In the course of doing some image research I stumbled across this 1542 German how-to book on Athletic Arts, called Paulus Hector Mair’s De Arte Athletica.

I tried to translate some of the German descriptions with Google Translate but mostly what it gave me was text of this nature:

In gestracktem arm with obstructive deinam ever to face seinam He stands up to you so you unnd gögen with your right Fuoss In steest so far with your Rarpier on in the unnd nimb on your right side to be lincke lanngen with deinner

So I can’t enlighten you about the finer points of sword fighting, but what I love about the book are the fashions. Some 16th-century artist (Paulus?) lovingly painted over four hundred different scenes with each combatant wearing different athletic attire. This is one of my favorite fashion eras. You can see slashing, cross gartering, codpieces, peascod bellies, balloon trunks, and just general brilliant colors. Also notable is the appearance of a sword fighter of African descent, just as richly attired as the rest. Feast your eyes.