Gründtliche Beschreibung der… Kunst des Fechtens

("A Thorough Description of… the Art of Fencing") is a German fencing manual written by Joachim Meyer and printed in 1570. Building on his earlier 1560s work in MS Bibl. 2465 and MS A.4°.2, it is a complex, sophisticated treatise purporting to teach the entire art of fencing (something that Meyer claimed had never been done before), and represents a significant evolution of the art that Johannes Liechtenauer taught 150 years earlier.

This is not a ‘true’ facsimile in that it does not seek to reproduce a single specific copy of the book. Rather, combines the lavishly-painted prints from the Leipzig University Library’s copy with pages from nearly a dozen others containing annotations, doodles, and other use marks that were discovered during the Meyer Census Project. In this way, it seeks to represent as fully as possible the ways in which 16th and 17th century readers interacted with their copies of the book.

This facsimile is printed on cotton rag paper to simulate the texture and handling of Medieval paper and bound in grey pigskin with 7 mm boards and blind-tooling patterned after the copy owned by the Leipzig University Library.

Edition size: 250 copies