Cross-Post: Thott Talhoffer MS Facsimile
Michael Chidester of Wiktenauer is crowdfunding to make a high-quality facsimile of a famous fencing manual from the second half of the 15th century, Hans Talhoffer’s MS. Thott 290 2º. Like many of the German manuscripts, it contains other secret lore including a copy of Konrad Keyser’s engineering manual Bellifortis and a treatise on astral science (but in newfangled languages like German and Hebrew not cuneiform, so reader beware!): unlike most, it is lavishly illuminated. The price of a copy will be around 150 USD. If you want to learn more, you can check out his IndieGoGo Manuscript Facsimile Project.
(warning! IndieGoGo is full of tracking scripts from Facebook and Google, and the page appears blank unless you enable half a dozen Javascript libraries!)
Vavča: I’m wishing well Mr. Chidester for this project. You see in Czech Republic, Bellifortis was prepared for printing 30 years ago! (original+interpretation). Yet we still have nothing, and nobody is willing to release already finished manuscript. Our publishing companies telling us we are “too poor.” In spirit yes they are defective, but in terms of money, 8 billion CZK a year in book industry https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/zprava-o-ceskem-kniznim-trhu-posiluji-audioknihy-vetsinu-titulu-vydavaji-velci-7724223 Our companies have better VAT rate, than others. Why is ethos of publisher nonexistent not just in our country? We have money and people for such projects, insufficient funds is just feeble excuse from publishers… I’m always sad, when I’m seeing, that Czech problems are international.
Some of my chapters have been stuck in press since 2015, and the Encyclopedia of the Roman Army waited even longer. I wish Devine had been able to print his edition of Aelian’s tactical manual or that Matthews had been willing to learn paleography (his edition is just based on earlier printed editions).