Stalking horse & fowling piece ca 1674AD

 Salvete Omnes,

today is Sunday, and perhaps a good day to bring your attention to hunting, especially hunting birds with a fowling piece and a horse.
In this book ''The gentleman's recreation in four parts' 1674 ''- 

inside we can find several pages devoted to a subject of a fowling gun and a stalking horse.

the  book on horsemanship - Georgii Simonis Winterii Bellerophon - I linked on my blog has three plates showing  training a stalking horse for such hunts.

In our part of the European woods,i.e., Central and Eastern Europe of the XVII century,  there was a town, then a Duchy of Cieszyn/Tesin, part of the Bohemian Crown, known as Cieszyn/Tesin on the river Olza, where gun smiths had been producing amazingly beautiful fowling pieces since the XVI century. 

I wrote about one of these Cieszynka Tscheshinke/Teschinke guns  - the gun of our king Sigismund III - one with the winged hussars on its sides. 

Fowling pieces in America, fowlers and first guns made in English America - a pdf.

Valete

The horse, his beauties and defects - 1866

 Salvete Omnes,

from the virtual shelves of Archive World Library comes this little volume - The horse, his beauties and defects- published in London, UK in  1866. The author  remained anonymous, using a 'nome de plume' instead:  A Knowing Hand. 

A little book, lavishly illustrated, about the horse conformation and also a discussion of finer points of buying of a horse in that period of 1860s.

description to the plate above

.

you can peruse this book on the website or download it , libre, to your PC or tablet etc. 

Enjoy

Valete

Fiaschi - maneggi, posata & repolone via Tomassini

 Salvete Omnes,

a little entry from the archive of the history of horsemanship and some modern research into the history of equitation

Archive World Library contains thousands of old books - eg Trattato dellimbrigliare, maneggiare, et ferrare cavalli: diviso in tre parti, con alcuni discorsi sopra la natura di cavalli, con disegni di briglie, maneggi, & di cavalieri a cavallo, & de ferri d'esso.
which is a very nice copy of the famous equitation treatise by Cesare Fiaschi, a gentleman of Ferrara, Italy (a town where the famous Palio took place), born in 1523 when d'Este princes ruled Ferrara and fought their enemies with fire and artillery mostly,  and where he died after 1570AD, when the arts of horsemanship and their studies took over Italian peninsula and eventually the aristocratic Europe.

Some time in the first half of the XVI century  the  Este's Ferrara saw opening of a riding academy.

Perhaps there messer Cesare Fiaschi became a riding master or ecuyer  of the academy in Ferrara, and 5 years after famous Frederico Grisone's treatise on horsemanship, Cesare published his famous work on horse training in 1556AD.

Modern Italian ecuyer, researcher  author, and RAI journalist, Giovani Batista Tomassini has been researching the art of horsemanship, including the life and works of signore Fiaschi. - note I posted about Giovanni Batista Tomassini's articles and research in the past. 
This is messer Tomassini's work on Fiaschi's life - new and proven information - it is a veritable trove of information about Cesare, his family history, and his trials and tribulations, including a trial for heresy in 1560s.

But I would like to turn your attention to another two articles on Fiaschi and and works by signore Tomassini - Maneggi and Jumps - part 1 & part 2. 

here I will 'quote' one of the most interesting passages from the part 1 - 

worksofchivalry.com site or from Academia

The second part discusses not only Fiaschi, but also Claudio Corte and Grisone, all most famous and influential ecuyers of the era.

and some of the morsico bits form signore Friaschi

Valete

Markham on Stallions, Amblers et al

Salvete Omnes, 

 

once upon a time in the early XVII century there was this English horse-writers Gervase Markham (died in 1637AD) - 

and being a gentleman, hoseman,  and a horse soldier he wrote a lot, after his career in the wars of his era, putting  his horse-related experiences to paper.

Thus from his book  The perfect horse-man. Or the experienced secrets of Mr. Markhams fifty years practice.,  1671 edition, there come these pages - on stallions and mares(he mentions Neapolitan, Turk, Spaniard, Barbary, Englis, Dutch, French or German[horses] and a Polish - as Polander - horse for breeding in England) and ambling among many other advice and observations.

You can read a copy at the Archive Library or google books or some other digital collection library out there. The pages I selected come from the Archive digital copy.

from the Chapter of the office of Breeder  

 

from the Chapter of the Office of Rider

the excerpts from the Chapter on ambling and training a horse to amble

more of Gervase Markham's writings in the future

Valete