The Royal Danish Library Manuscript Thott 0290 Folio

The Personal Manuscript of Hans Talhoffer

This facsimile is sold out. Since a lot of work went into producing the companion volume, we have now produced a reproduction of the manuscript scans to accompany it as a two-volume set.

The MS Thott.290.2º is a German fencing manual commissioned by Hans Talhoffer in 1459. The original currently rests in the holdings of Det Kongelige Bibliotek in København, Denmark.

This was our first facsimile project, and it evolved through several stages as we learned the ropes.

All versions are printed on cotton rag paper to simulate the texture and handling of Medieval paper. Information about the binding and construction wasn’t available at the time, so the first version was sewn in fifteen quires and bound in tan pigskin, a standard material for German manuscripts, with 9mm boards and blind tooling based on the original cover design.

After production was underway, we discovered that the manuscript was sewn in just three massive quires, so we created a second edition with that construction, including the tips of the six missing leaves. We also learned that it was bound in blind-tooled parchment rather than leather, and produced a special edition of the three-quire version with this binding to more perfectly match the original.

The 190-page Companion Volume can be purchased at a discount when bundled with the facsimile.

Edition size: 500 copies (400 fifteen-quire, 90 three-quire, 10 parchment).

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