Fencing: A Renaissance Treatise

And once you've read this book, you too will be able to say this.Both sections of this book, the background material; introduction and translator's notes, and the body of the translation are enormously rewarding.The first half of the book is an incredibly well researched and detailed body of background material that provides essential context for the twenty-first century reader. Art, science, tactics, culture, occult, and egos all shaped Agrippa's work and later perceptions of it. The author does an excellent job of addressing points brought up by critics over the centuries. At the same time, the relevance of Renaissance artistic styles, engineering, occultism and geometry are all addressed in appropriate detail for a reader looking at one of the landmarks of fencing for the first time.The second half of the book is the actual translation of Camillo Agrippa's "Trattato di Scientia d'Arme". The translator, Ken Mondschein, avoids the Italian epithet, "traduttore, traditore" ('the translator is a traitor'). Clearly, tremendous effort went into preservation of the spirit and details of Agrippa's revolutionary (for the time) work. Agrippa was, by trade, an engineer in a time when any man of social standing went armed and was prepared to redress insults with swords. Having spent some time in the company of engineers, I believe this work was the product of an engineer by vocation, who turned his gifts to the practice of fencing. The use of geometry, the efficency of technique, the innovation (the lunge is first identified in Agrippa) all support the historical record of Agrippa as an engineer rather than fencer who dabbled in geometry and literature. Most of the techniques are illustrated with rapier and a parrying dagger. This is interesting as Agrippa barely addresses the off-hand weapon, and remains focused on the rapier through most of the book. The work begins with the basic guards (four, when other schools used more), discusses the math behind the lunge, then goes into technique. Mostly sword technique, but at the end there is some attention paid to disarming and other weapons.Needless to say, the lungeis the highlight. Previously, attacks had been driven by simpler footwork and despite Capo Ferro's efforts to emphasize the point, was often based on cuts more than thrusts. Of course today, the lunge is the essential technique with foil and epee, so Agrippa's analysis of fencing and the sword appears to have been borne out. To understand how we got to where we are today can only benefit a modern fencer. This book addresses one of the essential elements fencing that has stood over four hundred years of testing.Whether a historian of the Renaissance, a modern fencer, or a student of the origins of engineering (or a fan of  The Princess Bride ) this book will be a worthy investment of time and effort.Edward M. Van CourtP.S. Re: the quotes from  The Princess Bride  about  Capo Ferro , Thibault , and Agrippa; they raise good points. Really. V

I was on the verge of refunding the book during the first minutes of reading. While it's interesting to get an introduction to the society the manual was aimed at, it was so rambling, just dropping dozens of names of people Agrippa was friends with, was related to, met briefly at some point or maybe possibly had a vague connection to. It also felt like the author was showing off his vocabulary. The sesquipedalian verbiage was impenetrable, as the author would probably write. Hilariously, the author then prefaces the translation itself with saying renaissance writers wrote overly prosaic which could make it hard to follow. Agrippa had nothing on the translator, let me tell you.It didn't help that the Kindle formatting was clearly pretty much unchanged from the printed version. The pages were solid blocks of text with paragraphs marked by indentation instead of empty space, as if page count was an issue, and the page numbers of the printed version being listed mid-sentence in brackets. If you happen to buy this anyway, changing font, increasing margins between lines etc can make it more readable, but it's still terrible.That said, I'm glad I stuck through it. Agrippa's manual is very interesting, both for historical fencing and for some insight into his society. The translation itself is very good, with interesting and helpful footnotes added here and there. It's a shame it's all marred by the formatting. If you buy it anyway, feel free to skip or skim the introduction, it's not worth the hassle. The actual content is really good.

I haven't studied much rapier fencing, but I found this book useful as a starting point because Agrippa's terminology is less confusing to me as someone not as familiar with Italian fencing terminology. There are still some certain terms that one reading this book will have to learn as they go, but no more than one might have to learn to understand, for instance, German longsword. On the whole, Agrippa's presentation of his rapier fencing technique is fairly easy to follow, as long as you have a practice rapier (or any straight, one-handed practice sword, really) on hand to test his concepts.As for the translator's lengthy piece on Agrippa himself and the environment that spawned his unique style, it is a worthwhile read for anyone seriously interested in the development of Italian fencing schools.I would definitely recommend this book to any serious student of the rapier, or those like myself who have a generalized interest in the development of swordsmanship and how it related to the culture and history that surrounded and spawned it.

As a person who is familiar with Talhoffer, and Meyer, this is a very interesting take on sword play. The guards position themselves to natural movements of the body, and while they seem uncomfortable it can be a very effective system. We see this style of fighting today with Krav Maga, reactionary combat based on what the body wants to do. Aggripa decided to make this into an fighting art, and has done it very well.I would like to give a very warm congratulations to Ken Mondschein for translating the text so well. It is very much a living translation, the spirit is still inside the book unlike so many others.In addition to combat oriented works (which is truely only 1/3 of the text itself) Aggripa disscusses nearly everything that comes to his mind. If you can follow, it is a very entertaining read to say the least, and educational of the thoughts and ideas of his time.This would make a great primer before learning Capo Ferro's school or for a person just getting started in fencing, and I would just flat out recommend this to any one a fan of the Italian Renaissance.

Good presentation of Agrippa's fencing theories, well illustrated. Might even encourage you to take up historical fencing.

An excellent read

Was a gift for my girl.

Agrippa, the professional architect and part-time fencing master, used architectural geometry to work out how to come out alive from a sword fight. All these moves were already known, but he reduced swordsmanship down to these, getting rid of the rest, as these are the only scientifically, geometrically sound moves. He founded modern Western swordsmanship. Even today every fencer in the Western tradition is a disciple of Agrippa. All the great rapier and smallsword masters took their origins from Agrippa's theory. Lots of people survived swordfights because of his teachings. Lots were killed because of his teachings. They worked. More commonly, thankfully, his teachings enabled many millions of fencing bouts to be won over the centuries. This stuff is modern science applied to ancient combat. It took a very happy marriage of ancient weaponry, in this case sword and dagger, with modern science and mathematics, to create this scientific (yet still mystical!) martial art. Swords were still very real, very commonly used weapons back then, but the way of thinking had progressed to one of math and science. Of course, there are lots of books with excellent explanations of how to fight in the scientific tradition started by Agrippa, and so if you are looking for technical proficieny, Agrippa is not necessary, as his many disciples over the years have had a voluminous output! However, what reading Agrippa directly did for me is to much better understand the _why_ for all the skills I have been taught and am being taught by my fencing masters, and honestly, knowing _why_ helps me to subtly improve _all_ my skills! To give you one practical example, I started keeping my tip more extended and closer to my adversary, with less bend at my wrist, immediately after reading Agrippa, and this subtle difference in approach drastically improved my fencing! All of a sudden! This is just one example. Why did I do this? Agrippa's science is based around keeping the point as close to the opponent as possible at all times, defensively and offensivly, as we must always threaten the enemy and use the advantage of reach to keep him at bay or to strike home. The legs are used to propel the point forward, the arm not so much - only a little bit! Even though my coaches have told me these things before, reading them in depth in Agrippa, with Agrippa's pedigree, really made them sink in for me, and really helped me to fence much better than before! Something else I like about this book is that it is one I can actually read and reread... like a real book, not just like a technical manual. Of course it is about 50% a technical manual, but the way he writes makes it more like a story or an adventure novel, the adventure being his remarkable discovery of scientific swordsmanship. I used to think badly of this kind of swordsmanship before I started fencing, as it seemed like it was overly theoretical and that it was too revolutionary against fighting traditions that were literally forged in blood and fire for centuries or millennia, and that it was not athletic enough. Of course, I was completely wrong, which is no big surprise as what is some 21st century person supposed to know about swords sitting in an armchair? A 16th century sword is heavy, and the postures you need to adopt and the movements are quite challenging and athletic. Your body has to work very hard to make the math work in your favour! Of course with time your body adapts and you become very strong and nimble with the weapon. Agrippa's pictures of very strong, athletic men, naked, demonstrating his techniques, is I think an accurate representation of the physique you develop by training this way. I have seen the transformation in myself, in my own body. As for Agrippa flying in the face of tradition. No. All this stuff was already known. Maestro Warzecha has established (along with others) that even the early L.33 treatise of sword and buckler contains all the elements found in Agrippa and the other rapier masters. What Agrippa did is to analyze fencing gemotrically and scientifically, and to point out what moves were less efficient and therefore not necessary, like what Jigoro Kano did for traditional unarmed Japanese martial arts centuries later. So, my idea that Agrippa and the rapierists were trying to reinvent the wheel was incorrect. They just made the wheel turn more efficiently (so to speak)! I am very proud to have bought and to be a reader of Agrippa. He is our founder, so it is common sense to want to read him.

Was recommended by a friend and wasn't disappointed.