MEYER, Joachim (ca 1537-1571). Gründtliche Beschreibung, der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens. Strasbourg: Berger, 1570.

Oblong 4to (178 x 244 mm). Title printed in red and black within an elaborate woodcut border; 73 woodcut plates. (A few tiny mostly marginal wormholes to last few leaves, some minor occasional spotting and soiling.) Contemporary limp vellum, yapp edges, edges sprinkled red and blue. Provenance: Early annotations in on front flyleaf; Franz Anton II, Graf Thun-Hohenstein (1809-1870), Austrian and Bohemian nobleman (bookplate from his library at Schloss Tetschen in the Czech Republic).

FIRST EDITION OF MEYER'S RARE GERMAN TREATISE ON FENCING. "Building on his earlier 1560s works...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. It treats the sword, Dussack, rapier (both single and with secondary weapons), dagger and wrestling, and various pole weapons including the short staff, halberd, and long staff (pike)" (Wiktenauer). "Meyer's celebrated work, which appeared in 1570, contains in a more systematic shape an equally complete account of the use of the popular weapons 'Dusack', 'Schwerdt', 'Helleparten', and 'Pflegel', together with a thorough system of the rapier, imitated from that of Grassi and Viggiani" (Castle, Schools and Masters of Fence, pp. XXXII and 75). Cockle 751; Pardoel 1762; Thimm p.192.

MEYER, Joachim (ca 1537-1571). Gründtliche Beschreibung, der freyen Ritterlichen unnd Adelichen kunst des Fechtens. Strasbourg: Berger, 1570.