[Mark Millman]

On Saturday 29 April, The Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, a facility of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts
at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (http://www.umass.edu/renaissance/), together with the Association for Renaissance
and Medieval Swordsmanship (http://www.umass.edu/rso/swords/), will co-host the Second Annual Conference on Historical
Swordsmanship. The symposium will examine swordsmanship in the Renaissance as a distinct form of western European martial
arts with a tradition both as rich and complex as any found elsewhere. The conference will also serve to highlight some of the
more recent acquisitions of the Center's Raymond J. Lord Collection of Historical Combat Treatises, which is available at
http://www.umass.edu/renaissance/lord.html.

Speakers include Dr. Patri Pugliese, who will discuss "Neo-Platonism in Sixteenth-Century Fencing Texts", and independent
scholar Mark Millman, who will present a paper entitled "Sixteenth-Century German Cut-and-Thrust Rapier Play: Borrowed from
Italy, or Descended from a Native Tradition?" Also slated to present are Mary Curtis of the University of California at Davis on the
Destreza or Spanish system of fence, and Ken Mondschein of Fordham University on the works of Agrippa.

The conference will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and lunch will be provided for attendees. There is no registration fee
for the conference, but pre-registration is required. Please contact the Center at (413) 577-3600 to reserve a place.


Disclosure: I'm that same Mark Millman, and I'll present my paper if I finish it in time. Otherwise, it may be different than
advertised. All the other presenters, however, seem to have their papers well in hand.