Who is Settimo Del Frate?

An avid student and friend of Radaelli, Settimo Del Frate was the man who assumed the role of scribe for Giuseppe Radaelli, publishing the works that outlined his fencing system. Below you will find my translation of Jacopo Gelli's biography of Del Frate, taken from his 1890 tome Bibliografia Generale della Scherma.

As an interesting side note, Gelli mentions an 1881 text written by Del Frate called Istruzione per la scherma a cavallo ('Instruction for fencing on horseback'), which Gelli could not find, nor has it been found since to my knowledge. Perhaps it lies in a dusty archive in Italy, waiting to be identified.

Nevertheless, here is what Gelli had to say about Del Frate:

[Translation updated 2022/05/19]

The work of Cav.¹ Settimo Del Frate, inspired by excellent technical and practical principles, is above any praise. The minor problems that were found in the first editions were amended in the subsequent editions.
Settimo Del Frate, having previously graduated in law at the University of Pavia in 1856, volunteered in the Monferrato Cavalry regiment in 1859, with whom he campaigned against Austria.
After the war he remained in the army, in the hope that Italy would soon take up its arms again for its own independence.
In fact, in 1866 with the same regiment he campaigned with the rank of first lieutenant, then with that of captain.
In 1872 he was called to the post of captain-secretary with the committee of the cavalry arm. Promoted to major, he returned to the regiment; currently he is the commanding colonel of the Saluzzo cavalry regiment.
During his voluntary service and the 1859 campaign with the Monferrato cavalry, the now Colonel Del Frate became acquainted with the volunteer Giuseppe Radaelli, a Milanese fencing master. The ordinary life of the field and a passion for arms brought the lawyer-soldier and the soldier-fencer together, and so Colonel Del Frate, excited by Radaelli's theories, became a very dear friend and active student of his and then an intelligent interpreter of the ideas of the new system, created by Radaelli, which he committed to the presses.

In 1869 Cav. Del Frate published the first monograph on Radaelli's fencing system on the invitation of Colonel Avogadro, a passionate fencer and a friend and student of Radaelli.
A second monograph was written by the Captain Del Frate by order of the Ministry of War, to serve as the textbook at the Fencing Master's School, founded in Milan in 1871. This new recollection saw the light in 1876 and was later reprinted.
H.M. King Vittorio Emanuele, accepting the homage of the first monograph, to demonstrate to Captain Del Frate his royal approval and the merit in which he held the work, he gave the author a beautiful gold watch with the royal cypher.
In turn, the Ministry of War submitted Captain Del Frate to become a Knight of the Crown of Italy.
Captain Del Frate's second monograph on Radaelli's fencing system was awarded with a 1st class certificate and silver medal by the Congress of the Italian Gymnastics Federation, held in Rome in 1873.

On the merits of these treatises and of this fencing method came the publications of Pilla, Besenzanica, Arista, and Gelli, cited in this bibliography.

1 Cav., short for Cavaliere, is essentially the Italian equivalent of the title 'Sir'. ^↩