Search Results: Fencing from Florilegius

Rare first edition of this 17th century French military exercise book covering mostly musket drills, but also pike, sword and grenade. L'art militaire françois, pour l'infanterie. Contenant l'exercise et le maniement des armes, tant des officiers que de soldats, réprésenté par des figures en taille-douce dessinées d'après nature.
Frontispiece, iv, 174 (of 178), and 83 (of 85) engraved copperplates, each captioned within the plate. Missing title page, a page of the "epistre," pages 87-90 with plates XLIV and XLV.
Pierre Giffart (1637-1723), was a gifted engraver who was appointed engraver to the king in the 1680s. He is both artist, engraver and publisher.Incomplete disbound copy, but with 83 fine copperplate engravings with strong impressions, slight toning and dust to edges, some repairs to paper.

Good copy of the first English octavo edition with plates by Thomas Rowlandson of this classic fencing manual.Complete with 47 engraved plates of classic fencing positions on 44 sheets. The original 1787 edition, the first to include plates redrawn and engraved by Thomas Rowlandson. All plates dated 1783.The first octavo edition of Domenico Angelo's renowned guide to swordsmanship, first published in folio with illustrations by James Gwin in 1763. Edited by Domenico's son and fencing master Henry Charles William Angelo who "endeavoured to render it of more general use, by reducing it both in size and price." The original plates and text were featured in the Escrime (Fencing) section of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie and praised with "Had we known of any work more perfect in its kind, we should have made use of it."Angelo's school in Carlisle House, Soho, London was popular with English royalty and celebrities including Lord Byron, artists Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough and George Stubbs, actor… Read More