Customer Reviews

Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Fillipo Vadi

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Some old swordsmanship treatises are useful only to the swordsman, but some, like Filippo Vadi's Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi are works of art in their own right. This lavish colour manuscript is one of the key works of Italian swordsmanship. Dating from the 1480s it forms an important link between the early 15th century works of Fiore Dei Liberi and the 16th century works of Marozzo, Manciolino et al.

Luca Porzio's fine English translation brings this work to life as an instructional manual in a deadly combat system. Greg Mele's informative introductory chapters add value to an already worthwhile volume. This work is a few years old, but isn't the sort of book that rapidly dates (like an interpretation). It contains sections on longsword, fighting in armour with sword and pollaxe, dagger and unarmed vs dagger.

Anyone interested in 15th century artwork, the medieval teaching process, the history of fencing, medieval or Italian swordsmanship, or just how to use a sword, should rush to get a copy of this fine work.

Stephen Hand
Author, English Swordsmanship, Medieval Sword and Shield
Editor, Spada, Spada II

I found Arte Gladitoria Dimicandi, 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Fillipo Vadi to be an invaluable resource to a student of Italian swordsmanship. In the spirit of Fiore dei Liberi, Vadi has put in writing and especially spectacular color illustration plates of the various stances, etc used by the 15th century long swordsman. The translation is excellent and the editorial and references are equally helpful.
This book is a 'must have' for any historian or student of the sword.

As a practitioner of Fiore dei Liberi's style of Italian Longsword, I found this book to be very interesting and helpful. It clearly shows relation to both dei Liberi's style, as well as the later style of Achille Marozzo, and should be purchased by anybody studying both or either style of swordplay.

The Italian school shows a clearly artistic element in the growth of their swordplay (despite Vadi's claim in the "Science" of defence), both in the names as well as the visuals of their postas, very much unlike the German School of Longsword-play which visually evolved very little over time (comparatively speaking anyway).

While I do have a copy of this that I printed from the ARMA's website (http://www.thearma.com/manuals.htm), I still strongly recommend that one purchases a printed copy of this (on sale if you can), as it is formatted much better than it was on the ARMA's website. I might add that the one on the ARMA site is the rough draft for this printed copy.