Spada Press

Affordable facsimiles. Bringing swordsmanship to life!

Spada Press was founded in January 2017, with the launch of our beautiful full-colour facsimile edition of the legendary Il Fior di Battaglia, by Fiore dei Liberi. Our purpose is simple: to put affordable facsimiles of historical european martial arts sources into the hands of enthusiasts.

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Latest Release

The True Principles of the Sword

In 1670, Philibert De La Touche published an extraordinary book, Traicté sur les vrays principes de 1’espée seule (Treatise on the true principles of the sword alone). It is one of the earliest fencing manuals to cover the dazzling new style of sidearm, the smallsword. Light, fast and deadly, it was all the rage in the Royal court of France, and swiftly spread to most of Europe. This book represents a key moment in the history of fencing. And it is yours, free. You can download a pdf of…

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News

The Secrets of the Sword Alone: Henri Sainct Didier’s Traicté

We are delighted to announce that Henry Sainct Didier’s beautiful and comprehensive treatise from 1573, Traicté contenant les secrets du premier livre sur l’éspée seule (Treatise containing the secrets of the first book on the sword alone), is ready for you to download in full colour (at 670mb). The book is lavishly illustrated with 64 woodcuts showing […]

The True Principles of the Sword

Spada Press is delighted to announce that we have released the first of our National Fencing Museum collection treatises free into the world. Philibert De La Touche’s seminal work Traité de Vrais Principes d’espee seule (Treatise on the true principles of the sword alone), is now ready, thanks to the tireless work of Jim Alvarez, who cropped, […]

Facsimiles in the works!

Some time ago we spent three full days at the National Fencing Museum with a decent camera and a book-photography rig, taking hi-res images of the cream of their amazing collection of treatises, with the kind assistant of James Hester, and Malcolm Fare (whose collection this is). I have 122 gigabytes of raw images, that […]