5 parts in one volume, 8vo (194 x 137 mm). Title printed within woodcut border; 155 woodcut diagrams; section titles for each part. (Lacking woodcut portrait of the author, preliminary leaf †6, and section title to part 4 R6, outer margin of final leaf renewed, a few lower blank corners renewed.) Contemporary Spanish calf, spine in 4 compartments with 3 raised bands gilt. Provenance: Jacopo Gelli (1858-1935), Italian military fencer and historian (bookplate). 

FIRST EDITION OF PACHECO DE NARVÁEZ'S RARE FIRST WORK ON FENCING -- JACOPO GELLI'S COPY. "In the early 1570s, he became the greatest student of Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza, the grand master of the new school of Spanish fence called la Verdadera Destreza ('the True Skill'). After Carranza's death in 1600, Pacheco seems to have assumed his mantle of leadership in the Destreza, and ultimately was appointed Head Master of Arms to the royal court by King Phillip IV in 1624" (Wiktenauer).  The works of master and student Sánchez de Carranza and Pacheco de Narváez ushered in a new era in the printing of technical fencing manuals which were no longer tied to their Greek or Latin antecedents. VERY RARE: OCLC locates only 6 copies of this edition, and we trace only 2 copies at auction in the last 50 years. Brunet IV:304-305; Cockle 752 ("very rare"); Palau 2080246 ("Libro gran prestigio raro"); Pardoel 268; Thimm p.202.