The School of Fencing
Angelo's School of Fencing
With a General Explanation of the Principal Attitudes and Positions Peculiar to the Art
by Domenico Angelo
Edited and Presented by Jared Kirby
Notes by Maestro Jeannette Acosta-Martinez
Angelo’s legacy is one of the greatest in the history of fencing. He started a lineage of fencing-teachers in England that would continue for ever a century. L’Ecole des armes became a resource for swordsmen throughout all of Europe. Its concise and well-presented manner made it the most popular treatise on fencing for many years. It is quite rare for any fencing book to be reproduced four times in one decade as well as in two countries, and the longevity of Angelo’s treatise is matched by very few others. It remains an invaluable resource in the history of fencing.
—Jared Kirby
- Superbly illustrated, highly influential eighteenth-century fencing treatise
- Essential reading for historical swordfighters and students of martial arts and military history
- Fully annotated to render the text accessible to the modern reader
Domenico Angelo’s The School of Fencing was first published in 1763 as L’Ecole des armes. It remained the most popular book on fencing for more than fifty years, being translated and republished five times in two decades. Before taking the throne as King George III, the young Prince of Wales and his brother, Edward, Duke of York, were both students of Domenico Angelo. Angelo’s text was so influential that it was chosen to appear under the subject of Fencing in the famous Encyclopedie edited by Diderot and d’Alembert.
