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The Flos Duellatorum is the name given to one of the manuscript versions of Fiore dei Liberi's illuminated manuscript fight book, written in 1410 (dated to 1409 in the old reckoning). There are five other surviving recensions, under the title Fior di Battaglia. Both Flos Duellatorum and Fior di Battaglia translate into English roughly as "The Flower of Battle," from Latin and Italian respectively.
The manuscript dated to 1409 was considered lost, and is now known to be kept in a private collection. It is referred to as the Pisani-Dossi manuscript for the last collection it was a part of before its disappearance. The information contained within survives in the form of a 1902 facsimile by the Italian historian Francesco Novati. Because of this, the Flos Duellatorum is also known as the Novati Manuscript, or the Novati Edition.
The other two surviving manuscripts are the Getty-Ludwig ("Getty's copy", Los Angeles, MS Ludwig XV13) and the Pierpont Morgan Library ("Morgan's copy", New York, MS M 0.0383) copies. Both of these bear the title Fior di Battaglia, and both are undated.
The Morgan copy unlike the other two versions does not contain a dedication to Nicolò III d'Este, in whose service Fiore composed his treatise. Its prologue is similar to the Getty version.
The Getty-Ludwig version is the most informative, being distinguished by several categorizations added by its copyist and, according to Robert Charron, an expert on the manuscript, by the degree of comprehension of the master's teaching displayed.
Inventories of the Estense library in Ferrara indicate that there were at least five copies of Fiore's work. By 1508, the manuscripts cease to be mentioned in the inventories. Two versions of Fiore's manuscript re-surfaced in private collections in Venice. The Morgan and Getty versions both were kept in England during the 19th century, before being moved to their present locations in America in the 20th century.
The Novati consists of illustrated pictures of the plays accompanied by short, rhyming verses in Italian to describe them.
The Pisani-Dossi version contains major sections on:
Fiore also mentions the use of:
The best known image from the Flos Duellatorum is the sette spade (seven swords) diagram at the beginning of the longsword section (fol. 17A), reminiscent of the first image of the Codex Wallerstein. It is a figure of a man, divided by seven swords centered on the body, representing the poste or guard positions. This is surrounded by four animals, representing the main virtues of a fencer:
A longsword is a type of European sword characterized as having a cruciform hilt with a grip for primarily two-handed use, a straight double-edged blade of around 80 to 110 cm, and weighing approximately 1 to 1.5 kg.
Fiore Furlano de Cividale d'Austria, delli Liberi da Premariacco was a late 14th century knight, diplomat, and itinerant fencing master.
Johannes Liechtenauer was a German fencing master who had a great level of influence on the German fencing tradition in the 14th century.
Historical European martial arts (HEMA) are martial arts of European origin, particularly using arts formerly practised, but having since died out or evolved into very different forms.
Martial arts manuals are instructions, with or without illustrations, specifically designed to be learnt from a book. Many books detailing specific techniques of martial arts are often erroneously called manuals but were written as treatises.
Arditi was the name adopted by a Royal Italian Army elite special force of World War I. They and the opposing German Stormtroopers were the first modern shock troops, and they have been called "the most feared corps by opposing armies".
Camillo Agrippa was a noted fencer, architect, engineer and mathematician of the Renaissance. He is considered to be one of the greatest fencing theorists of all time.
The term Italian school of swordsmanship is used to describe the Italian style of fencing and edged-weapon combat from the time of the first extant Italian swordsmanship treatise (1409) to the days of classical fencing.
De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi was written by Italian fencing master Filippo Vadi between 1482 and 1487. It consists of an opening prologue describing the art of fencing followed by colored plates illustrating specific techniques for the longsword, dagger, pollaxe, spear and club. While much of what he describes closely follows the work of Fiore dei Liberi, author of Flos Duellatorum, Vadi's work also differs in some respects, including his footwork and several original techniques of his own.
Bolognese Swordsmanship, also sometimes known as the Dardi school, is a tradition within the Italian school of swordsmanship which is based on the surviving fencing treatises published by several 16th century fencing masters of Bologna, As early as the 14th century several fencing masters were living and teaching in the city: a maestro Rosolino in 1338, a maestro Nerio in 1354, and a maestro Francesco in 1385.
Francesco Novati was an Italian historian and philologist.
The Chicago Swordplay Guild is a modern school of swordsmanship and Western martial arts, and non-profit organization based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It provides organized instruction in the study and practice of historical European swordplay, with a principal focus on the Italian school of swordsmanship and other martial arts of the 14th–17th centuries. Co-founded in 1999 by Gregory Mele and Mark Rector, the Chicago Swordplay Guild seeks to be consistent with the methodology of the ancient European fencing schools by combining scholarship and research into the teachings of the historical Masters, with the practical knowledge gained through solo and partnered drilling and fencing. Since techniques are taught in reference to how effective they would be in a real encounter, the Guild practices with an absolute emphasis on safety, control, competence, and skill at arms.
Nova Scrimia is an Italian organisation which promotes the teaching of the Italian school of swordsmanship, of stick fencing, of short range fencing (dagger) and of unarmed fencing from the documented period that goes from the 15th century to the 20th century. Nova Scrimia is currently represented in Italy and other European countries, in USA and in Mexico.
Italian martial arts include all those unarmed and armed fighting arts popular in Italy between the Bronze age until the 19th century AD. It involved the usage of weapons. Each weapon is the product of a specific historical era. The swords used in Italian martial arts range from the Bronze daggers of the Nuragic times to the gladius of the Roman legionaries to swords which were developed during the renaissance, the baroque era and later. Short blades range from medieval daggers to the liccasapuni Sicilian duelling knife.
Chivalry Bookshelf was a small press based in the United States founded by Brian R. Price which published booklets and books from 1992 to 2007. It was most notable for its contributions to the Society of Creative Anachronism and the early historical fencing movement and for a dispute about plagiarism and nonpayment of royalties in 2011-12.
Schola Gladiatoria (SG) is a historical European martial arts (HEMA) group based in Ealing, west London, Great Britain, founded in 2001 and led by Matt Easton. It provides organized instruction in the serious study and practice of historical European swordplay. Schola seeks to be consistent with the methodology of the ancient European fencing schools by combining scholarship and research into the teachings of the historical masters, with the practical knowledge gained through solo and partnered drilling, and free play (sparring).
Giovan Gualberto Brunetti was an Italian composer.
Tommaso Fiore was an Italian meridionalist writer and a socialist intellectual and politician. He is known for his attention and his descriptions and studies on the inhumane conditions of Southern Italian and often specifically Apulian peasants at that time. He is also known for his Viareggio Prize-winning book Un popolo di formiche. In the 1920s, he was appointed as mayor of his hometown Altamura. During the twenty-year period of the Italian Fascist era, he strenuously opposed the regime before being sent into internal exile in 1942 and then being jailed in 1943.
Lanza Longa sometimes also known in Italian as gialda.; modernly known scholarly mostly as lanzalonga, the term was also, normally, translated in Tudor period english as Long Spear.
The Fiore di virtù is an anonymous Italian prose treatise on morality from the first half of the 14th century. It was a popular and widely translated work into the 16th century.