Early Modern period (1500 to 1700)

Students fencing with rapier and dagger, ca. 1590

Academie de l-Espee (Girard Thibault, 1628)

In the 16th century, compendia of older Fechtbücher techniques were produced, some of them printed, notably by Paulus Hector Mair (in the 1540s) and by Joachim Meyer (in the 1570s).

In the 16th century German fencing had developed sportive tendencies. The treatises of Paulus Hector Mair and Joachim Meyer derived from the teachings of the earlier centuries within the Liechtenauer tradition, but with new and distinctive characteristics. The printed fechtbuch of Jacob Sutor (1612) is the last in the German tradition.

The Italian school is continued by the Dardi school, with masters such as Antonio Manciolino and Achille Marozzo. From the late 16th century, Italian rapier fencing attained considerable popularity all over Europe, notably with the treatise by Salvator Fabris (1606).

• Antonio Manciolino (1531) (Italian)
• Achille Marozzo (1536) (Italian)
• Angelo Viggiani (1551) (Italian)
• Camillo Agrippa (1553) (Italian)
• Jerónimo Sánchez de Carranza (1569) (Spanish)
• Giacomo Di Grassi (1570) (Italian)
• Giovanni Dall’Agocchie (1572) (Italian)
• Henry deSainct Didier (1573) (French)
• Frederico Ghisliero (1587) (Italian)
• Vincentio Saviolo (1590) (Italian)
• George Silver (1599) (English)
• Luis Pacheco de Narváez (1600) (Spanish)
• Salvator Fabris (1606) (Italian)
• Nicoletto Giganti (1606) (Italian)
• Ridolfo Capo Ferro (1610) (Italian)
• Joseph Swetnam (1617) (English)
• Francesco Alfieri (1640) (Italian)
• Francesco Antonio Marcelli (1686) (Italian)
• Bondi' di Mazo (1696) (Italian)