The final copies of the facsimile can be purchased through our web store at hemabookshelf.com/getty-facsimile
Summary
My name is Michael Chidester. I started HEMA in 2001, and for the past ten years, I've been leading a project called Wiktenauer. Wiktenauer grew out of a desire to set the text of our fencing manuals free from the page and put it into the hands of fencers. What I'd like to do with this project is slightly different: put the page, and the whole book, into your hands as well. We're going to produce a full facsimile of one of the most important 15th century fencing treatises, the copy of Fior di Battaglia held by the J. Paul Getty Museum in sunny Malibu, California (ms. Ludwig XV 13).
Facsimile is a word that's thrown around a lot, and means different things to different people. What I mean when I use it is a careful reproduction of the entire physical book in detail. Such facsimiles are often produced of famous manuscripts and early printed books for collectors, and they are also exhibited by museums and libraries in cases where the original can't or shouldn't be displayed.
In other words, it's a book you can pick up and touch without endangering something priceless, but which will at least half-convince you that you're holding the original.
At various times, I have had the privilege of handling several 15th and 16th century fencing manuscripts, as well as copies of most of the printed fencing manuals published before 1600, and I wish everyone in HEMA could have that same chance. It's a way of connecting to history that's hard to describe. A good facsimile can capture at least a small piece of that magic, and give you a sense of what the origin of our fencing reconstruction really is.
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Comparing the New Haven Gladiatoria manuscript (top) to the Orbis Pictus facsimile of the Kraków Gladiatoria (bottom).
There are many treatises worthy of this sort of project, but in the past only two have received it: the Gladiatoria manuscript held by the Biblioteka Jagiellońska in Kraków, Poland, and Walpurgis Fechtbuch, held by the Royal Armouries in Leeds, UK. Last fall, we set about producing a third one: Hans Talhoffer's manuscript Thott 290 2º, held by Det Kongelige Bibliotek in København, Denmark.
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The 2020 Talhoffer facsimile.
This effort succeeded beautifully, and reviews of the Talhoffer facsimile have been glowing. (You can read some of them below.) I said at the time that if it succeeded, it would be the first of many. The second of many, then, will be Fiore.
Fior di Battaglia is a beautiful illuminated manuscript created in Venice or Padua in the first decade of the 15th century. It is written on vellum in a Friulian dialect of Italian, using a humanistic hand. Its position as the oldest surviving Italian fencing treatise (or a copy thereof), as well as the oldest illustrated treatise covering each of its weapons, makes it one of the most important historical fencing manuals in existence.
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It is particularly prized by students of its author, Fiore dei Liberi, because by many metrics it is the most comprehensive copy of his teachings, containing the most text if not the most illustrations. (I personally prefer the Morgan Library and Museum's copy, but at less than half the length of the Getty's, and lacking several weapons, it wouldn't make a very impressive facsimile.)
What We Need & What You Get
Facsimiles like this are usually quite expensive. For example, the Orbis Pictus Gladiatoria cost about $900, while the Extraordinary Editions I.33 was released in two different editions, costing around $1,000 and $2,000. Facsimiles for more famous or lavish manuscripts can run into the five figure range.
One of my objectives in the Talhoffer project was to see how inexpensively such a book can be produced. I selected Grimm Book Bindery in Madison, Wisconsin, to do the printing and binding, and spent quite a bit of time discussing the project with them and ironing out every detail to be as precise as possible.
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The cover of the Talhoffer facsimile, including the original blind-tooled design and the title applied by a later owner.
This time around, we've worked out the basic process, so I'm going to try for even more minute accuracy:
- The book will be approximately the same size as the original (to within about a centimeter).
- Most of the Getty's scans are offered for free online with an open license, but I've also purchased and licensed scans of the two text-only pages and thirteen blank pages (which aren't online), so we can get an accurate look at the manuscript from cover to cover.
- We can't use real vellum, and even if we could, the skin's pattern would clash with the pattern that's already on the Getty scans. So instead, I bought a sheet of goatskin parchment and sent it to the binder so they could figure out a paper that matches the weight and feel of it as closely as possible.
- We're going to replicate the actual quire structure of the manuscript, so all the pages will be center-sewn and bound in the exact same way as the original, tipped-in pages and all.
- We'll be using the same 7-8 mm boards as in the Talhoffer facsimile (which are about 3 times thicker than today's book covers).
- The covers will be made of goatskin leather, with the blind-tooling (imprinted design) on the current cover replicated, as before.
I haven't decided on what the cover will look like, but I have two candidates. One is the actual current cover, which only dates back to the 18th or 19th century (possibly ordered by Thomas Phillips). The other is a typical Biblioteca Estense binding, such as the manuscript might have been given if/when it entered Niccolo d'Este's library in the first place; this one's problematic because nearly all of these bindings date to the 18th century, and I haven't been able to determine whether this style is based on an older design that might have been around in the 15th.
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The brown cover is what the manuscript currently has, whereas the red cover is what it might have had in the 1400s (but I can't be sure).
To create this book, we need a minimum of 100 orders, so I have set the funding goal accordingly. The Talhoffer facsimile was sold for $150, and with unexpected costs and overruns (and a few unplanned last-minute improvements) it very nearly ended up in the red. This time, I've regrettably raised the price a bit to ensure that this won't happen again. I hope this remains affordable at $175.
The cost of these books depends on volume, so it will be a one-and-done print run, and people who don't order now will not have a chance again (unless we can scrape together another 100 orders). If we can get up to 250 orders, then some additional enhancements might become feasible (more on that as we go).
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The five masters of fighting with the dagger.
I hope this book will be heirloom quality, but also durable enough to actually study out of. I would love to hear of someone actually teaching out of it in class.
Unlike the Talhoffer, there will be no companion volume this time. There have been multiple high-quality books written about the Getty in the past few years, and I have little to add to the excellent scholarship out there. (Though I will be publishing on the Morgan in the next few months.) If you want a companion to this facsimile, I recommend both of the following:
You can also buy my prior work on Fiore, The Flower of Battle of Master Fiore de'i Liberi, Volume 1 and Volume 2.
Risks & Challenges
Now that I have one of these projects under my belt, most of the unknowns have been sorted out and accounted for. A lot of the learning curve will transfer over directly to this new project. If all goes as planned, we will have these books produced and shipped by Christmas. The whole reason I am launching it this week rather than a month from now is because of the bindery's production schedule and availability.
However, the first project was delayed six months due to CoViD-19, which both forced the bindery to close for a few months and also disrupted their supply lines in ways that they're still trying to recover from. Another major lockdown in the autumn is still a possibility in these uncertain times, and in that case, we'll be lucky to have the books by spring.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't contribute to this project, please spread the word anyway. I have no doubt that there are 100 people who would love to own this book, but I may not be able to find them all myself. We got 300 orders for the Talhoffer facsimile, so let's see if there are at least that many Fiorists out there!
Please share this campaign with your clubs, with your friends, and on social media!
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Praise for the Talhoffer Facsimile
"The Talhoffer reconstruction that Michael Chidester has spearheaded and produced is nothing short of magnificent. Its quality is quite high and exactly what you would expect for the price, and the experience of paging through a manuscript is invaluable for researchers of fight books. I plan to purchase each edition as they come out, even if the book is outside my typical study, and recommend you do the same."
~ Jess Finley, author of Medieval Wrestling
"As the author and publisher of several translation/editions, there is something uniquely magical about holding an exact facsimile of a 600 year old book, no additions or alterations. Michael has worked hard to bring just that in an affordable edition with his recent Talhoffer, and it is a delight to behold. I am excited to build a collection of all the volumes that follow."
~ Greg Mele, co-author and editor of the Flowers of Battle series
"It's frickin' amazing. I just spent half an hour drooling over every page... and wishing I had the armor... and the carts!"
~ Jake Norwood, the guy who named Wiktenauer
"Producing a top-quality hand-bound facsimile is a challenging project, but Mike Chidester’s Talhoffer reproduction exceeded my expectations in quality and in the speed of execution, producing extraordinary book for a very low price. I’ll treasure it forever. He was also unusually efficient at keeping his backers informed of the inevitable Corona-related hitches along the way. I am 100% confident in backing his Getty Manuscript facsimile campaign, because I know he can and will deliver."
~ Guy Windsor, itinerant swordsman and author of many books about Fiore
The five masters of fighting with the dagger.
