AEMMA Online Library Start Page

knowledgebase : online library : overview & usage

Welcome to AEMMA's Online Library.
The purpose of this online library is to provide the Academy's (AEMMA) students with historical references to facilitate their learning and training of historical Western martial arts, and secondly, to share historical manuscripts contained within this online library comprised of treatises, German fechtbücher [ 1 ], Italian libri and other materials with practitioners and schollers external to the Academy who also are engagerd with the study and practice historical European martial arts. AEMMA's efforts in the research and development of historical European martial arts has resulted in accumulating of and gaining access to this material from the various libraries, private individuals, museums and institutions and worked with these sources in order to obtain permission to make available to the WMA [ 2 ] community the material where possible while abiding with their copyright requirements. If the reader has any questions regarding this online library or any other material on this website, feel free to email .

Notes on Usage

1. Registering with AEMMA and receive your Online Library e-card
Due to the recurring high cost of supporting the Online Library in terms of bandwidth consumption as a result of numerous downloads worldwide of the material found in this online library, the Academy requests that users external to the Academy wishing to gain access to the online library, submit a small annual registration fee as indicated on the registration form. The collection of this fee from external users will allow the Academy to recoup the bandwidth consumption costs and thus ensure that the online library remains accessible to practitioners and researchers external to the Academy. Surplus funds accumulated will be allocated to the digitization of new microfilms acquisitions in the possession of AEMMA. However, the treatises by Fiore dei Liberi, George Silver and Ridolfo Capo Ferro do not fall under this plan and are accessible to all as this material forms the core sources for the AEMMA recruit training program.

In order to obtain your Online Library e-card, click here which will pop-up a window containing instructions for registering. Note: If your browser has pop-ups disabled, you will not see the registration window. If you cannot enable pop-ups for www.aemma.org in your browser, then click here.

In the meantime, if you wish to send us your comments, or your interest in obtaining a library e-card, feel free to email AEMMA by clicking .

2. Navigating the Online Library
The library has been partitioned into 8 segments. Each segment representing a particular century or groups of centuries. There are two approaches to navigating the library, the first is to use century buttons below which are visible on each page of each segment. When you are in a particular period, the button will remain an orange colour in order to provide a visual cue as to where you are. The second approach is to employ the pull-down menu from the navigation bar across the top of the window.

Click on any one of the buttons above to begin your navigating through the online library

3. The Table Listings of the Online Manuscripts
Each segment has a table presented comprised of 3 columns as illustrated below. The Sample Image is simply a representative page or leaf from the online manuscript. There are no links behind this image. The second column Special Links provides additional links with respect to the particular manuscript. Some links such as the purple & white shield indicates that this particular resource is not available in the public domain and is accessible only through userID and password held by AEMMA students. Other shields may link to alternative sites with other versions of transcriptions and translations. Other images can include the Adobe icon which indicates the manuscript is available for viewing in pdf format.

The third column is comprised of two rows, the first entitled Author, Title - Source is self-explanatory. The source link, if known will be clearly evident and will take you to the URL of the original source of the material. This row is highlighted with a light grey colour in order to distinguish it from the second row in this column. The second row entitled Citation - Description includes the library's/museum's reference or citation identifiers for the material. The description is a highlight of the contents of the material. It may also include additional information on other links that are relevant to the material of interest.

Sample Image

Special Links

Author, Year, "Title" - Source

Peter von Danzig, 1452, "untitled" Bibliotheca dell'Academica Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana

Click to view English translation in progress of Danzig's manuscript

Cod.44 A 8 (Cod. 1449) 1452 / Bibliotheca dell'Academica Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana - von Danzig's fechtbüch contains comments on the cryptic verses of Liechtenauer and other German masters covering the use of the sword-and-buckler, dagger, longsword and grappling. The manual contains 114 leaves of text in which all but 2 leaves contain illustrations.
- released November 29, 2001

Click on the AEMMA arms to view Peter von Danzig's untitled treatise ( internal access only )
Click on the "griffen" arms to view some English translations in progress of Danzig's fechtbüch.
Click on the Die Freifechter logo to view an online German transcription of von Danzig.

4. Audio Files

Some of the online manuscripts have an audio component indicated by the speaker icon

situated next to the country flag on the library listings. Internal to the manuscript, any text that has an audio component is also identified with the speaker icon. To hear the text verbally, click on the speaker icon in the page displayed.

5. Copyright © Information
The images are available online for scientific and academic research purposes only and remain the property of the sources. AEMMA does not assume any copyright for the historical manuscripts, treatises, German fechtbücher and Italian libri presented. The copyright is held by the originating sources. Any desire to use the images for commercial publications, or for profit, or copied is strictly prohibited. If publications require images from this library, explicit permission from the sources must be obtained. The relevant sources and contacts are provided in the presentation of the material.

Footnotes

fechtbuch n German word for "fight book".
WMA = Western Martial Arts.
The AEMMA shield visible in some of the entries above indicates a resource that has restricted access to AEMMA internal only for research and study, and is not available for viewing in the public domain. This is due to the fact that permission to release the material into the public domain from the source was not granted.
Some of the online manuscripts have an audio component indicated by the speaker icon situated next to the country flag on the library listings.