Diederich von Porath:

Palæstra svecana. Eller Den adelige fächtare-konsten.

Stockholm, Dawid Kämpe, [1693]. Folio. 30,4 x 20 cms. [63] leaves (of 65) + engraved title by E. Reitz + engraved plate. With a total of 24 engravings of fencing positions, 2 on the separate plate and the rest in text.

Lacks 2 text leaves (inciptit ”Warder altså korteligen här med för denna gången förklarat/”). The present copy is in the variant with ”Gunstige läsare” on final page and the catch-word ”rö-” of leaf H2 in the second sequence of gatherings.

Very worn and somewhat soiled contemporary half sheepskin, spine defective as well as two corners of the covers. Title with initials and an inscription in French by an A. Ebbeltofft. Some slight occasional finger-soiling but fine.

Sten G. Lindberg, Swedish Books, 31: ”This is the first book on fencing printed in Sweden. The author was born in Mecklenburg and accompanied a Swedish Embassy to Russia in 1667. He was appointed fencing-master at the Swedish Court in 1677 and taught fencing to King Charles XI as well as to his son Charles XII. He was knighted in 1699 and died in 1703. The text is largely taken from the book on fencing published in Denmark in 1606 by the Italian fencing-master at the Danish Court, Salvator Fabri [Scienza d’arme]. The engraver of the frontispiece and the 24 fencing positions is Erik Reitz who worked in Uppsala at the end of the 1680’s and from 1690 in Stockholm. He was there a pupil and collaborator of Willem Swidde in the engraving for the Suecia Antiqva et Hodierna, for which Reitz engraved 26 plates before he died in 1696. The fencers are depicted in lively action, quite different from the stiff positions in Académie de I'Epée by Girard Thibault 1628. (Berghman collection of Elzeviers, No 687, Royal Library)”.

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