My Marcelli translation is out now!

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

I am extremely happy to announce that my translation of Francesco Antonio Marcelli’s 1686 rapier treatise, Regole della scherma (Rules of Fencing), is now in print! If you pre-ordered a copy, it should be on its way to you!

I first started seriously digging into this text in 2018 and released a free translation of its single sword content in the spring of 2019. Since then, I’ve worked to finish translating the remainder of the text and research the huge amount of references made by Marcelli to historical events and the classics, as well as more contemporary works by intellectuals and other fencing masters. These are identified, explained, translated, and expanded on in hundreds of footnotes throughout. You won’t require the education and library of a 17th century gentleman to get the most out of this book.

A special thank you to Keith Farrell, my editor and the man behind Fallen Rook Publishing, for helping me bring this huge project to fruition.

You can get your very own copy here.

Fundraising Fridays

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

Every year I raise money for the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children as part of Extra Life, a year-round effort that connects gamers with their local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, culminating in a 24-hour gaming and fundraising marathon.

Flying a plane while 19 hours into 2022’s marathon

This year’s 24-hour marathon still a few months away, but starting on June 16 I will be doing regular fundraising streams Friday evenings on Twitch!

Please drop by and consider visiting my fundraising page to make a donation! I’ll be sharing more details about the upcoming marathon as we approach the big day.

Mattei’s Neapolitan Fencing (1669) Now Translated and Available

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

A translation of Francesco Antonio Mattei’s Della scherma napoletana (“Neapolitan Fencing“) has been sitting in my pile of mostly complete projects for far too long, so I have finally taken the time to polish and release it.

Tracing his teachings through his brother, Giovanni Mattei, to Giovanni Battista Marcelli, Francesco Antonio Mattei published this clear but unillustrated work on the sword and dagger and single sword of the “Neapolitan School” in 1669, claiming to be the first to do so. Interestingly, the book states that an earlier, unfinished version of the sword and dagger content had been previously published without Mattei’s permission by an unnamed person who had been loaned the manuscript. Sadly, there do not appear to be any surviving copies of this earlier edition of the work.

This release has omitted a large amount of dedicatory poetry in Latin and Italian and has left the scattering of Latin quotations in the text untranslated. In the future a published version will be available that includes this content and also annotations explaining the many mythological, historical, and contemporary events and figures mentioned throughout.

You can download Neapolitan Fencing for free in Translations.

Keep an Eye out for Marcelli

My heavily annotated translation of Francesco Antonio Marcelli’s 1686 treatise Regole della scherma (“Rules of Fencing“) is drawing ever closer to the finish line. Keep an eye out for news here and from Fallen Rook Publishing. Francesco Antonio Marcelli being a fellow student of Giovanni Mattei (and Giovanni Battista Marcelli’s son), his book compliments Della scherma napoletana quite well, both works shedding light on some areas the other lacks detail, while also differing in intriguing ways.

One Week Until Extra Life Game Day

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

We are now only seven days away from my annual fundraiser for Extra Life, an event that connects video and tabletop game enthusiasts with their local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, ending in a 24-hour gaming marathon. Since 2017, I have raised nearly $5000 USD with the help of friends, family, and colleagues!

Last year’s fundraiser

Starting at 9:30 PM EDT on November 4 I will be livestreaming my sixth annual gaming and fundraising marathon in support of the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children and the SickKids Foundation. ICUs are full, emergency wait times are ballooning, and SickKids could use any amount you are able to give.

Please consider making a donation! All contributions are tax-deductible.

I would also appreciate if you dropped by during my marathon! I’ll need help staying awake, and having people to talk to and share old games with can make the hours fly by. You can watch on my fundraising page or directly on my Twitch channel.

If you have questions just reach out!

Giganti Remastered?

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

I know, I know. I said the previous update to Scola, overo teatro would be the final update. However…

Recently I was creating handouts for class and was annoyed at the quality of the illustrations after printing. Thankfully, last year KU Leuven began making digitized copies of works in the Corble Collection available online. This is one of the finest collections of fencing and duelling treatises in the world and, among other treasures, it contains some very nicely preserved copies of both the 1606 and 1628 printings of Giganti’s Scola, overo teatro. As the university considers all digitized copies of works in their holdings published prior to 1900 to be public domain, I decided to retouch Giganti’s illustrations using these scans.

Old and fuzzy Figure 40
New, improved, and printer-friendly Figure 40

I’ve added the “remastered” versions to the translation, which will greatly increase the quality when printing your own copy of the book or creating handouts. You can grab the latest PDF from the Translations page. I’ve also separately bundled the full resolution retouched illustrations and made them available for download here. If you’d like to have a look at the originals, they’re in the Corble Collection along with many, many other fun things you can dive into.

I am releasing all this under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, but if you find it useful or otherwise enjoyable, please consider supporting my sixth annual Extra Life fundraiser. The day is approaching quickly, and every contribution is helpful and appreciated.

Sixth Annual Extra Life Fundraiser

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

Every year I raise funds for the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children as part of an event called Extra Life, which connects video and tabletop game enthusiasts with their local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, ending in a 24-hour gaming marathon. Since 2008, Extra Life events have raised over $100 million USD!

This is my sixth year of participating in Extra Life, and beginning at 9:30 PM EDT on November 4 I will be livestreaming my marathon, leading with the 1998 psychological horror game Sanitarium.

There are a number of ways you can help me.

  • Please consider making a donation! Every bit helps, and all donations are tax-deductible.
  • Share this post and my fundraising page with any friends and family you think would be interested!
  • Watch my streams on Tuesdays! In the leadup to my marathon I am doing a series of fundraising streams Tuesdays from 7:30-9:30 PM EDT.
  • Drop by during my marathon! 24 hours is a long time to stay awake and alert. I’d love if you came by to watch and say hello!

Please reach out if you have questions!

New Giganti Revision

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

Over the pandemic lockdowns when we could not train in person, my fencing club held a weekly online reading night. As my translation of Nicoletto Giganti’s Scola, overo teatro (1606) is our main source text, we decided to work through the book chapter by chapter, giving me plenty of opportunities to re-examine my work and correct issues as they came up. At a certain point it became clear that the document had become different enough to make it worth doing a thorough editing pass before releasing it to the community again. Although there were very few substantive changes, the language has been considerably cleaned up, particularly in the forward’s crash course in the early modern philosophy of science.

You can find it under Translations.

As always, I welcome feedback. I do, however, have a couple major translation projects on the go and this is quite likely to be the last update to Scola, overo teatro outside of any typos or other minor issues that crop up. I have yet to update the version that appears on Wiktenauer, so if you use that as a reference, please keep in mind that the text there should be considered out of date until I get around to putting up this latest version.

Extra Life is Coming Up!

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

Here we go again!

This is the fifth year I will be participating in Extra Life! The event organizes video and tabletop game enthusiasts to fundraise for their local Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, culminating in a 24-hour gaming marathon. Since 2008 Extra Life events have raised over $87 million USD!

In a little less than eight weeks, starting at 9:30 PM EST on November 5, I will be playing video games for 24 hours and streaming as I raise money for the SickKids Foundation and the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children. This year I will be starting my marathon with the 1994 sci-fi noir mystery Under a Killing Moon.

Please consider making a donation! Your contribution is tax-deductible and 100% goes to the SickKids Foundation. I have a number of limited incentives that will affect my stream, so grab them before they’re gone!

Mattei Translation Complete*

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

*Mostly, that is.

I’ve finished the first thorough pass of my translation of Francesco Antonio Mattei’s 1669 fencing treatise Neapolitan Fencing, aside from two minor things. First, pages 81 and 82 are missing from the only publicly available digitized copy. I made inquiries with a couple libraries that hold copies of the text, and will hopefully be able to arrange for some photographs to be taken of these missing pages.

Second, at the front of Neapolitan Fencing, after the dedication and forwards and before the main text, in addition to sixteen (SIXTEEN) Petrarchan sonnets in Italian, there are five pieces of poetry written in Latin. Translating Latin not being my favourite job in the world, I’ve left these for last. Once those two things are taken care of I can get some more eyes on the text and start thinking about getting it out into the world.

Stay tuned!

New Translation Available

Posted on | by Jeff Vansteenkiste

It seems like it will be another summer of solo practice for me here in Toronto. Looking for something new to keep myself engaged (not to mention a good excuse to buy a new sword), I decided to take a break from larger translation projects I’ve been working on and tackle Francesco Ferdinando Alfieri’s Lo spadone (“The Greatsword“). First appearing in 1653 as Part 3 of Alfieri’s L’arte di ben mannegiare la spada (“The Art of Handling the Sword Well“), many surviving copies are bound as separate volumes, including the Getty Research Institute’s copy, which I used for this translation.

It’s a short work that seems rather light on technical specifics, especially compared to Alfieri’s generally clear (for the first half of the 17th century) earlier work, but it was a fun project to spend a couple weekends on. I’m looking forward to doing some interpretation work later in the summer.

You can grab it for free over in Translations.