The Flos Duellatorum is the name given to one of the manuscript versions of Fiore dei Liberi's

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

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 Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

respectively.

Manuscripts

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 Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

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 Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

. The Morgan and Getty versions both were kept in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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

to describe them. The Pisani-Dossi version contains major sections on: *

Wrestling Wrestling is a martial art, combat sport, and form of entertainment that involves grappling with an opponent and striving to obtain a position of advantage through different throws or techniques, within a given ruleset. Wrestling involves di ...

Dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or ...

play (including defenses against a dagger when armed with a dagger and without one) *

Sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

in one hand *

Spear A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...

and staff (The weapons are treated identically in Fiore's system) *

in two hands *Sword in

armour Armour (Commonwealth English) or armor (American English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, e ...

(Chiefly halfswording techniques) *

Poleaxe The poleaxe (also poleax, pollaxe and other similar spellings) is a European polearm that was used by medieval infantry. Etymology Most etymological authorities consider the ''poll''- prefix historically unrelated to "pole", instead meaning " ...

*Mounted combat (including wrestling, swordplay, and the lance from horseback) *Sword vs. Dagger Fiore also mentions the use of: * Bastoncello (The baton) *Staff and dagger *Pairs of clubs or

cudgel A club (also known as a cudgel, baton, bludgeon, truncheon, cosh, nightstick, or impact weapon) is a short staff or stick, usually made of wood, wielded as a weapon or tool since prehistory. There are several examples of blunt-force trauma caus ...

s *The use of the chiavarina (spear) against a man on horseback

''Sette spade''

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: *On top, the lynx holding a compass represents '' prudentia'': *: *:"No other creature is able to look so clearly as me, the lynx / and by this I ever reckon by compass and measure" *To the left, the tiger holding an arrow represents '' celeritas'' *: *:"I am the tiger, I am very quick to run and turn / That the arrow in the sky cannot approach me." *To the right, the lion holding a heart represents '' audatia'' *: *:"None bears a more ardent heart than me, a lion / And I challenge anyone to battle." *On the bottom, the elephant carrying a tower represents '' fortitudo'': *: *:"I am the elephant and I have a castle for a burden / And never do I kneel down nor do I lose my true place."

External links

Novati facsimile of the Pisani-Dossi MS
(

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

file, 42M)
" The Flower of Battle"
(Getty's copy)

(text and translation)

* ttp://www.thearma.org/essays/FDL_studyguide.v3.htm Fiore Dei Liberi: 14th century Master of Defenceby John Clements (ARMA) * http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/1443/unknown-fiore-furlan-dei-liberi-da-premariacco-il-fior-di-battaglia-italian-about-1410/ - Versione digitale del manoscritto al P. Getty Museum

Manuscripts

Contents

''Sette spade''

See also

External links

Further reading