There is much more to a book than just the words printed on its pages. Why and how was it made? Who bought it and what did they do with it? Who read it and what did they think of it? And did anyone in the 16th and 17th centuries actually use the fencing treatises to learn about fencing? In 2019, Sarah Barsness and I set out to examine these and other questions by creating a definitive catalog of the surviving copies of the treatise of Joachim Meyer. This lecture will discuss my preliminary findings from personally examining three copies of the 1570 edition, six copies of the 1600, and what we've learned from assembling descriptions of most of the 58 other known copies (based on studying scans or sending other researchers to examine them in person).
