| Opera Nova |
|---|
| A New Work |
 |
| Full title |
A New Work by Achille Marozzo of Bologna,
General Master of the Art of Arms |
|---|
| Also known as |
The Art of Arms of Achille Marozzo of Bologna |
|---|
| Author(s) |
Achille Marozzo |
|---|
| Illustrated by |
Hans Sebald Beham (?) |
|---|
| Dedicated to |
Count Rangoni |
|---|
| Place of origin |
Bologna, Italy |
|---|
| Language |
Italian |
|---|
| Genre(s) |
Fencing manual |
|---|
| Publication date |
1536, 1540s, 1550, 1567, 1568, 1615 |
|---|
| Pages |
296 pages |
|---|
| Treatise scans |
|
|---|
Opera Nova ("A New Work") is a Bolognese fencing manual written by Achille Marozzo and printed in 1536.[1] This is the most extensive treatise on the Dardi (or "Bolognese") school of Italian swordsmanship, as well as one of the most influential fencing manuals of the 16th century.
Publication History
Opera Nova was first printed in Modena in 1536 by D. Antonio Bergolae, featuring woodblock illustrations possibly engraved by Hans Sebald Beham.[2] The treatise was reset and reprinted in Bologna in the 1540s, and reprinted again in Venice in 1550 using the original typeset. In 1567-68 it was reprinted in Venice again, but this time based on the 1540s Bologna printing.
Perhaps owing to the popularity of the 1567 publication, a revised edition was created by Marozzo's son Sebastiano and published under the title Arte dell'Armi di Achille Marozzo Bolognese ("The Art of Arms of Achille Marozzo of Bologna"). This edition featured corrections to the text (but omitted additions made in the 1540s printing) and replaced the woodblock images with smaller copperplates by Giovanni Battista Fontana; it was printed in Venice by Antonio Pinargenti in 1568-9, and reprinted in Verona in 1615.
Four of the blocks from the first edition were used by Carlo Giuseppe Colombani to decorate his 1711 treatise L'Arte maestra.
A third edition was produced in 1999 by Giovanni Rapisardi and published in Padova by Gladiatoria Press under the title Achille Marozzo, Opera Nova dell'Arte delle Armi. This edition reproduces the woodblock prints from the first edition, but features a modernized version of the text from the second edition. It also includes book two of Giovanni dall'Agocchie's treatise Dell'Arte di Scrima Libri Tre as an appendix.
In 2018, it was translated to English by W. Jherek Swanger and self-published under the title The Duel, or the Flower of Arms for Single Combat, Both Offensive and Defensive, by Achille Marozzo. That same year, a translation of the first book was self-published by Tom Leoni under the title Marozzo Book 1.
Various other editions of the text that have been reported in literature but never confirmed. Jacopo Gelli's fencing bibliography makes reference to an edition published in Venice in 1517, of which a copy resided in the R. Biblioteca Pisana,[3] but this edition has never been found or mentioned by any other author. In 2016, Roberto Gotti published a description of a set of 17th or 18th century prints from the original woodblocks to which a date of 1529 was added; Gotti speculates that this may have been added based on a date inscribed on the blocks themselves, which would suggest an earlier edition in or around that year.[4] Finally, there are a few references in bibliographies to a French translation of Marozzo's work titled Livre d'escrime pour apprendre a tirer de l'espée et de toutes armes blanches, published in Lyon in 1580 by Pierre Mareschal,[5] but there is no known record of any copy and these references seem to be spurious.
Contents
Gallery
Digitally restored and painted images © Heidi Zimmerman, Draupnir Press; used under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Cover Pages
Woodblock Images (1536)
Copperplate Images (1568)
Additional Resources
The following is a list of publications containing scans, transcriptions, and translations relevant to this article, as well as published peer-reviewed research.
- Gotti, Roberto; Daniel Jaquet (2016). "Two late flying prints informing on the artist involved in the Opera Nova of Achille Marozzo and on the date of an original (lost) edition?." Acta Periodica Duellatorum 4(1): 213-220. doi:10.1515/apd-2016-0007.
- Marozzo, Achille (2016). Opera Nova - Livre 1. Trans. by Aurélien Calonne. Self-published. ISBN 978-2955430026.
- Marozzo, Achille (2017). Opera Nova - Livre 4 et prises. Trans. by Aurélien Calonne. Self-published. ISBN 978-2955430033.
- Marozzo, Achille (2018). The Duel, or the Flower of Arms for Single Combat, Both Offensive and Defensive, by Achille Marozzo. Trans. by W. Jherek Swanger. Self-published.
- Marozzo, Achille (2018). Opera Nova - Livre 3. Trans. by Aurélien Calonne. Self-published. ISBN 978-2955430057.
- Marozzo, Achille (2018). Marozzo Book 1. Trans. by Tom Leoni. Self-published.
- Marozzo, Achille (2019). Opera Nova - Livre 2. Trans. by Aurélien Calonne. Self-published. ISBN 978-2955430064.
- Pietersma, Miente (2023). "The Cutting Edge in Print: Images and the Discerning Mind in Achille Marozzo's Opera nova (1536)." Acta Periodica Duellatorum 11(1): 65-90. doi:10.36950/apd-2023-005.
- Rapisardi, Giovanni (1999). Achille Marozzo, Opera Nova dell'Arte delle Armi. Padova: Gladiatoria Press.
References
- ↑ According to page 148.
- ↑ Gotti 213-220
- ↑ Gelli, Jacopo. Bibliografia Generale della Scherma. Florence: Tipografia Editrice di L. Niccolai, 1890. pp 126-130.
- ↑ Gotti 213-220.
- ↑ See, for example, Blanc, Joseph. Bibliographie italico-française universelle. Vol. 1. Milan: L'auteur, 1886. p 1438.
Copyright and License Summary
For further information, including transcription and translation notes, see the discussion page.
