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Gladiatoria (MS U860.F46 1450)

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Gladiatoria
MS U860.F46 1450, Yale Center for British Art
New Haven, Connecticut

MS U860.F46 1450 IIIv.jpg
MS U860.F46 1450 01r.jpg
ff IIIv - 1r
HagedornLeng38.2.1
WierschinHils21 / 23
Also known as
  • Ars Palaestra
  • Fencing Manual, P. M. Bequest
  • MS Membr.H 109
  • MS Membr.II 109
  • MS 'T'
Type
Date ca. 1440s
Place of origin Bavaria, Germany (?)
Language(s) Early New High German
Author(s) Unknown
Material Parchment, bound in 20th century
blind tooled brown morocco
Size 43 folia
Format Double-sided; one illustration per
side, with text below
Script Bastarda
Exemplar(s) MS KK5012 (1430s)
External data Museum catalog listing
Treatise scans Digital scans (1000x1050)

The MS U860.F46 1450 is a German fencing manual probably created in the 1440s.[1] The original currently rests in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Paul Mellon Bequest) of the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. The MS U860.F46 1450 is part of the Gladiatoria group, a series of several German manuscripts from the 15th century that share the same art style and cover the same material, and seems to have been written by the same scribe as the Vienna version. The Gladiatoria manuals are interesting texts in that they seem to be contemporary with the tradition of Johannes Liechtenauer, but not directly influenced by it.

The core of the Gladiatoria group is a series of devices of armored fencing following the traditional progression of a judicial duel: beginning with spears and small shields called ecranches, moving to longswords, then employing daggers on foot and on the ground. (Traditional dueling would begin on horseback before going to foot combat, and the ecranche is designed for mounted fencing, but Gladiatoria skips that stage entirely.)

Unfortunately, parts of the manuscript are lost due to clipping and cropping of the pages. This makes the text occasionally difficult to read or to decipher at all. Comparison to the MS KK5012, the manuscript with the most similar contents, makes it clear that several centimeters are missing from the leaves; in some places even the arms or legs of the figures have been cut off, and other parts of the drawings are missing as well. Furthermore, the text passages at the bottom of ff 3, 4, and 7 have been cut out entirely.

Provenance

The known provenance of the MS U860.F46 1450 is:

  • Created in the 1440s, probably using the same scribe as the MS KK5013.
  • before 1700 – possibly owned by Pedro de Egnrca.
  • before 1792 – owned by August, hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, and bound together with a 17th century fragment of El testimonio vengado by Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (donated 1792).
  • 1792-1940s – held by the Forschungsbibliothek Schloß Friedenstein in Gotha, Germany, and listed as "MS Memb II 109" (looted during or after World War II).
  • 1940s-1960 – missing; unbound at some point and scattered.
  • 1960-1964 – several fragments acquired by AB Sandbergs Bokhandel in Stockholm, Sweden; one fragment listed as "MS T." (sold Stockholm, 1960-1964).
  • 1960-1999 – owned by Paul Mellon (1907-1999), who purchased every fragment that surfaced at auction (28 leaves in 1960, 11 leaves in 1961, 2 leaves in 1962, and 2 leaves in 1963-64) and then had the reconstituted manuscript rebound.
  • 1999-present – held by the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, in the Paul Mellon Bequest.

(El testimonio vengado resurfaced sooner, having been acquired by Hauswedell & Nolte of Hamburg, Germany in 1953. Identified as a war loss, it was taken into custody by the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, and finally identified and returned to Gotha in 1997.)

Contents

Folio Section
1r - 5r Spear in armor from Gladiatoria
5v - 29v Longsword in armor from Gladiatoria
30r - 40v Dagger in armor from Gladiatoria
41r - 43v Wrestling from Gladiatoria
43v - 44v

Gallery

Images hosted on Wiktenauer with permission from the Biblioteka Jagiellońska.

Cover 1
Cover 2
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MS U860.F46 1450 IIIv.jpg
Folio 1r
MS U860.F46 1450 01r.jpg
Folio 1v
MS U860.F46 1450 01v.jpg
Folio 2r
MS U860.F46 1450 02r.jpg
Folio 2v
MS U860.F46 1450 02v.jpg
Folio 3r
MS U860.F46 1450 03r.jpg
Folio 3v
MS U860.F46 1450 03v.jpg
Folio 4r
MS U860.F46 1450 04r.jpg
Folio 4v
MS U860.F46 1450 04v.jpg
Folio 5r
MS U860.F46 1450 05r.jpg
Folio 5v
MS U860.F46 1450 05v.jpg
Folio 6r
MS U860.F46 1450 06r.jpg
Folio 6v
MS U860.F46 1450 06v.jpg
Folio 7r
MS U860.F46 1450 07r.jpg
Folio 7v
MS U860.F46 1450 07v.jpg
Folio 8r
MS U860.F46 1450 08r.jpg
Folio 8v
MS U860.F46 1450 08v.jpg
Folio 9r
MS U860.F46 1450 09r.jpg
Folio 9v
MS U860.F46 1450 09v.jpg
Folio 10r
MS U860.F46 1450 10r.jpg
Folio 10v
MS U860.F46 1450 10v.jpg
Folio 11r
MS U860.F46 1450 11r.jpg
Folio 11v
MS U860.F46 1450 11v.jpg
Folio 12r
MS U860.F46 1450 12r.jpg
Folio 12v
MS U860.F46 1450 12v.jpg
Folio 13r
MS U860.F46 1450 13r.jpg
Folio 13v
MS U860.F46 1450 13v.jpg
Folio 14r
MS U860.F46 1450 14r.jpg
Folio 14v
MS U860.F46 1450 14v.jpg
Folio 15r
MS U860.F46 1450 15r.jpg
Folio 15v
MS U860.F46 1450 15v.jpg
Folio 16r
MS U860.F46 1450 16r.jpg
Folio 16v
MS U860.F46 1450 16v.jpg
Folio 17r
MS U860.F46 1450 17r.jpg
Folio 17v
MS U860.F46 1450 17v.jpg
Folio 18r
MS U860.F46 1450 18r.jpg
Folio 18v
MS U860.F46 1450 18v.jpg
Folio 19r
MS U860.F46 1450 19r.jpg
Folio 19v
MS U860.F46 1450 19v.jpg
Folio 20r
MS U860.F46 1450 20r.jpg
Folio 20v
MS U860.F46 1450 20v.jpg
Folio 21r
MS U860.F46 1450 21r.jpg
Folio 21v
MS U860.F46 1450 21v.jpg
Folio 22r
MS U860.F46 1450 22r.jpg
Folio 22v
MS U860.F46 1450 22v.jpg
Folio 23r
MS U860.F46 1450 23r.jpg
Folio 23v
MS U860.F46 1450 23v.jpg
Folio 24r
MS U860.F46 1450 24r.jpg
Folio 24v
MS U860.F46 1450 24v.jpg
Folio 25r
MS U860.F46 1450 25r.jpg
Folio 25v
MS U860.F46 1450 25v.jpg
Folio 26r
MS U860.F46 1450 26r.jpg
Folio 26v
MS U860.F46 1450 26v.jpg
Folio 27r
MS U860.F46 1450 27r.jpg
Folio 27v
MS U860.F46 1450 27v.jpg
Folio 28r
MS U860.F46 1450 28r.jpg
Folio 28v
MS U860.F46 1450 28v.jpg
Folio 29r
MS U860.F46 1450 29r.jpg
Folio 29v
MS U860.F46 1450 29v.jpg
Folio 30r
MS U860.F46 1450 30r.jpg
Folio 30v
MS U860.F46 1450 30v.jpg
Folio 31r
MS U860.F46 1450 31r.jpg
Folio 31v
MS U860.F46 1450 31v.jpg
Folio 32r
MS U860.F46 1450 32r.jpg
Folio 32v
MS U860.F46 1450 32v.jpg
Folio 33r
MS U860.F46 1450 33r.jpg
Folio 33v
MS U860.F46 1450 33v.jpg
Folio 34r
MS U860.F46 1450 34r.jpg
Folio 34v
MS U860.F46 1450 34v.jpg
Folio 35r
MS U860.F46 1450 35r.jpg
Folio 35v
MS U860.F46 1450 35v.jpg
Folio 36r
MS U860.F46 1450 36r.jpg
Folio 36v
MS U860.F46 1450 36v.jpg
Folio 37r
MS U860.F46 1450 37r.jpg
Folio 37v
MS U860.F46 1450 37v.jpg
Folio 38r
MS U860.F46 1450 38r.jpg
Folio 38v
MS U860.F46 1450 38v.jpg
Folio 39r
MS U860.F46 1450 39r.jpg
Folio 39v
MS U860.F46 1450 39v.jpg
Folio 40r
MS U860.F46 1450 40r.jpg
Folio 40v
MS U860.F46 1450 40v.jpg
Folio 41r
MS U860.F46 1450 41r.jpg
Folio 41v
MS U860.F46 1450 41v.jpg
Folio 42r
MS U860.F46 1450 42r.jpg
Folio 42v
MS U860.F46 1450 42v.jpg
Folio 43r
MS U860.F46 1450 43r.jpg
Folio 43v
MS U860.F46 1450 43v.jpg
Folio 44r
MS U860.F46 1450 44r.jpg
Blank
Cover 3
Cover 4

Additional Resources

  • Hils, Hans-Peter. "Gladiatoria: Über drei Fechthandschriften aus der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts." Codices manuscripti. Issue 13, 1987.

References

  1. The proposed date of the manuscript is based on the style of armor used in the illustrations.