Dürer's Fightbook
The Genius of the German Renaissance and His Combat Treatise
Author: Dierk Hagedorn, Daniel Jaquet
Highlights
Lavish illustrations by Albrecht Dürer, the famous German Renaissance artist The first full-colour reproduction of the entire Dürer fight book that has ever been published.
Contains the entire text, once as an exact word-for-word transcription of the original text, and once as a translation into modern English. With an extensive examination of the centuries-old fight book. A vast array of fighting disciplines such as combat with the sword, the dagger or the lance – even unarmoured wrestling is featured prominently.
Description
Albrecht Dürer is probably the most famous German artist of the Renaissance, if not of all
time. His works are world-famous and he was a master in numerous artistic disciplines such as woodcut, copperplate engraving, drawing and painting.
What is less well known is that he was interested in weapons and fencing throughout his life. He produced several woodcuts for a tournament book by Emperor Maximilian I, but he devoted himself much more thoroughly to the subject of duels in his own extensive fencing manuscript.
Dürer’s fight book stands out from the mass of illustrated fencing manuscripts because of its outstanding quality. In well over 100 elaborate drawings, the master uniquely depicts dynamic pairs of fighters practising contemporary combat techniques, such as wrestling or sword and dagger fighting.
Since its creation more than 500 years ago, the fight book has never been published in its entirety. This edition offers the complete contents of the manuscript for the very first time: All illustrations are reproduced in colour and the complete text is presented in a letter perfect transcription as well as a translation into modern English.
Albrecht Dürer's fight book offers a unique, new look at Dürer the artist and Dürer the
fighter.
Author Details
Dierk Hagedorn is a long sword instructor at Hammaborg, a club for historical fencing in Hamburg, and a passionate wearer of armour. He has transcribed more than 30 of the approximately 80 surviving fight books in the German language. In 2017, he won the HEMA Scholar Award. He works for the IT subsidiary of a large German airline for
numerous creative issues such as user experience, interface and corporate design.
