An important first edition of this celebrated treatise by Maffei against the practice of dueling and against the practices and so-called "codes of honor" that fueled a barbaric and anachronistic practice of dueling. The author's name is derived from the dedication and the approvals; in the text, the author takes a very clear stance against the legitimacy of dueling, demonstrating its barbaric origins and contrasting it with the mentality of his time. Gelli; 140: "The 1710 edition is the first of this erudite and interesting work, which caused so much stir in its time. It is the most important of all those written on this SCIENCE OF CHIVALRY, to which the author has dealt a mortal blow. Maffei's book has rightly been compared to that monument of modern penal science: Beccaria's DEI DELITTI E DELLE PENE." Scipione Maffei (variant forms: Pindemonte, Desiderato and Brenteatico, Orillo)(1675-1755), scholar, man of letters, in Arcadia as a poet, born and died in Verona.