The definitive work on fencing history and the art swordsmanship traces the sport from its rough beginnings to its latter-day refinement, focusing primarily on the 16th-century development of the rapier and its popularity in Italy.
"The Academy of the Sword centers on an assemblage of rare illustrated books devoted to the subject of fencing and dueling, drawn (with one exception) from the library of the Arms and Armor Department of The Metropolitan Museum of Art ... Accompanying the books and giving vivid impact to their illustrations are a selection of swords, rapiers, parrying daggers, bucklers, and other accoutrements, which follow the chronology of, and changes in, fighting styles depicted in the books"--Introduction, page 3