Geometrical analysis of motion schemes on fencing experts from competition videos

Geometrical fencing is a scientific approach to fencing pioneered by Camillo Agrippa in the XVIth century which consists of characterizing the geometrical structure of fencing movements. Many geometrical spaces are involved in a duel, which evolve over time according to the skills of the fencers and the game rules. In this article, the concept of motion scheme is introduced as a flexible geometrical structure to represent fencing spaces evolving over time. The method is applied to the video of a duel of the Olympic games 2016. Five main results are presented. First, decisive actions of the duel are deduced from the distance between fencers. Second, footwork is reconstructed from horizontal movements of the feet. Third, a kinematic model is developed and compared with data in the literature. Fourth, the lunge attack is characterized and compared with data in the literature. Fifth, the role of the free hand is studied in the case of protective and balancing gestures. These findings provide rich information on the geometrical structure of fencing movements as well as on the tactical-strategic choices made by the fencers in real competition conditions. Finally, four applications illustrate the scientific value of motion schemes in fencing and other sports.

“Bodies can be compelled; minds must be turned, since they cannot be compelled”: Preaching as an “Introduction” to Law in the Ecclesiastes of Erasmus of Rotterdam

The recent studies on the relations between humanism or humanists and jurisprudence convince that Reneaissance, especially in XVIth century, when the national states began to raise, belonged to the periods of increased interest in the issue of law. Although Erasmus was not a layer, nor he introduced in any of his works a complete theory of law, he maintained close relations with many leading theoreticians of the law and jurists (Alciati, Budé, Cantiuncula, Zasius) and sometimes spoke in the legal discussions of his age. Among hist most important works concerning the matter of law were: Institutio principis Christiani, Ratio seu Methodus verae theologiae, Christiani matrimonii institutio, De interdicto esu carnium and Ecclesiastes. In the paper I’m going to concentrate on this latter work, in which Erasmus discusses the significance of preaching, preacher and widely understood Christian rhetoric. In the Ecclesiastes Erasmus touches the law subject with the special emphasis on historical character of law and relations between the divine law, the law of Christ and the law of Nature. After a short discussion about his understaning of law I will concentrate on the essential differentiation between the letter of law and the spirit of law, and I will point at proposed by Erasmus ways of introduction of law into human life. Erasmus, on the one hand, escaped a rigidity and abstraction of law and, on the other, he neutralised an aspect of the coercion of law. In his solution Erasmus appreciated the political dimension of preaching and acknowledged preacher as a more important guide of the people, than ruler. I’m going to interpret the Erasmian concept of preaching as an rhetorical mean of introduction of law in analogical way to “introduction” proposed by Plato in his Nomoi.

Historiography as a Subject of Conceptual and Axiological Analysis (Based on Sources about MICHEL MONTAIGNE)

The paper presents the procedure and results of conceptual and axiological analysis based on sources related to life and work of the XVIth century writer, humanist, and philosopher Michel Montaigne. The aim of the conceptual and axiological analysis is to identify notional, ontological, and value-based categories in the prepared historiographical corpus. The analysis was based on Russian, English, French, Italian, German, and Ukrainian texts related to scientific and historical discourse of various themes but united in personality of M. Montaigne. The study appeals to the term personal historiography introduced and used as textual repertory, which forms a well-balances corpus representing the information about a person in the example of M. Montaigne. Several conceptual and axiological components are revealed on the paratextual layer. The linguistic-axiological analysis of titles of texts about M. Montaigne aims to reveal recurrent means used to express verbal subjective evaluations and axiological dominants in modern researchers` discourse dedicated to life, work, and art of the Renaissance philosopher. The overall purpose of the multidisciplinary study of titles, which includes lexical, semantical, conceptual, axiological and content-analysis is to classify concepts, representing central concerns of Montaigne`s researchers, but also to identify axiological dominants of these researches. The analysis resulted in the determination of several basic concept fields perceived as set of concepts` representations with common features. All the recurrent concepts belong to highly various fields: philosophical beliefs; writing; values and anti-values; others; self-identity; intertextuality; politics; physicality; teaching and education. The formed historiographical corpus contains researches focused on all-round reconstruction of personality, creation, ways of thinking, and acts of M. Montaigne. The relevance of the study is ensured by the discovered conceptual multivalence, which indicates the lack of consensus between scientists in the field of M. Montaigne`s personality.

On Francesco Guicciardini’s Thought and Some of his Considerations on Machiavelli

Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), Italian historian, politician and writer, - descendant of one of the most important and faithful families to the Medici family in Florence - received a solid humanistic education and was also the protagonist of the Italian politics in the XVIth century; during the wars between France and Spain for the domination of the peninsula, he became the fair and impartial interpreter of these events in terms of historiography. Upright and of austere character, ¬he is the author of one of the best histories of Italy, written in the spirit of the time, whose prime quality is the historical veracity. Guicciardini fed the feeling of nationality and the aspiration to independence of Italy. In his works he shows the painful efforts of the princes and heads of republics, dragged into continuous wars, trying to defend, to confederate, to seek help in various foreign powers in order to save themselves from the oppression of the rulers. His genius, intuitive and painfully prophetic, discerns the events from the things; he pronounces what he develops as ‘safe judgments’ and recommends possible remedies to save the nation.

Żydowska metoda hermeneutyczna na podstawie egzegezy Pieśni nad Pieśniami Abrahama Ibn Ezra i brata Luisa de León

The aim of these article is to present the more important rules of Jewish exegesis developed mainly by Hillel on the example of a commentary on the Song of the Songsof Abraham Ibn Ezra and Luis de León. The text tries to show how traditional Jewishhermeneutics is used in the innovative commentaries of a scholar from Tudela from the XIth century and a theologian from Belmonte from the XVIth century and how the first infl uenced the second. Interpretative methods developed in the most important centers of Judaic thought of the beginning of our era have been used for centuries to explain biblical texts, especially such as Song of Songs, which is recognized by both Old Testament and New Testament commentators as one of the most diffi cult and most mystical Scriptures.

HOW MĪR CALĪ-ŠĪR NAVĀYĪ’S PERSIAN POETRY INFLUENCED THE POET-WARRIOR OTTOMAN SULTAN SELIM I (1512–1520)

This article discusses the importance of Persian poetry in the work of Alisher Navoi and how much they were valued in the Ottoman Empire. In particular, it is noted that Sultan Boyazid I (1481-1512), under the influence of Navoi ghazals, ordered the creation of works in the style of poetic poetry. It is unclear whether these assumptions are based on explicit historical fact, but the author bases this assumption on the proximity of Ottoman poetry to Navoi's ghazals. The author analyzes the work of Navoi, studying the work of the Ottoman ruler Sultan Selim I. The reason for this is that he was a contemporary of Navoi, better known for his Persian poems in poetry, and, most importantly, in the first half of the XVIth century, the Ottoman literary critic Latīfī, a close a contemporary of the Sultan, admitted that Selim was inspired by the poetry of Navoi. Clarifies the issue under consideration. The author also interprets ideas in terms of couplets. Speaking about the activities of Sultan Selim I, it is said that most of his work was composed of poems, and most of them were answer poems. The author also notes new discoveries in science using Selim's Per-sian ghazals, edited by Paul Horn. The author's research confirms the similarity of couplets in the desired weight, as well as the fact that the size of seven-couplet verses in Navoi is five couplets in Selim's work, which gives the reader another novelty

„wie man sich mit Gottes hülffe vor der vergifftung bewaren”. (Nie)użyteczne zalecenia w zakresie ochrony przed zarazą w drukach gdańskich fizyków miejskich z XVI w.

“Wie man sich mit Gottes hülffe vor der vergifftung bewaren”. (No)useful recommendations for protection against plague in the prints of Gdańsk (Danzig) city physicians in the XVIth century The plagues that appeared cyclically and with a relatively high frequency were for the urban communities of the Middle Ages and the early modern era an experience almost permanently inscribed in everyday life. As part of the struggle against epidemics, in addition to administrative measures taken by the authorities, there began to appear from the end of the XVth century anti-epidemic compendia edited by city physicians (thus medical persons with university education) and intended for a wider audience; they became especially popular in the German cultural area during the XVIth century. It was no different in Gdańsk (Danzig), wherea high level of medicine, and the practice of employing as city physicians well-educated medical persons (from German and Protestant universities) by the city authorities, resulted in the publication of numerous prints of this type. In total, in the years 1508−1588 in Gdańsk (Danzig) seven compendiums of this type were published. They contained general recommendations for protection against plague based on Galen’s medical system relating to the so-called six unnatural things (res non naturales); they were part of a trend of popular medical literature containing “rules of health” (regimen sanitatis). The recommendations contained in the prints by Gdańsk (Danzig) city physicians of the XVIth century concerned, therefore, the preservation of unpolluted air in the city, taking sanitary measures, proper diet and physical condition, as well as “surgical” treatments (taking baths in a bathhouse, using laxatives, phlebotomy), and pharmacological care (they were also supervisors of the city pharmacy at that time). These recommendations, however, were not practical advice (contrary to their titles) that could be fully applied in a time of plague; rather, they represented the state of academic medical knowledge of that time and were only a manifestation of its popularization resulting from the medical personnel’s duties. A separate place was found for considerations on a kind of “medical theology”, related to the commonly shared view that the cause of the epidemic was divine anger interpreted as a punishment for sins. This was of particular importance in the confessional order (with a Lutheran dominant) that was taking shape in Gdańsk (Danzig) during the XVIth century.

Mit pestilentia manufacta w XVI–XVIII w. (wybrane przykłady)

Thy Myth of pestilentia manufacta between the XVIth and the XVIIIth centuries (selected examples) In the early modern period, in various European countries, both Roman Catholics and Protestants provoked a new version of an old myth of “manmade pestilence”. The myth originated in Antiquity, and the term pestilentia manufacta was coined by Seneca in his “De Ira”. Yet, it was only the XVIth century that it started to evolve and rapidly spread throughout Europe. The myth provoked plague-inspired hatred and persecution that was aimed against people from different social echelons. Generally, the persecuted were the poor employed by local authorities as “low functionaries” during epidemics, above all, gravediggers. Nevertheless, priests, barber-surgeons, and merchants could also be considered plague-spreaders or plague-smearers. This article examines selected cases of presumed plague spreading in Western European cities in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries and three cases from XVIIIth century Poland, two of which have so far been unknown to scholars.

„Przenosząc się ciągle z miejsca na miejsce obyczajem Numidów”. Jagiellońscy władcy i ich rodziny w czasie morowego powietrza w XV–XVI w.

“Constantly moving from place to place like Numidians”. Jagiellonian rulers and their families in times of pestilence in the XVth and XVIth centuries In all early-modern Europe, epidemics were a very frequent phenomenon. In the XVth and XVIth centuries, the one effective way of avoiding the danger of infection and near certain death was to flee from a place threatened by plague. In the XVth century, a quite short journey was often sufficient, or else monarchs decided right away on a distant journey to the less-populated Lithuania, attempting to turn this to use in terms of the system of using royal progresses as a way of exercising power. In the XVIth century, especially in the second half, only one move to even a distant locality was insufficient, and the king and members of his family were compelled to move to a succession of places. Kings and their families almost always spent a period of isolation on their own estates. There were exceptions when the ruler was able to enjoy the hospitality of magnate or church estates. Through the nearly two hundred years of Jagiellonian rule, there is only one case (in 1572) when one can see the incautious behavior of the court as contributing to spread of plague. Although in the XVth century one can still find traces of real fear of pestilence among the royals and dramatic descriptions of huge, often exaggerated, losses of population, in the next century an outbreak of plague is seen rather as a passing inconvenience in life, cause of bothersome confusions in the normal functioning of the state or of changes in the royal family’s.

Czy Jan Žižka zmarł na zarazę morową?

Did Jan Žižka die of the pestilence? The author raises the question of the causes of the death of Jan Žižka (1360–1424), Czech national hero and one of the most able leaders of the Hussite revolution between 1419 and 1424. Žižka died suddenly, after a brief illness during the Moravian campaign in October 1424. The illness had symptoms and a course indicating bubonic plague, which from the mid XIVth century assailed the Czech lands, Moravia, and Silesia, as is confirmed by XVth-century and XVIth-century sources, including the Staré letopisy české and the chronicle of Eneasz Sylwiusz Piccolomini. In the XIXth century, this diagnosis was questioned in favour of a severe skin complaint, which produced cluster boils or carbuncles. Because no mortal remains of Žižka have survived, a genetic analysis of bone material is impossible that would establish the presence of plague-causing Yersinia pestis bacteria. Thus, the problem remains to the present in the sphere of hypotheses and discussion. This article is a contribution to the debate.