Historical European Martial Arts - Renaissance

Renaissance

Further information: Elizabethan Fencing

In the 16th century, compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed, notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s).

In the 16th century German fencing had developed sportive tendencies. The treatises of Paulus Hector Mair and Joachim Meyer derived from the teachings of the earlier centuries within the Liechtenauer tradition, but with new and distinctive characteristics. The printed fechtbuch of Jacob Sutor (1612) is one of the last in the German tradition.

In Italy, the 16th century is a period of big change. It opens with the two treatises of Bolognese masters Antonio Manciolino and Achille Marozzo, who describe a variation of the eclectic knightly arts of the previous century. From sword and buckler to sword and dagger, sword alone to two-handed sword, from polearms to wrestling (though absent in Manciolino), early 16th century Italian fencing reflects the versatility that a martial artist of the time was supposed to achieve.

Towards the mid-century, however, polearms and companion weapons beside the dagger and the cape gradually begin to fade out of treatises. In 1553, Camillo Agrippa is the first to define the prima, seconda, terza and quarta guards (or hand-positions), which would remain the mainstay of Italian fencing into the next century and beyond. From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris (1606).

  • Antonio Manciolino (1531) (Italian)
  • Achille Marozzo (1536) (Italian)
  • Angelo Viggiani (1551) (Italian)
  • Camillo Agrippa (1553) (Italian)
  • Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza (1569) (Spanish)
  • Giacomo Di Grassi (1570) (Italian)
  • Giovanni Dall’Agocchie (1572) (Italian)
  • Henry de Sainct-Didier (1573) (French)
  • Angelo Viggiani (1575) (Italian)
  • Frederico Ghisliero (1587) (Italian)
  • Vincentio Saviolo (1590) (Italian)

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