equestrian sections of the Flower of Battle also contain instructions for combating a horseman while using a ghiavarina (a type of winged-spear or partisan), hurling a javelin from horseback, and how to deal with being pursued on horseback.
In addition to the major divisions of the Flower of Battle, corresponding to a core discipline of armizare, Fiore dei Liberi also includes a number of scenarios with less common or improvised weapons. These sections are often used to denote transitions in the various copies of the Flower of Battle — from abrazare to dagger, from dagger to sword, from foot combat to mounted combat, and often provide hints at how the overall system of armizare can be adapted at need.
Bastoncello – Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, Royal Ms. 20 C VII
Bastoncello – Towards the end of the abrazare section of the Flower of Battle, Fiore introduces several techniques for defending one’s self against a knife attack while carrying nothing but a short stick, a foot or so in length. This short section is not so much a lesson on stick-fighting, but rather one of many linking systems that Fiore dei Liberi uses to bring the reader from one portion of the art to another. The techniques of abrazare, throws in this case, are shown applied to an improvised weapon that is about the same length as a rondel dagger, and sure enough, in a manner that the master will later instruct that the dagger itself be used.
The appearance of the bastoncello is also an interesting contextual note. More than just a small stick, this is the commander’s baton that arose with the Romans and survived into the modern era as the marshal’s baton or general’s “swagger-stick”. A great deal of symbolism was imprinted in the bestowing of the bastoncello by the rulers of a city-state to their chosen Captain-General, which is why it is so often depicted in condottieri artwork. Considering the prevalence of assassination attempts on Renaissance military commanders and despots — often in public — as they attended mass or reviewed their troops — the Friulian master may not have been whimsical by showing his students defending against a knife attack while seated and armed only with their commander’s baton.
Spear/staff and dagger and twin sticks vs. spear. Florius de Arte Luctandi, f.15.
Clubs and Staves (Bastone/Stange) – In another transitional section of the manuscript, Fiore gives a series of defenses against a spear attack. Included in this section is the use of a dagger and walking staff (as this technique appears in both the Florius Ms and in other early manuscripts with a spear instead of a staff, perhaps this is meant to represent a broken spear), and a pair of simple clubs, complete with branches.
Ghiavarina – Perhaps the most note-worthy variant of the “standard” spear (if such a thing can be said to have existed) was the winged spearhead. Likely originating for the hunt, the boar spear remains a hunting weapon to this day, the wings preventing the prey from running up the spear’s shaft to gore the would-be huntsman.
Ghiavarina vs. horseman. Getty Ms. f. 46.
The ghiavarina is commonly known today by the rather unfortunate moniker Bohemian Ear Spoon, and was essentially a marriage of the old hewing and winged spears. It had a double-edged, tapering blade that could be as much as a foot long, attached to a long collar affixed to the haft by languets. From this collar were two long, sharpened lugs, similar to those on a hunting spear. As dei Liberi depicts the weapon, it is approximately the length of his short spear or a little longer, perhaps seven to eight feet in total. He describes the ghiavarina as “very quick” with an heel cap made of “good tempered steel”.[Getty Ms. 46v] His method of use involves cuts, thrusts and heel blows, similar to that of its later evolution: the partizan, of which a later Italian Master wrote:
Therefore, these Partisans were made big and of great pace, and of perfect good steel, to the end they might break the mail and divide the Iron.
Giacomo di Grassi, His True Art of Defense (1594).
Within il Fior di Battaglia, the ghiavarina is specifically used by the Master to counter an attack from a horseman, using a technique previously shown with the two-handed sword against a spear thrust or hurled javelin.
A victim of the lasso-axe misses out on the chance to strike with his own, hollow weapon filled with a caustic powder. (Pisani-Dossi Ms.)
Lasso Poleaxe – This weapon almost defies description, which may be why the author just calls it an “axe”. As illustrated, it is depicted as looking something like an iron block of Swiss cheese on a long shaft. At the top of this is a spear point, and at the rear end is a heavy cord fitted with a weight to trap or entangle the legs. This would be strange enough, but then the master tells us:
This axe is hollow all around and filled with a powder that is so strong and corrosive that it makes it impossible to open the eyes as soon as it comes into contact with them–and may even cause permanent blindness.
No corroborating examples of this weapon have as yet been found, but, compared to some of the odd combination weapons of the late Renaissance, it is certainly possible that such a weapon was made, but it surely must have been an anomaly even at the time.
Improvised Weapons also make an appearance throughout the manuscript. In his discussion of the bastoncello, for example, he also advises that the same plays could be made with a hood or pair of gloves, creating an entanglement with a flexible weapon. This is not the only time such appears, as similar principles appear, such as the lasso poleaxe, or a lance with a similar, long lasso that is used from horseback.
A cavallo – “On horse”. One of the three major divisions of armizare, the others being senza arme (out of armour) and in arme (in armour)
Abrazare – Archaic for modern Italian abbraciare (“to embrace”). A type of stand-up grappling (as distinct from wrestling; It: lotta) that characterizes much of Fiore’s play.
Accrescimento – “Increasing”. The act of moving the foot that is in front either farther forward along the line of direction or, in the case of an offline accrescimento, somewhat away from it or to the side. Verb form: accresere (see above).
Accressere fora di strada – Offline Accrescimento. A piece of footwork in which the front foot moves away from the line of direction, most often in preparation for an oblique pass (see ).
Alla Traversa – “To the side”. An oblique or lateral step offline.
Armadura or Arme – Armour (Also: harness). In the time of Fiore, the transition between mail armor and plate armor was near complete. A typical full suit of the time consisted in a bascinet with a movable visor or an open-faced helm, breast and back with articulated faulds extending to the upper thigh, pauldrons (shoulder armor), arm and elbow armor, gauntlets, leg armor, greaves (shin armor) and sabatons (foot armor). As armizare is a chivalric discipline, the use of armour in single combat and on the battlefield informs the movement and body mechanics of the entire system, but whereas there are restricted target areas against an opponent wearing armor, Fiore is careful to specify which actions are possible in armor, out of armor, or both.
Armizare – Fiore’s word for exercising the skill at arms, or the “art of arms”.
Azza – Fiore uses the term “axe” for the poleaxe: a polearm approximately man-sized with a square-section haft, which was part of the knightly arsenal at the time. On the forward offensive end, it features an iron consisting of a short spike, a hammer or axe-blade (hence the name) and a stout beak protruding behind it. On the other end, it typically has a short spike, so as to enable the user to strike with either end. Although poleaxes could be as long as seven or eight feet, armizare favors the use of weapon somewhere between the length of the wielder’s armpit to full height (approximately 54 – 72″).
Bastoncello – A short staff, usually no longer than the arm, which was carried by Italian military commanders as a sign of command. Bastoncelli could be simple batons of polished, white wood, or elaborately carved and decorated. Descended from the Roman vitis, and remembered in the modern era by the general’s swagger stick. A minor weapon in armizare, Fiore dei Liberi shows the use of a bastoncello about a foot (30 cm) or so long to defend against knife attacks.
Bastone – A club or staff. A minor weapon in canonical armizare, Fiore dei Liberi briefly shows the ad hoc use of a pair of arm-length clubs as well as the use of a walking staff in conjunction with the dagger.
Battere or Rebatter(e) – To beat the opponent’s weapon means to give it a rap with yours so as to set it aside or hit it to the ground.
Chiave Forte – “Strong Key”. A strong lock from the low bind (see ligadura), appearing as the sixth play of the Third Master of dagger, and recurring throughout the art in the use of sword and axe.
Colpo – A blow. A general noun used to describe an attack involving hitting the opponent–with or without a weapon. Fiore classifies three blow angles, each of which can be made from the forehand (mandritto) or backhand (riverso) sides, for six blow angles in total:
Fendente – An attack in which the weapon falls obliquely downwards on the opponent. While it is traditionally a cut, Fiore also uses it as an overhand thrusting attack in the dagger section. A mandritto fendente comes from the right side, while a riverso fendente comes from the left.
Mezzano – A cut or blow whose path falls between that of a fendente and a sottano.
Sottano – An ascending cut whose path is that opposite a fendente.
Colpo di Villano – “Peasant’s Strike”. A named play for defending against heavy blows, introduced by the Fourth Student of the Second Remedy Master of the Two Handed Sword in Zogho Largo. The peasant is the opponent who delivers a powerful fendente to set up the action. Contrary to what the name suggests, the opponent delivering the first attack does not need do so in a rough or unskilled manner; but simply strikes forcefully – which is why Fiore advises the play will also work against an axe or staff.
Contrario (Also: magistro contrario) – “Counter “. A tier in Fiore’s pedagogy representing the counters to the Remedy Masters (see remedio) or their students (see scolaro). In some cases, Counter Masters also have students.
Contra-Contrario – “Counter-to-the-Counter.” The final tier in Fiore’s pedagogy, this rarely seen Master, teaches techniques designed to thwart an opponent’s counter to your original defense (see remedio).
Coverta – “Cover.” Any defensive motion designed to block, beat away, deviate or keep away an incoming attack, including parries (parrare; verb: riparare), beats (rebattamenti), or breaks (romperimenti; verb: rompere)
Daga – “Dagger”. A short knightly weapon consisting of a thrusting blade and a hilt featuring a cylindrical handle with a disc (or rondel) on either side to secure the grip and prevent the weapon from slipping. One of its main functions was that of penetrating mail in the various openings left by plate armor–hence its being stiffer than a knife, acutely pointed, and being practically without an edge.
Decrescimento – “Decreasing”. The act of pulling the front foot back towards (but not past) the rear foot. The opposite of an accrescimento. Infinitive: decressere
Dislogadura – “Dislocation”. In abrazare, the act of wrenching a bone of the opponent’s limbs out of joint, without necessarily breaking it. Verb form: dislogare.
Ferrire – “To wound”. One of the Requirements of Abrazare; ferrire are strikes made to vulnerable areas such as the temples, eyes, nose, throat, floating ribs or groin.
Ferro – “Iron”. The tempered-metal component at either end of a polearm. It: ferro.
Fora di Strada – “Offline”. 1) A piece of footwork in which the foot moves away from the line of direction. 2) A way to hold the weapon so that it does not lie along the line of direction or offense. N.B. fora di strada is also used for a generic piece of footwork that is not parallel to the line of direction.
Forteza – “Strength”. One of the Requirements of Abrazare.
Ghiavarina – A polearm similar to a winged-spear, but with a longer iron that is broad enough to deliver cuts. As depicted in this manuscript, the ghiavarina also has two lateral spikes protruding on either side of the base of the iron. An early form of partizan, also called a “Bohemian ear-spoon”, the term ghiavarina may be etymologically related to “glaive.”
Guardia – “Guard”. See posta.
In Arme – “In armor.” One of the three major divisions of armizare, the others being senza arme (out of armour) and a cavallo (on horseback).
Incrossada, Incrossare – ” Crossing, to cross”.The act of meeting the opponent’s weapon with yours so as to form an X, or a cross–either in the course of a parry, of an attack, or of a probing action.
Instabile – “Mutable, changing”. A quality of a guard that makes it apt for fluidly changing into another, rather than waiting firmly in the same posture. Fiore offers a clue of this on Folio 36 Recto: “We have no stability, and we each seek deception: you think I’ll attack with a fendente, but I pass back instead and change guards.” Instabile poste are usually used for making covers and risposte.
Lanza – “Lance”. A term applying equally to the English lance and spear. Fiore shows the use of the lanza corta, or short spear, a weapon about 7′ in length that is apt for combat on both foot and on horseback, as opposed to the longer, heavier weapon specialized for mounted combat, or the long, massed infantry weapon called the picca (pike). Filippo Vadi adopts the teachings to the lanza longa, a weapon longer than the lanza corta but shorter than a picca — generally a weapon about 9′ – 10′ long.
Ligadura – “Bind”. One of Fiore dei Liberi’s Eight Requirements of Abrazare, a ligadura is a joint-lock; although demonstrated against the elbow, the founder makes it clear that ligadure can be applied to any joint. wrestling situation in which one traps one or more limbs of the opponent. It differs from a grapple (see presa) in the sense that a grapple does not necessarily have a locking quality. There are three types of ligadura, classified as sottana (low), mezzana (middle) and soprana (high).
Magistro – “Master”. 1) An individual exceptionally skilled in the art of arms; 2) A principal tier of actions in Fiore’s pedagogy. Master of the Fight, or First Master: a crowned figure representing a guard from which proceed the most logical actions from that position. Remedy Master or Second Master: a crowned figure representing the entry into the plays deriving from the guard, and the defenses against opponents who use the actions deriving from the main guard; the various plays from this Remedy Master are displayed as Students (see), who wear no crown but have a gold insignia below the knee. Counter Master or Third Master: a figure wearing both a crown and an insignia under his knee, who counters the actions of the Second Master and his students. Because they wear a crown, Masters are called “Kings.” Italian: re.
Mandritto – 1) A cut or cut-like blow you deliver from your right towards the left; 2) Mandritto Side: the side to the (your) right of the line (see strada).
Passare – “To pass” (Noun: passo) One of the four basic types of footwork in armizare, this is the act of stepping the rear foot forward, so that it becomes the front foot; a walking step with martial intent and body mechanics. A pass can be forward, backward (tornare), along the line of direction or oblique.
Passare alla Traversa – “Oblique Pass”. A pass that crosses the line of direction; i.e., the foot that is behind, as it passes forward, goes to the opposite side of the line of direction, typically after an offline accrescimento of the other foot.
Pedale – “Heel”. The part of a polearm consisting of the bottom part of the haft, opposite the main iron. Most Italian Masters who address the issue–including Fiore–advocate capping it with an additional iron cap or sharpened spike for offensive purposes.
Piu Forteza – “More Strength”. A defense against a dagger strike where the right hand grasps the left wrist, making for a stronger cover (see coverta).
Posta – “Position”. A deliberate position of the body, feet and, when applicable, the weapon(s); a fighting stance. Fiore gives us his own definition in the introduction: “A guard, or posta, is what you use to defend or ‘guard’ yourself against the opponent’s attack. A posta, or guard, is a ‘posture’ against the opponent, which you use to injure him without danger to yourself.” Most guards are represented in the drawings as a Master or King standing alone, without an opponent. Fiore classifies them as First Masters.
Posta Breve – “short (or withdrawn) guard.”
Posta Breve Serpentino – “short (or withdrawn) serpent guard.”
Posta di Bicorno – “two-horned guard.”
Posta di Croce Bastarda – “bastard cross guard.”
Posta di Coda Lunga – “long tail guard.”
Posta di Dente di Cinghiaro/Zenghiaro – “boar’s tooth.”
Posta di Donna – “woman’s guard.”
Posta di Finestra – “window guard.”
Posta di Porta di Ferro Mezzana – “middle iron door guard.”
Posta di Tutta Porta di Ferro – “whole iron door guard.”
Posta di Serpente Superiore – “high serpent guard”
Posta di Vera Croce – “true-cross guard.”
Posta Frontale – “frontal guard.”
Posta Longa – “long (or extended) guard.”
Posta Sagittaria – “arrow guard.”
Presa – “Grab”. Another requirement of abrazare, prese are any grip or hold used while grappling.
Presteza – “Speed”. One of the Requirements of Abrazare
Pulsativa – “Smiting”. A quality of guards, which Fiore does not define, but that may involve the ability to deliver strong blows to the opponent or his weapons.
Punta – “Thrust”. To his basic six angles of attack, Fiore adds a seventh blow (see colpo), which is the linear attack with the weapon’s point. The thrust can also be made from the mandritto or riverso, and either overhand (punta sopramano) or underhand (punta sottomano), as well as straight up the middle (stoccata).
Punta Curta, Punta Falsa – “Short Thrust, False Thrust”. The sixteenth play of the second Remedy Master of Two-handed Sword in Zogho Largo. It consists of feinting a strong mezzano to the opponent’s head and, upon his attempted parry, turning your sword to the other side while grasping the blade with your left hand, and finishing with a thrust to the opponent’s neck or chest.
Remedio (Also: magistro remedio) – “Remedy”. Also called Second Master, it is a tier in Fiore’s pedagogy representing the entry-point of the various plays that can be performed from the guards, which Fiore calls First Masters (see posta).
Riverso or Manriverso – “Reverse” or “backhand”. 1) A cut or cut-like blow you deliver from your left towards the opponent’s right; 2) Riverso Side: the side to the (your) left of the line (see strada).
Rompere – “To break”. This verb is used in armizare in two ways: 1) In wrestling, the act of causing a fracture in the opponent’s bones, typically in the limbs. 2) In fencing, the act of strongly disrupting the opponent’s guard, design or attack.
Rompere di Punta – “Breaking of the Thrust”. An action designed to counter an incoming thrust, which Fiore introduces with the two-handed sword. It consists of beating the opponent’s thrust to the ground with your own weapon, and following with different kinds of risposte.
Scambiar di Punta – “Exchange of Thrusts”. An important recurring technique that Fiore first introduces by name with the two-handed sword, consisting in countering a thrust by meeting the opponent’s weapon with yours and simultaneously setting it aside while pushing a counterthrust. The Exchange of Thrust also forms the basis of spear-play and can also be used with the axe.
Scholaro – “Student.” 1) A person who learns the art of arms. 2) A secondary tier of actions in Fiore’s pedagogy representing all the various plays that the Remedy Master (see remedio) or the Counter Master (see contrario) can perform.
Segno della Spada – “Sign of the Sword”. A symbolic diagram of the seven blows of the sword superimposed over a human figure, surrounded by four animals, each representing an ideal quality of a swordsman. The animals are named in both Latin and Italian, depending on the copy of il Fior di Battaglia, but there placement and meaning is always the same:
Fortitudio/Forteza – “Foundation/Strength”. An elephant carrying a war tower and standing on a stone slab, situated at the feet.
Celeritas/Presteza – “Speed”. A tiger clutching an arrow, at the right hand.
Prudentia/Avvisamento – “Prudence”. A lynx holding a mason’s calipers, standing over the head.
Audatia/Coragio – “Courage”. A lion, holding a heart, at the left hand.
Senza Arme – “Without armour” One of the three major divisions of armizare, the others being in arme (out of armour) and a cavallo (on horseback).
Spada – “Sword”. Any kind of sword, be it one or two-handed.
Spada a Dui Mani – “Sword in Two Hands”. The weapon generally referred to as a longsword; a weapon between 44 – 54″ long and 3 – 4 lbs in weight. Dei Liberi preferred a shorter weapon that could easily be wielded in one or two hands, on foot or on horse, whereas Filippo Vadi recommends a weapon that reaches to the armpit, with a hilt as long as one’s forearm.
Spada d’un Mano – “Sword in One Hand”. While this can imply an one-handed arming sword, Fiore dei Liberi uses the term to distinguish how the weapon is being wielded, and his techniques for the sword in one hand are shown with the same, long-hilted weapon he depicts in the two-handed sword section.
Spada en Arme – “Sword in Armour”. A term which both refers to use the normal spada a dui mani in armour, as well as a type of specialized weapon for judicial duels. This latter sword was a massive weapon, with a broadly flared point, like a boar-spear, a dull lower blade, a long, pointed crossguard and a sharply pointed or spiked pommel.
Stabile – “Stable”. 1) The adjective in volta stabile (see volta); 2) a characteristic of a guard or posture that makes it ideal for waiting motionless for the opponent.
Stanga – “Staff”. A polearm consisting of a cylindrical length of wood with no iron. It can be a stanga, or roughly man-sized or longer, a shorter bastone (roughly half the size of a regular staff, or no longer than the armpit), or an even shorter bastoncello, which is usually no longer than the arm. See bastoncello.
Strada – “Line”. The shortest distance between two opposing fighters. The Line of Direction is on the ground, while the Line of Offense is (traditionally) at chest-height. Far from being a concept only developed in subsequent times, Fiore names it (strada) and clearly considers it as a vital concept of the footwork and weapon-work he presents. He uses strada to mean both the line of direction and the line of offense. Modern Italian: line
Taglio – Cut. An attack that uses the shearing ability of an edged weapon to inflict damage on the opponent.
Tor di Spada – “Sword-Taking”. Weapon disarms. As with the ligadure, which use similar mechanical principles, Fiore shows three types of tor di spada, classified as sottana, mezzana and soprana.
Volta – “Turn”. The term is used generally by Fiore, such as in the volta di pomo, and also to describe a type of footwork that has a specific, tactical component. This latter classification has three variations:
Volta Stabile – Literally, stable turn. 1) An about-face action of the body accomplished by pivoting on the balls of your stationary feet, so that from facing forward you now face backward, or vice-versa. 2) Volta stabile of the sword: although Fiore names it without describing it, it may be the act of keeping the sword on the same side of the opponent’s blade, and without turning the edge (as in the mezza volta) simply moving from a high to low position, or vice-versa.
Mezza Volta – “Half-turn”. Mezza volta of the body: the act of making a circular pass, so that the toe of the stepping foot points across the centerline, thereby turning your chest from facing right to facing left, or vice-versa. Mezza volta of the sword: an action of your sword in which the weapon moves from your left to your right, or vice-versa, while remaining on the same side of the opponent’s weapon. For example, from a mandritto vs. mandritto incrossada, uncrossing to strike a riverso to the face, as taught by the First Student of the Second Remedy of the Sword in Two Hands.
Tutta Volta – “Whole turn”. Tutta volta of the body – A passing step that moves further than a mezza volta, and causes the body to perform an about face. Tutta Volta of the sword: although Fiore names it without describing it, it is most commonly the act of turning the leading sword-hand in a complete wheel-like motion of the weapon, so that if you were crossed on the mandritto side, your blade is now on the opposite side of the weapon, as taught by the Fourth Student of the Second Remedy Master of the Two Handed Sword in Zogho Largo (see: colpo di villano).
Volta di Pomo – “Pommel Turn”. An action that follows a crossing (see), consisting of pivoting your sword around the opponent’s using his blade as a fulcrum, so that your sword finishes pommel-forward on the opposite side of the crossing. It usually involves a pommel-strike to the opponent’s face.
Zogho – “Play”. 1) An individual technique, taught in the tradition’s manuscripts by Masters and Students (see magistro and scholaro) that combines both a technical and tactical lesson, 2) a type of combat, related to the measure and line and the types of techniques thereby available. Modern Italian: gioco.
Zogho Largo – “Wide Play”. Only appears when discussing long weapons, such as the sword, spear or axe. At this measure, combatants may use the weapon’s edge and point, bind or grab the weapon’s head and, depending on the weapon’s length, make long-range unarmed attacks, such as kicks. Grabs will not reach any deeper than the opponent’s elbow; body-to-body contact is not possible.
Zogho Stretto – “Close Play”.Combat that is executed from grappling measure — i.e., from a distance that enables you to grapple the opponent after (at most) a single passing step. All grappling and knife fighting occurs at zogho stretto, whereas with long weapons it is normally arrived to through a crossing (see incrossada).
ROBERTO LAURA (GERMANY) — TRADITIONAL ITALIAN KNIFE AND STICK FIGHTING
Roberto Laura was born in the beautiful San Remo at the Italian Riviera. In 1975 he moved to Heidelberg, Germany, were he lived till 1994. He currently lives with his family in Neckarsulm, close to Stuttgart.
After many years within boxing, Filipino and Japanese martial arts, in 2001 Roberto started training in the traditional Italian knife fencing systems with knife and stick. The systems taught by Maestro Roberto Laura are primarily the dueling and self-defense systems from Liguria, Apulia and Sicily, all probably from the 18th or early 19th century. He was the first to teach them outside of Italy.
In 2015, Maestro Laura founded TIKF – Traditional Italian Knife Fighting. The TIKF is not a system in itself, but is rather a “holding tank” for transmitting the different traditional arts he practices, trains and teaches. He also founded the AMICI-Group, a voluntary union of maestri, instructors and groups teaching the traditional Italian arts. Maestro Laura is also the head of the ASAMIR (Associazioni Sportive Arti Marziali Italiane Riunite)-Germany, an international recognized association dedicated to the preservation of the Italian and – most of all – the Sicilian fighting traditions.
ROBERTO GOTTI (ITALY) — ITALIAN RENAISSANCE SWORDSMANSHIP (SCUOLA BOLOGNESE)
Roberto began studying fencing 22 years ago, specializing in the two-handed sword of the Italian Renaissance . He attends many HEMA events in Europe and Italy as instructor. Author of Caino, a meticulously researched book on the history of Italy’s most important sword-manufacturing region, he is also the founder and director of Guardia di Croce, a small society in northern Italy dedicated to preserve and promoting Italian martial history. The society has a growing collection of original weapons and treatises, and maintains a private sala d’arme for the reconstruction and training in the school of Achille Marozzo. He is a member of the Federazione Italiana Scherma Work Group on historical fencing, and a founding member of Associazione Italiana Maestri d’Arme (AIMA).
RICHARD “PUCK” CURTIS (USA) — MASTER-AT-ARMS, CLASSICAL ITALIAN FENCING, RESEARCHER, 16TH C IBERIAN MARTIAL ARTS
Puck Curtis began studying historical fencing in 1992 and began researching Spanish fencing in 1994. He is the cofounder of the Destreza Translation and Research Project and maintains the Theory and Practice section for the website. Currently living in Davis, California, he is the primary historical fencing instructor for the Davis Fencing Academy. Puck is certified to teach classical Italian fencing (foil, dueling sword and sabre) as a Master at Arms through the San Jose Fencing Master’s program.
Devon Boorman has practised martial arts for more than 20 years. Starting first with Asian martial arts, including Kung Fu and Arnis, Devon discovered western swordplay through the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) which connected him with a burgeoning community of martial artists and scholars studying Historical European Marital Arts throughout the world.
Devon has travelled extensively, first as a student, then as a competitor, teacher, and researcher. He has won more than 40 European martial arts competitions, and worked on both stage and screen as a stunt person and choreographer. Devon is actively involved in the translation, interpretation, and revival of Western Martial Arts from surviving historical manuals, some of which are on display at his school.
Devon’s expertise centres on the Italian swordplay tradition including the arts of the renaissance Italian rapier, sidesword, and longsword, as well as knife and unarmed techniques. He has taught workshops and seminars throughout the world on both the study and practice of historical techniques and on practical combat implementation.
Devon is the co-founder and director of Academie Duello, which has been active in the Vancouver area since 2004. Under his leadership the school has become a centre for swordplay with over 200 active students, a store, and an arms and armour museum. The Academie is currently the largest WMA centre in the world; a model that Devon hopes to help others achieve as the Western arts grow in popularity.
ORAZIO BARBAGALLO (ITALY) — TRADITIONAL ITALIAN KNIFE AND STICK FIGHTING
Maestro Orazio Barbagallo was born 1955 in Riposto/Sicily. He started his path within the Bastone Ruotato (“circling stick”), the traditional shepherd stick from Riposto, in the year 1964 under the tutelage of Maestro Franco Mille. In the same year, Maestro Barbagallo started to learn the Sicilian street knife called scerra by Angelo Fazio, a highly respected street knife fencer. In the years 1979 to 1991 he further practiced different martial arts, such as Greco-Roman wrestling, Wu Shu, Hung Gar, Sanda and Kick Boxing, and he won several championships. In the 1990s, he began training in the traditional circling stick with Maestro Scapellinu, the head of this system, and in the 21st century, he has studied intensively with Maestro Salvatore Scarcella from Riposto, one of the few icons of the knife system of the Ruotato school, used both in the form duel and the street encounters.
In 2003, Maestro Barbagallo founded the ASAMIR, an association for the preservation of popular Italian fencing traditions, especially the traditions of Sicily. Therefore, having studied and decoded the five major Sicilian schools of stick and knife fighting – the Battiri (“Beating”), the Missinisi (“From Messina”), the Riali (“Royal”), the Fiorata (“Flowery”) and the Ruotata (“Circling”). He is still the director of the ASAMIR today, and since 2005 he is teaching the traditions of Sicily also outside of Italy.
Marco Quarta is a biomedical scientist at the School of Medicine of Stanford University, CA, USA. His research is focused on skeletal muscle physiology, biomechanics and on bioengineering of stem cells for regenerative medicine. He also teaches and promotes Italian Martial Arts (IMAs) at Stanford and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Marco grew up in Bologna, Italy. His interest in Italian martial traditions started in the early 1990s with formal training in modern fencing, boxing and wrestling. As a co-founder, he served as senior instructor of the Nova Scrimia brotherhood from 1999 until present time. He is also a teacher of historic fencing at Scrimia Scuola d’Armi, and since the late 90s has been teaching and promoting IMAs with publications, lectures, festivals, tournaments and seminars at Italian and international Universities and fencing/martial arts symposia (such as University of Bologna, Stanford in California, Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium, or at the Bone Breakers MMA Academy in Mexico City). In 2008 he moved to California, and founded Nova Scrimia International; teaching and promoting IMAs in Canada, USA and Mexico.
Academically, Dr. Quarta has particular scientific research interests in the history, biomechanics and neurophysiology of duels and self defense in Western Martial Arts. He also practices, researches and promotes Italian regional/folk traditions of unarmed, knife and stick martial arts of living traditional schools and methods. He is currently producing and directing documentary series on traditional IMAs for the international community, closely working with the Masters, their families and their closed circles, who inherited these centuries-old living legacies.
Steven Muhlberger, PhD. (Ontario, Canada) — Professor of History (retired), Nipissing University
Dr. Muhlberger is a noted researcher on late medieval chivalry and its relation to practical warfare. He studied late ancient and medieval history at Michigan State University and the University of Toronto, and taught for over a quarter of a century at Toronto, Trent University, and Nipissing University. His intellectual interests are wide and he has published scholarly works on late ancient chronicles, the world history of democracy, and formal combats in the Middle Ages.
In connection with his study of chivalry, Dr. Muhlberger has translated and interpreted some of the key texts that describe the practice of jousting, tournaments, and other formal combats. His most important books on this subject are Jousts and Tournaments, Deeds of Arms, and Charny’s Men- at-Arms. These three works not only describe what was done by warriors who took part in these activities, but also analyse why they did it. His translation of Geoffroi de Charny’s Questions has made this unique text on the law of arms and war available to a wide audience.
He is the editor of Freelance Academy Press’s Deeds of Arms series, which provides modern readers interested in chivalric combats with accessible translations of the original accounts upon which our knowledge of such competitions is based.
In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Muhlberger is a long-time member of the pioneering medieval re-creation organization, the Society for Creative Anachronism. As a member, he took part in SCA-style combat re-creations for 40 years.
TOM LEONI (VIRGINIA, USA) — TRANSLATOR AND RESEARCHER IN ITALIAN MARTIAL ARTS AND CHIVALRIC CULTURE OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE
Tom Leoni was born in Switzerland and grew up in Northern Italy, where he acquired a thorough Classical education and a passion for historical Renaissance swordsmanship.
Since his coming to America in 1990, he has become known in the growing Western Martial Arts community for his work on historical Italian fencing theory and technique, especially on the Italian rapier and the Bolognese school. As a researcher, he has also shed considerable light on Renaissance dueling jurisprudence in Northern Italy.
Tom has also contributed articles to various Western Martial Arts anthologies–such as SPADA II and In the Service of Mars: Proceedings from the Western Martial Arts Workshop (vols I and II)–as well as to historical swordsmanship magazines such as WMA Illustrated. He has privately released a successful translation of Fiore de’ Liberi’s “Fior di Battaglia” (Getty MS version), and is currently in preparation (with IAS founding member Gregory Mele) of a four volume critical edition of all four of the surviving manuscripts.
As a swordsmanship instructor, Tom Leoni regularly appears at International events and reunions both in the US and abroad–including WMAW, ISMAC, 4W, VISS, NHSC, the Australian Historical Fencing Convention and others.
Tom’s formal education ranges from the humanities to classical music to business administration. He now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, where he pursues a Ph. D. in medieval studies at Catholic University, and teaches historical swordsmanship via his own academy, the Order of the Seven Hearts.
DANIEL JAQUET, PH.D. — UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA (SWITZERLAND) RESEARCHER IN ARMOURED COMBAT, AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHORITY IN MARTIAL ARTS AND CHIVALRIC CULTURE OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES
Daniel Jaquet is a medievalist, with a background in literary studies and interest in history of science and material culture in the early modern period. He received his P.hD. in history at the University of Geneva in 2013. He taught at the Unive rsity of Geneva and Lausanne (2008-2015) and was a visiting scholar at the Centre pour l’Histoire des sciences et des techniques (University of Paris, Pantheon Sorbonne 1, 2011). His teaching and research specializations are the history of warfare, the anthropology of single combat, ludic practices and knowledge transmission in technical literature at the end of the Middle Age and the beginning of the Renaissance. He actively works toward recognition of the field of Historical European Martial Arts studies, notably by proposing methods of modern-day laboratory-based experimentation.
Arditi Prize winner in 2006 for his master’s thesis, his doctoral thesis, Combattre en armure à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début de la Renaissance, concerns the praxes of armoured combat at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, in the light of the surviving technical manuals. A portion of the practical experimentation that accompanied this work was presented as a video at the exhibition L’Epée. Usages, mythes et symboles (“Sword Uses, Myths and symbols.”), organized by the Cluny Museum, Paris in 2011. An active author and article contributor, he also served as editor for L’Art Chevaleresque du Combat. le Maniement des Armes a Travers les l Ivres de Combat and co-founded Acta Periodica Duellatorum (APD) the first academic yearbook of publications related to Historical European Martial Arts.
A martial practitioner as well as an academic researcher, Dr. Jaquet has a martial art experiences in medieval and German and Italian traditions, Judo and Yoseikan Budo.
Robert N. Charrette (Virginia, USA) — Independent Scholar
An accomplished author, illustrator and historian of 14th-century daily life, Mr. Charrette has devoted his life to combining a childhood love of knights and related culture, with his artistic training and his avocation as a “living historian”. After involvement in nascent “medieval reenactment” in America, in the 1980s, he was first introduced to the work of Fiore dei Liberi via a photocopy of Novati’s Pisani-Dossi facsimile with rough translations pasted over the text. It would be over a decade before he could seriously return to the question of “how did they fight?”
Fortunately, about the same time he became involved with creating a living history group interpreting English forces in the Hundred Years War, a group that became La Belle Compagnie, which allowed him to indulge his interest in material culture and archaeological re-creation. The fruit of this labor was 1381: The Peel Affinity (with La Belle Compagnie), an illustrated look at a year in the life of a single knightly household in rural England, andThus, when he returned to the study of armizare, he was able to bring the skills he had developed in reconstructing 14th-century material culture to reconstructing the martial art within its original context. The end result was Armizare: The Chivalric Martial Art System of il Fior di Battaglia (2011).
Jason is the principal instructor and curriculum director for Les Maîtres d’Armes. Active since 2001 in historical swordsmanship, he began his love affair with the sword at a young age, and finally fulfilled his dreams of becoming a swordsman when he discovered the Codex Wallerstein and Secrets of Medieval German Swordsmanship by Christian H. Tobler. Following on the heels of these discoveries were yet more discoveries, as the online community grew: Fiore dei Liberi and the I.33 or Lutgerus manuscript, all of which he studied to a greater or lesser degree.
Founding Les Maîtres d’Armes with Bernard Emmerich in 2005, Jason focused his studies on a single tradition, that of l’Arte dell’armizare, to better progress in his training. Since then, he has developed curricula for all the weapons of the system, as well as a ranking system which he has now aligned with the goals of the IAS.
Leveraging his experience as a teacher and his ongoing studies in pedagogy at the University of Sherbrooke, Jason continues to refine the curriculum and help give direction through qualifying the Quality of Execution (QoE) model used by the IAS.
Gregory Mele has had an abiding love for all things medieval since early childhood, melding his love of history into his collegiate studies, graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with degrees in History and Journalism. He currently focuses on the Italian martial traditions from the 14th to mid-16th centuries, for which he co-founded the Chicago Swordplay Guild in 1999 to create a formal venue to study historical European swordsmanship and its adjunct arts. In October of that year he also organized and hosted the first Western Martial Arts Workshop as an attempt to promote these arts among practitioners throughout North America. The workshop now draws participants from three continents. The Guild itself has continued to flourish and now has a permanent, full-time sala d’arme in Chicago, as well as chapters in Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Texas.
He has been an invited instructor at the Western Martial Arts Workshop, the Schola St. George Swordplay Symposium, in the San Francisco Bay area, the Symposium on the Western Arts of Swordsmanship through History, at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, UK, the Vancouver International Swordplay Symposium and a number of private seminars in both the USA and Canada.
Greg has a number of publications as an author, co-author, editor and contributor including Flowers of Battle: The Complete Martial Works of Fiore dei Liberi (with Tom Leoni and Ken Mondschein), Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: the 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Filippo Vadi (co-authored with Luca Porzio), contributions to SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship and two-volumes of In the Service of Mars: Proceedings from the Western Martial Arts Workshops 1999 – 2009 (2010). He authored the historical Western martial arts entries for the 2010 edition of the Martial Arts of the World: An Encyclopedia of History and Innovation, and wasregular contributor to Western Martial Arts Illustrated, on whose editorial board he served. He is the co-author (with Tom Leoni) of the first volume of Flowers of Battle: The Complete Martial Works of Fiore dei Liberi (2016), a multi-volume translation and critical edition of the master’s works. Greg is also the author of the forthcoming The Art of Arms: Medieval Italian Swordsmanship (2016), the first in an instructional series on the martial arts of Fiore dei Liberi. Greg has also presented several papers on this topic, from armizare to the judicial duel at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and organized and co-hosted one day symposiums on the western martial arts at both the University of Chicago and Loyola University.
Sean Hayes is a fencing master trained in classical Italian fencing pedagogy under Dr. William M. Gaugler at the San Jose State University Fencing Masters Program, graduating in 1999. He has studied Western Martial Arts since the early 1990′s, and is also a researcher, teacher and practitioner of Fiore dei Liberi’s L’arte dell’Armizare, including a focus on the armored aspects of medieval martial arts, actively using his training under Maestro Gaugler to assist his research in the Historical European Martial Arts. Through Maestro Gaugler, he has a primary master-student lineage back to Tommaso Bosco e Fucile, an 18th century Neopolitan master, and a secondary lineage back to Giovanni Battista Marcelli, a 17th century master.
Hayes is a full-time teacher and practitioner of Historical European Martial Arts, teaching six centuries of European martial arts privately through his own school, Northwest Fencing Academy, in Eugene, Oregon. He also teaches classical fencing and martial arts at Lane Community College. Hayes has presented academic papers on L’Arte dell’Armizare at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, the University of Chicago, the Renaissance Society of America Conference in Venice, Britain’s Royal Armouries, and the American Association of Italian Studies.
During the last 14 years he has taught and fought multiple times at the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine Wisconsin, the Symposium on the Western Arts of Swordsmanship through History (SWASH) at Britain’s Royal Armouries in Leeds, the Vancouver Swordplay Symposium International in British Columbia, the International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention in Michigan, Borealis Swordplay Symposium in Quebec, Lysts on the Lake, Longpoint 2014 in Maryland, and sat as a member of the Examination Board for all levels of fencing instructors at the San Jose State University Fencing Masters Program.
In 2009 he founded the Armoured Deeds of Arms, a tournament featured at the Western Martial Arts Workshop in Racine Wisconsin, and in 2010 he co-founded the Companions of the Seven Swords, an armored company that now hosts the Armoured Deeds of Arms in a variety of venues. He is also a founding member of the Chivalric Fighting Arts Association.
He is the author of Memory and Performance: Visual and Rhetorical Strategies of Medieval Martial Arts Texts in Can These Bones Come To Life, a record of proceedings at the Kalamazoo Medieval Conference, and The Importance of Skill Progressions in Studying Western Martial Arts, an article featured in the book In the Service of Mars, and several blog articles.
Strength (Forteza)
