Fiore Dei Liberi's Flos Duellatorum

"The Flower of Battle", c. 1410

In its continuing effort to promote the authentic skills of legitimate Medieval martial arts, ARMA is proud to present select portions from Dei Liberi's famed fencing manual of 141 ! "elo# are the ma$or portions both armored and unarmored on spada longa %long&s#ord' as #ell as pola(e combat in armor! More pages of )los Duellatorum #ill be featured online at ARMA in the future along #ith full illustrations and a complete and accurate Modern *nglish translation! )los Duellatorum, or "The Flower of Battle" is one of the most important Medieval fighting manuals. It is among the most complete presentations from the period of an integrated combat method of armed and unarmed, armored and unarmored, foot and mounted combat. Composed of short rhyming captions and heavily illustrated, it includes material on long sword !spadone", dagger, spear, wrestling, polea#, and lance. Covering both basic techni$ues and fundamental principles, it is mandatory study today for any serious Medieval martial artist. %ei &iberi is at present the earliest surviving master of Italian fighting arts and a primary source for the Medieval Italian long sword. Combined with other manuals and 'erman Fecthbucher it provides a firm groundwor( for understanding authentic fighting from the era s(ills. %ei &iberi)s te#t is not always clear, but enough of it is accessible in his advice to give us a good idea of his method, including his guards or stances, attac(s, counters, and philosophy of fighting. It is also an e#cellent contrast to the 'erman method of the long sword as each uses similar but not identical stances and techni$ues. The version of %ei &iberi here offers the ma*or portions on sword and polea#. +,M+ may offer translated sections in the near future. + newer -nglish translation by .rof. /ydney +nglo combining two different orginal versions of the te#t may be forthcoming in 0111. This commercial edition will clarify several (ey points, errors, and mistranslations that e#ist in current modern Italian interpretations. +s .rofessor /ydney +nglo says2 "The te#t of the .isani %ossi version is cast in neat distichs3 whereas the 'etty 4Museum5 manuscript has much longer descriptions set in verse so bad as to be barely recogni6able as such. 7et the tidy distichs do little to illuminate the sense of the illustrations, while the incompetent verse is vastly superior both in comprehensiveness and comprehensibility." /o, the 'etty version of the treatise provides longer, clearer and more pertinent commentaries. 8ery little is (nown of the master swordsman "Fiore dei &iberi da .remmariacco" e#cept what he describes of himself in his prologue. Fiore !pronounced "Fee or ray"", was born in Cividale del Friuli sometime in the mid 9:11)s. In the late 9:11)s he trained in 'ermany under "Master ;ohannes, the /wabian", who was himself a pupil of "<i(laus of Toblem" from the diocese of Met6, and which may very well have been the 'erman 'randfechtmeister, ;ohannes &iechtenauer. =e may have also studied under ;ohannes /uvenus. %ei &iberi later adapted his teachings to his own methods. =e describes that he had been practicing the art of swordsmanship for "fifty years" when he began writing his te#t so he must have been an old man by standards then. In the te#t he states he too( part in numerous battles in and around Italy for the last 01 years of the 9>th century, including, in 9:?: he fought in @dine, fighting on the side of the town during the civil war. In 9:AB he was in .adua for a duel and four years later in 9:AA he was in .avia. Then in 9>11 he was appointed master swordsman to the court of <iccolo III d)-ste,

Mar$uise of Ferrara and later ac$uired a commission as a master swordsman on behalf of /ignore di Ferrara. =e then began to write the manuscript for the (nightly nobility and dedicated his treatise to the mar$uise. %ei &iberi appears to have died before 9>B1. The historical influence of %ie &iberi)s teachings is still being determined, but for modern students of the sword it is priceless.