Flos Duellatorum ("The Flower of Battle", Pisani Dossi MS) is a contemporary copy[1] of an Italian fencing manual authored by Fiore de'i Liberi and dated 10 February 1409.[2] The original was long believed to have been lost during World War II, but it is now known that it remained in the collection of the Pisani Dossi family and is currently housed in the Villa Pisani Dossi Archaeological Museum in Corbetta, Italy. Novati described the Pisani Dossi MS as an unbound collection of leaves, covered in a cardboard folder with a marbled paper cover.[3] This manuscript is often referred to as the Novati (for the facsimile) or Pisani Dossi (for the original).
Like the MS Ludwig XV 13, it is dedicated to Niccolò III, Marquis d'Este. It consists of approximately 35 leaves and includes two different prefaces, one in Renaissance Latin and a second in Friulian Italian with Viennese touches. The body of the text includes four to six illustrations per page, with gold leafing on the crowns and garters, each with only a brief couplet or quatrain in a neat Humanist hand to caption it.
The Pisani Dossi MS was published in facsimile by Francesco Novati in 1902, making it the only version of Fiore de'i Liberi's manual whose images are considered public domain.
Provenance
The known provenance of the Pisani Dossi MS is:[4]
- Completed by Fiore de'i Liberi on 10 February, 1409. Though it was dedicated to Niccolò III d'Este, there is no evidence that it ever passed into his library.
- before 1663 – belonged to Schier de' Prevosti da Valbregaglia, passed into the library of the Sacchi da Bucinigo family (purchased before 1902, Carlo Alberto Pisani Dossi).
- before 1902-present – owned by the Pisani Dossi family.
Contents
As the foliation of the manuscript is not known, the carta numeration from Novati's facsimile will be used instead.
Gallery
These images are sourced from Francesco Novati's 1902 facsimile of the manuscript. The manuscript itself is in the private collection of the Pisani Dossi family in Italy, but is not available for study.
Additional Resources
- dei Liberi, Fiore; Rubboli, Marco; Cesari, Luca. Flos Duellatorum. Manuale di Arte del Combattimento del XV secolo. Rome: Il Cerchio Iniziative Editoriali, 2002. ISBN 88-8474-023-1
- Novati, Francesco. Flos Duellatorum, Il Fior di Battaglia di Maestro Fiore dei Liberi da Premariacco. Bergamo: 1902.
- Rapisardi, Giovani. Fiore de' Liberi Flos Duellatorum - in armis, sine armis equester et pedesta. Gladitoria Press, 1998.
- Zanutto, Luigi. Fiore di Premariacco ed I Ludi e Le Feste Marziali e Civili in Friuli. Udine: D. Del Bianco, 1907.
References
Copyright and License Summary
For further information, including transcription and translation notes, see the discussion page.
