De lo Schermo, overo Scienza d'Arme (Salvator Fabris, 1606)

De lo Schermo, overo Scienza d'Arme is a printed fencing treatise by the Paduan master Salvator Fabris (1544–1618). It appeared in Italian in Copenhagen on 25 September 1606, from the printer Henrik Waltkirch. The edition was financed by, and dedicated to, the Danish king Christian IV, at whose court Fabris served as chief fencing master from 1601 to 1606. The work consists of two books of three parts each. The first deals with the rapier alone, the rapier with dagger and the rapier with cloak, the second again with the rapier alone and the rapier with dagger, and at the end with wrestling holds, the dagger and the cloak. According to Wiktenauer, it is a systematic exposition of guards, distance, counter-postures, blade binds, parries and cuts. The 191 copper engravings were made by Nicolaus Andrea of Flensburg (title page and portraits), Jan van Halbeeck (heraldry and most of the illustrations) and Francesco Valesio. Wikipedia calls the book the first Danish book with copper engravings. The print is based on the three-volume illustrated manuscript Scientia e Prattica dell'Arme of 1601 (GI.kgl.Saml.1868.4040), which Fabris dedicated to Duke Johan Fredrik of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp when he left for royal service. The unsold copies were issued again in Padua in 1624 under the title Della vera pratica et scienza d'armi. According to Wiktenauer, the treatise was reprinted for more than a hundred years, last in Leipzig in 1713, and was translated into German at least four times, as well as into French and Latin. Tom Leoni's English translation appeared in 2005.

Martial arts in this work

Contents

Book I proceeds from the rapier alone (pages 1 to 76) through the rapier with dagger (76 to 133) to the rapier with cloak (134 to 149). Book II returns to the rapier alone (151 to 218) and the rapier with dagger (218 to 242), closing with a section on wrestling and holds, on the dagger including bare-hand defence against it, and on the cloak (243 to 256). The print has 256 pages and 191 copper engravings. According to Wiktenauer, the exposition rests on guards, estimation of distance, counter-postures and blade binds, from which Fabris derives parries and cuts, and stresses controlled handling of the weapon.

Origin

Wiktenauer states that Fabris was already working on the text in the fifteen-nineties. An older form of the work is preserved in the three-volume, richly illustrated manuscript Scientia e Prattica dell'Arme of 1601, shelfmark GI.kgl.Saml.1868.4040, which Fabris gave as a farewell gift to Duke Johan Fredrik of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp before he entered the service of the Danish king. Wiktenauer assigns to Fabris further manuscripts as well: La Scientia della Spada (KB.73.J.38) from 1600 to 1609, a set of drawings Figures nues, positions d'escrime a l'epee (MS 17) from 1600 to 1620, and a German manuscript translation Fechtkunst aus dem Italienischen (Dresd.C.94a) from around 1635.

Editions and translations

The Paduan printer Pietro Paolo Tozzi put the unsold copies of the first edition back on the market in 1624 under the title Della vera pratica et scienza d'armi and replaced the damaged leaves with new ones. In 1622 Jacob de Zeter published in Frankfurt a bilingual French-German edition of the first two parts of the second book, according to Wiktenauer the first French translation. Wiktenauer regards as the first translation of all the German edition by Isaac Elzevier of Leiden from 1619, with woodcuts instead of copper engravings. An Italian-German edition with parallel text, in the translation of Johann Joachim Hynitzsch, appeared in Leipzig, according to Wiktenauer in 1677, and was reprinted in 1713. Of the modern translations, the English one by Tom Leoni appeared in 2005, the Spanish one in 2010 (translated by Eugenio Garcia-Salmones), and in 2022 the English translation by A. F. Johnson, made at the beginning of the 20th century.

People and martial arts

• Salvator FabrisAuthor
• Johann Joachim HynitzschTranslator
• Tom LeoniTranslator
• Nicolaus AndreaIllustrator
• Jan van HalbeeckIllustrator
• Francesco ValesioIllustrator
• Christian IV of DenmarkPatron

Details

Form

Printed book

Illustrations

191

Editions

• 1606 · IT · De lo Schermo, overo Scienza d'Arme · Henrik Waltkirch · 256 pp. · first edition
• 1622 · FR · Jacob de Zeter · translation
• 1624 · IT · Della vera pratica et scienza d'armi · Pietro-Paolo Tozzi
• 2005 · EN · The Art of Dueling: Salvator Fabris' Rapier Fencing Treatise of 1606 · Chivalry Bookshelf · translation
• 2010 · ES · La esgrima o la ciencia de las armas · translation
• 2022 · EN · Fencing or the Science of Arms · HEMA Bookshelf · translation