Who is Giuseppe Radaelli?

As this blog will have a large focus on the Radaellian fencing tradition, I thought it might be useful to give a little background on Radaelli himself by providing a translation of Jacopo Gelli's biography of the man in his bibliographic compilation Bibliografia Generale della Scherma¹ from 1890:

[Translation updated 2022/05/19]

Giuseppe Radaelli has not written any works on fencing, but he has dictated them, as noted by the works published by Del Frate.

Therefore not as author, but as inspirer and creator of the works on the fencing of his method, Radaelli is entitled to a distinguished place in a fencing bibliography.

There has been lively controversy around Radaelli's fencing system for several years now, controversy in which swordsmen, noblemen, and intellectuals alike have taken part.

The fans defend Radaelli's system, which brings the pivot point to the elbow rather than the wrist, as formerly practised.

After a few years of teaching and wonderful success; after creating a great number of masters, who have spread his theories throughout Italy, and especially in the army, with excellent results; the Ministry of war, following the trend of the opponents, ordered that the Radaelli method to be discarded and replaced with the Parise method.

Nevertheless, the Radaelli system always achieved an undisputed supremacy over the other systems and nobody could ever deny the superiority of the Radaellian theories in the greater security and power in the cuts, and in the precision of the blows striking with the edge and not the flat, which nearly always happened before. 

Radaelli's theories, somewhat modified by Masiello, still serve as the basis of instruction for Italian gentlemen, free from any subjection to military discipline, and we firmly believe that nobody will be able to oppose the slow but steady progress that the pure Italian system deriving from Radaellism makes daily, represented by Masiello, Ruglioni, Varrone, Pecoraro, Arista, Ciullini, Pini, Rossi and many, many other excellent masters and fencers.

In the meantime we note that the cavalry of the Italian army, after some time of uncertainty and unsuccessful trials, is back to old Radaelli method for the handling of the sabre, abandoning the recently adopted² Parise method.

Giuseppe Radaelli was born in Milan in 1833 and died there in 1882.

Under the intelligent direction of his brother Bonaventura Radaelli, who had one of the most reputed fencing halls in Milan, the great Italian sabre master had his first fencing lessons. However, their differing opinions with regard to fencing forced him to leave his brother and take refuge in Turin. Along the way, in Monferrato he came across Captain Avogadro di Novara, very passionate about fencing and who, knowing Radaelli to be an excellent fencer, took to protecting him and introduced him to many officers, his colleagues, who were very knowledgeable in matters of arms.

At that time in Piedmont, the Genovese man Cavalli enjoyed a great reputation of being an invincible sabreur. Captain Avogadro and Lieutenant Del Frate resolved to test their protégé against the Genovese champion, and to this aim they took him to Genoa.

There in one of Cavalli's halls the two masters faced off, and the victory went to Radaelli.

This success attracted the attention of the intellectuals to Radaelli's method of sabre fencing, such that the great hall opened by Radaelli in Turin was populated by gentlemen of Piedmont, officers and civilians.

At the outbreak of the glorious war³ in 1859 Radaelli enlisted in the Monferrato cavalry, with whom he campaigned. Following this, Colonel Avogadro of the Monferrato regiment was in Lodi, and there Radaelli went to open up a fencing hall, which closed not long after so that he could follow his regiment and his mentor to Santa Maria in Capua (1864).

In the meantime Radaelli's theories of the 'main pivot at the elbow' had travelled far, and on the unanimous opinion of all the regimental commanders and generals of the cavalry, the Ministry of War ordered that three officers from each regiment learn the theories from the system's creator himself, in order to then propagate it in the regiments.

However, at the opening of the 1866 campaign Radaelli returned as a soldier to his Monferrato, as he called it, and with that over he followed the regiment to Parma.

In 1868 he returned to his brother in Milan.

Meanwhile, on the favourable opinion expressed by a commission of senior officers in 1869, the Ministry opened the Fencing Master's School, under the direction of Radaelli. This school produced eminent fencers, and among them in 1875 were Rossi, Pecoraro, Moccagatta, Guasti, Stignani, Arzani, Caiciati, Scarani, Bosio, Toziani, Arista, Corsini, Botti, Saccenti, Fabbi, and others.

Falling ill for the first time in 1878, Radaelli never recovered and in 1882 he died, mourned by those who had known him and by all those who, being lovers the truth and beauty in the art of fencing, had learned his system.

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1 The full text may be found here ^↩
2 'decentemente adottato' in Italian, assumed to be a misspelling of 'recentemente' or recently, which is, as kindly pointed out by a commenter, how the adjacent French texts reads. ^↩
3 The Second Italian War of Independence ^↩