THIBAULT, GIRARD. C.1574-1627.

Academie de l'Espee ... ou se demonstrent per reigles mathematiques sur le fondement d'un cercle mysterieux le theorie et pratique des vrais et jusqu'a present incognus secrets du maniement des armes a pied et a cheval. Leiden: B. & A. Elzevir, 1628 [but 1630].

Academie de l'Espee ... ou se demonstrent per reigles mathematiques sur le fondement d'un cercle mysterieux le theorie et pratique des vrais et jusqu'a present incognus secrets du maniement des armes a pied et a cheval. Leiden: B. & A. Elzevir, 1628 [but 1630].
2 parts in 1 volume. Folio (542 x 400 mm). Engraved title, engraved portrait, 9 engraved dedication leaves, and 44 (of 46, lacking plates VIIII and XII in 2nd part) engraved fencing plates, all but one double-page. Old calf, rebacked, preserving original spine.
Provenance: Early, large engraved bookplate signed "L. de La Mare Sculpsit 1659;" Charles Ewbank (bookplate).

FIRST EDITION OF THE "MOST LAVISH AND ARTISTICALLY ACCOMPLISHED FENCING BOOK EVER PRODUCED" (Metropolitan Museum of Art). Produced by the famed Elsevir printers, this sumptuous illustrated fencing manual is "...without exception, the most elaborate treatise on swordsmanship, and probably one of the most marvelous printed works extant, from a typographic and artistic point of view" (Castle, Schools and Masters of Fencing: From The Middle Ages to the Eighteenth Century, London, 1885, p 122).