Starting Online Fiore Project Finally!

[Matt Easton]

Hi guys - as some of you may know, Eleonora Litta with a little help from me produced a translation of the Getty version of Fiore dei Liberi's Fior di Battaglia some time ago and I have been working with this and presenting my interpretations for a while now.

For a long time I have talked about getting some kind of documentation for this up online. Well having come back from the outstanding Annual HEMAC Event in Dijon (where there were several ARMA members, and the main organiser, Fabrice Cognot, is also an ARMA member, incidentally) I have been totally inspired to get off my ass and do something about this!

Now, the reason I am not sticking the translation out is that Eleonora is not totally happy with it - it is totally serviceable and all clear, but she is a qualified palaeographer, philologist and linguist, not to mention a proud Italian noble, so understandably she does not want to put something out that she feels is less than perfect.

So, I have made the decision to try and put some other things out that can help the community, and of course by the end of the year Bob Charron's books will hopefully be in print, and that will no doubt help a lot of Fiore practitioners in their studies.

So how can I help?

Well firstly, I have written an article about Fior di Battaglia and Fiore and his associates for a historical arms and armour journal which is being published in conjunction with a conference in Florence, Italy. Copies of this journal can be bought here:

http://www.international-arms-and-armour-conferences.com/publication.htm

Also you will find more information about the conference at that site, and you will see that besides my article on Fiore (which contains information about Fiore previously unpublished in English), there are also articles by such names as Prof Alan Williams, David Edge (Curator of Wallace Collection Armouries), Master Armourer Chris Dobson and more.

As a nugget of information that some of you may find interesting, Fiore, when he arrived in Udine to assist the townspeople in the civil war, was put in charge of the town ballista crews! He was effectively some kind of artillery officer during the war.

The other thing that I am doing which may be of interest/help to some people, is constructing an online version of the Getty treatise Fior di Battaglia. I am constructing it in the same way, and paraphrasing the translation, and also adding my own interpretations, with extra pictures to show the transitional movements. This will take a long time and be on going, but I have just started, and you can see a bit of the structure here:

http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/gallery/

So, once more unto the breach, and onward!

Matt

[Guest]

Matt,

WOW! Very exciting and great news to hear! I have a question: Are you going to start presenting teaching seminars on Fiore? The ARMA International Event is next month but I'm looking at laying the ground work for 2004 for a Western Martial Arts Gathering here in Upstate NY and it looks like like I may have a nice facility for it at the New York State Fair Grounds. You can privately e-mail me if this is something you think you may interested in attending and instructing. It would also be nice if Eleonora could attend as well. I'm just tossing things around for now and trying to get a feel of the organizations.

Cheers,

[Matt Easton]

Hi Todd - yes I have been doing seminars since 2001 - I've done two different ARMA events at Bart's place in Poland as well as things in Italy, Germany, France and obviously here in the UK. I would definitely be interested in things in 2004 - I would have loved to have made it this year but work and money places unfair limitations on me - and I am already committed to three seminars.. We may be trying to organise something big over here for 2004 as well.

Cheers,

Matt

[Guest]

Matt, thanks in advance for the great benefit I'm sure we will all reap from this resource. I'm fascinated by Fiore, and have been anxiously awaiting a translation of the Getty manuscript. I'm greatly looking forward to seeing what you have come up with. Now get to work!

[Guest]

Good news <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> I know you have been doing seminars, my bad, but I was wondering are going to emphasize more on the translation as it unfolds? Sorry about that I've out of loop planning the ARMA event <img src="/forum/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

If you would please let me know what your planning in 2004 for so I don't conflict with your plans. I would even like to do a EURO/USA Reniassance Martial Arts Expo that takes place in Europe on one date and then in the USA on another date, so everyone has the chance to attend such a large seminar with impressive instuctions and a wide arrange of material. Again I'm juggling ideas. Cheers.

[Matt Easton]

I have started to add text to the site. Note that the majority of the text so far is paraphrased and simplified straight from the original text.

I hope to get a bunch more photos done at the weekend and start getting gioco largo techniques up, as well as some dagger plays.

Matt

[John_Clements]

Great news, Matt.

Glad to see you now getting something together.
Good luck at the Armour conference.

We are all looking forward to the 2004 US/UK /Euro plans.

JC

[steve hick]

Matt wrote:

"As a nugget of information that some of you may find interesting, Fiore, when he arrived in Udine to assist the townspeople in the civil war, was put in charge of the town ballista crews! He was effectively some kind of artillery officer during the war."

Interesting, this seems to be something like a typical job to stick your fight master, Paulus Kal had a similar job for the Dukes of Bavaria about 70 years later.
Steve

[Randall Pleasant]

Steve

This makes a lot of sense. A major factor against Japan during WWII was that they kept their best pilots on the front lines. The pilots' skill and experience died with them. American sent their best pilots back to the US to train new pilots.

Putting Fiore in charge of the ballista crews ensured that he and his experience was around to train men throughout the war.

[Matt Easton]

"Interesting, this seems to be something like a typical job to stick your fight master, Paulus Kal had a similar job for the Dukes of Bavaria about 70 years later."

Yes exactly - and Fiore was put in charge of both organising the crews and looking in the town arsenal for guns (yes guns!) to assist the allied towns!
Matt Galas told me recently that this was apparently a job often given to outstanding swordsmen, much like guarding weak points in town defences.

Cool stuff eh,

Matt

[Shane Smith]

Thats an interesting insight Ran...It wouldn't do to have Fiore skewered by an arrow in the opening exchange now would it? <img src="/forum/images/icons/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Yep those ancient warriors sure knew a fair piece about warfare and tactics alright. <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

[steve hick]

Yeah, Matt G has a lot of interesting stuff (if his book(s) ever come out).
Steve

[Matt Easton]

An interesting question that has never been addressed by any scholar that I know of is, who provided horse and harness for travelling Masters at Arms (as Fiore was for much of his career)? I guess he may have been able to afford it from his teaching fee, but it's also possible that such men engaged in helping towns and nobles, like Udine, in order to attain money and materials. And of course for honour <img src="/forum/images/icons/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Matt

[Matt Easton]

A few people have been asking me about Fiore's stances in Posta. I thought I should point out that Fiore seems to move backwards and sideways more than Liechtenauer. When he appears to be facing the wrong way, remember he can pass backwards rather than forwards!
Also, shifts on balance and weight distribution are very important and on their own can transform one posta into another. Very deceptive.

Matt