The Art of Sword Combat

The Art of Sword Combat
Author: Joachim Meyer
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2016-08-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 147387677X

This sixteenth-century German guide to sword fighting and combat training is a crucial source for understanding medieval swordplay techniques. Following his translation of Joachim Meyer’s The Art of Combat, Jeffrey L. Forgeng was alerted to an earlier version of Meyer’s text, discovered in Lund University Library in Sweden. The manuscript, produced in Strasbourg around 1568, is illustrated with thirty watercolor images and seven ink diagrams. The text covers combat with the longsword (hand-and-a-half sword), dusack (a one-handed practice weapon comparable to a sabre), and rapier. The manuscript’s theoretical discussion of guards sheds significant light on this key feature of the historical practice, not just in relation to Meyer but in relation to medieval combat systems in general. The Art of Sword Combat also offers an extensive repertoire of training drills for both the dusack and the rapier, a feature largely lacking in treatises of the period and critical to modern reconstructions of the practice. Forgeng’s translation also includes a biography of Meyer, much of which has only recently come to light, as well as technical terminology and other essential information for understanding and contextualizing the work.

History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration in Its Relation to Anatomic Science and the Graphic Arts

History and Bibliography of Anatomic Illustration in Its Relation to Anatomic Science and the Graphic Arts
Author: Ludwig Choulant
Publisher:
Total Pages: 538
Release: 1852
Genre: Anatomy
ISBN:

In this classical work Choulant traced the evolution of anatomical illustration from the early schematic plates up to his own time, including a valuable bibliography. This English edition, translated by Frank, is enriched by the chapter on anatomical illustration since Choulant, by Garrison. -- H.W. Orr.