You’d have thought - wouldn’t you? - that the latest sports coaching books acquired by the British Library would be cutting edge modern titles replete with the latest research by sports physiologists and psychologists. Not a bit of it: a couple of years ago we proudly took possession of a book on swimming published in 1595. This was an English edition, from a Latin original called De arte natandi which was written by Everard Digby and published in 1587.
As Professor Nicholas Orme wrote in his note to accompany a talk on the book at the BL in October 2008, Digby was a ‘rumbustious Tudor scholar, thrown out of
It’s such a wonderful book that one half expects it to be revealed as a daring hoax, like the Hitler diaries, but anyhow we rate it as authentic – so far…
Digby, Everard De arte natandi Libri duo, quorum Prior regulas ipsius artis, posterior vero praxin demonstrationemque continet. Excudebat Thomas Dawson: Londini, 1587.
Orme, Nicholas. Early British swimming 55BC-AD1719 : with the first swimming treatise in English, 1595 [
Lending collections shelfmark: 83/27528
Digby, Everard, [De arte natandi libri duo. Adaptation. English ] A short introduction for to learne to swimme. Gathered out of Master Digbies Booke of the Art of Swimming. And translated into English for the better instruction of those who vnderstand not the Latine tongue. By Christofer Middleton. At
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