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FIORE DEI LIBERI'S FIOR DI BATTAGLIA, 1409
Our main course of study within the Schola Saint George is based upon the teachings of the 14th century Italian
swordmaster, Fiore dei Liberi y Frulan. Fiore was well-renowned during his day, fighting according to his Prologue five duels against other masters wearing a linen gambeson and deerskin gloves. He thus claims to have restricted his teaching.
All three surviving treatises date from the earliest years of the 15th century. All three contain a complete martial arts system, starting with wrestling
(abrazzare--"to the arms"), the progressing to an extensive
daga (dagger) section, where I find most of the tactical principles. The text applies the same principles shown in the daga and
abrazzare sections to the baton (even two wooden batons!), single-handed sword
(spada a un man), sword in two hands (spada a doi man), spear
(lanza), poleaxe (azza) and fighting on horseback. There is also armoured combat
(spada en arme), where the sword is grasped as in the German systems, at the
mezzo-spada in "halfswording".
Fiore's material is integrated, in that principles covered in one section will apply to all the others. He expects the combatant to be able to employ the same techniques no matter what weapon he fights or is confronted with, in and out of
armour, on foot and on horseback. As such, it provides an ideal foundational as a martial art, studied for historical, competitive or self-defense applications. Indeed, the unarmed system is only presented with a few examples, but it is clear from those plates that the essence of Fiore's tactics: control the opponent's weapons and then counter (with a break, bind, throw, disarm or strike), apply equally to medieval or modern hand-to-hand weapons. Many of the techniques look familiar to modern practitioners of Ju-Jutitsu or
Hapkido.
With all forms, the key to understanding Fiore's art is to realize that movements in the fight are defined by his
poste. In the unarmed section there are four, while there are twelve in the longsword section. Working from these positions, adding only footwork and power generation, the system creates a fluid, efficient base for powerful fighting. No movements are wasted, and the combatant is always in a position to regain the initiative if it is lost.
Most of Fiore's system keys for the longsword are found on the segno page, and on the poste descriptions. All of the masters showing the crossed sword
(incroisada) plays are showing what happens when the blades cross. A new student can work through the
poste, striking good stout blows and learning the basics of defense, at which point they can actually discover many of the
giocco largo (long play) techniques on their own. Each play as presented represents not merely a technique, but a principle with broad tactical applications within the system. Schola students learn to decode these principles and thus to innovate within the system, executing the plays and variations on the plays according to tactical need.
Each section begins with a master, who bears a crown. This is the starting position for the figures. Next, various applications of principles from this point take place with the scholar (wearing the garter) and the
zugadore (player) working in harmony to build skills. Some of the sections feature a single technique in the image, with another possibility explained also in the text.
We encourage our students within the Schola to look directly at the original treatises, working as far back towards the originals as possible. As such, we teach the
poste, blows, and main techniques in Italian, because we feel that the depth of information encoded in the original language has yet to be completely understood, and our philosophy is to add to our understanding of the term, rather than having to retranslate.
We know from Fiore's treatise that at least five copies of the book existed, but unfortunately only three have come down to us:
Getty MS: This is the best of the surviving treatises, with the most complete set of techniques and the most comprehensive text. The images are penned with an extremely fine hand, the master's crown and the scholar's garter done in beautiful gold leaf. The capital letters of each paragraph are rendered in blue or red ink, but unfortunately no analysis has yet been done to see if there is further encoding of the material based on the scribe's color choice. The Getty mss. serves as our base text within the Schola (Brian has a photo-facsimile from the Getty).
Bob Charron, of the St. Martin's Academy, has been translating the text, but until the Chivalry Bookshelf is able to release the text, we are working with paraphrased translations.
This translation is not yet available, although Matt Easton of the Schola Gladiatoria was also working on a translation. Soon, hopefully!
Pisani-Dossi / Novati: This manuscript, bearing some plays not present in the Getty (but also missing some), has excellent drawings akin to the Getty, but is also very short on text. There is a literal (and moderately useful) translation available through the Knights of the Wild Rose site. Because the manuscript was printed in facsimile in 1902 by Francesco
Novati, several hundred facsimile copies exist. Reprints of the Novati edition can sometimes be found on
abebooks.com. An online version is available through the Tattershall School of Defense site as well (great guys over there, too!)
Morgan: This seems to be a "best of" abbreviated mss. with longer text, sometimes identical to the Getty, but with far fewer techniques. It survives in the
Morgan-Pierpont Library New York.
When working with Fiore, we encourage students to work with the Italian as much as possible; to that end we highly recommend the online versions of Florio's
1598
and 1611
Italian/English dictionaries.
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