As a treatise on the development of European fencing and fashion in Renaissance Europe from 1520-1630, this book would appear to have a limited audience. Its short textual sections are well-written and will be very useful to specialists in its subject. But the remarkable thing about this book is the way it convinces the reader of its thesis by sheer force of beauty: a wavelike basket hilt, the austere triumph of a blacksmith's art, is printed in a symphony of grays that would do justice to a Japanese print. A page later, a damascene of breathtaking floral elaboration is applied to a form as comical as a Mack Sennett policeman; it's the hilt of an Italian rapier. Here is a beautifully-reproduced portrait of an otherworldly child, golden curls floating above a scarlet doublet. Here are fencing-manual prints in which men dance with rapiers, artists show off their mastery of the effects of diagonal motion, and a diagram appears which could be a navigational map of the world, but for the half-skeleton occupying the center, and the shadow of a man completing his body. It's an analysis of fencing maneuvers. Da Vinci's unforgettable image of man as microcosm turns out to be a standard-issue fencing-manual position. The embroidered parade costume of the Elector of Saxony, precisely the color of a peacock's tail, is enough to drive one to tears. In its lavish and careful choice of beautifully-reproduced photographs of original Renaissance paintings, prints, costumes, and blades, this book evokes a world in which men's bodies and accessories were the centers of fascination, beauty, and danger that our own society evokes on the bodies of women with Paris couture. A vital look into a funhouse mirror: the world that somehow became our own. Distributed by Casemate Athena. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)