Barbasetti on duelling and fencing

Fencing and the duel are often assumed to be inextricably linked throughout European history and especially within the minds of 19th century Italians. This is not just observed among historians and laypeople today, but also for many fencers of the time, some of whom spilt a great deal of ink debating matters of personal honour. In his various writings on the topic, Luigi Barbasetti placed himself among the camp of those who ostensibly wished to see the duel abolished but nonetheless acknowledged that, at least for the time being, the impotence of the court system made it a vital necessity for the maintenance of honour. However, rather than seeing fencing as a reinforcement of duelling culture, in today's featured translation Barbasetti argues that a proper fencing education was the best cure against it.

The following translated articles were published in Gazzetta dello Sport on 8 and 15 January 1897. In the first part Barbasetti refutes the idea that to train for the duel one needs only train their courage or their natural temperament, instead arguing that the practice of conventional bouting in a fencing hall provides the crucial missing element for success. In the second part he elevates the use of the point as the primary means of instilling prudence in the opponent during sabre duels. By reminding duellists of the risk of death, Barbasetti believes that the duel would not be resorted to for resolving petty squabbles, thereby making the duel less common.

Given that the practice of using blunt-tipped sabres in duels appears to have been far more common in Austria-Hungary than in Italy, we can see through this article how his observations of a foreign duelling culture had brought certain issues to the forefront of Barbasetti's mind. Even as a supposed 'adversary' of the duel, it is clear he prefers the duelling culture of his native land over that of Austria.

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Fencing and duelling

When observing a bout, it often happens that the layman wonders to himself how true, how practical, in the case of a duel, is that whole muddle of blows and parries, all those conventional expedients which are used and abused in a fencing hall.

If you take your advice from the Baron de Bazancourt,¹ he will tell you that what is practical, true, is only that which comes from individual temperament, and then he will show you the advantage of seeking naturalism even in a bloodless bout; classicists will respond that since fencing has strictly scientific foundations, it gives precise rules for success through the art that is within the individual; and finally, if you ask some eccentric—or better said, some fortunate duellist—they will have you believe that in the duel only one thing matters: courage.

The exclusivity of these three opinions evidently reveals one part of the error, indeed two parts, since the elements of success are obtained by marrying temperament with scientific reason, of which, on the duelling ground, courage would be the moral executor.

Following Bazancourt's empirical theories—which, after all, are the theories of the majority—would achieve the same result as those who would pretend to be a scholar or painter without any desire to understand the scientific foundations of the art or the fundamentals of culture and who, simply following inclination, would compose and paint.

Certainly through constant study, work, and routine they can manage—if they have talent—to make something good, even brilliant; but their work will be no more than the product of unconscious intuition, not guided by the hand of experience—and as such it will be as fragile as clay; it could not withstand the blow of even superficial critique.

If the study of fencing must really serve as preparation for the duel, it must indeed be stripped of as much conventionalism as possible, but it is necessary to make use of all elements with the principle of subordinating all mechanical factors to the temperament of the acting agent.

Therefore it is not simply a matter of the pure mechanics of the movements—which in their effects represent dynamic force—but it is also a matter of comprehending the determining causes in relation to the opponent.

It would take too long and I will not deny it being beyond my abilities to demonstrate these principles, but the simple enunciation is sufficient to understand the necessity of an accurate study based on collective experience, which is presented in the form of the various teaching methods now in force, methods which can be excellent when they are interpreted by excellent masters.

And there is the catch!

In the innumerable number of blows, in their varied application, the fencer finds the one which best suits their own nature and their own physical means, and which becomes, through habit and appeal, their secret blow, the blow which they will use nine times out of ten on the duelling ground.

During a bout in the fencing hall, where one's concern for the body is purely a concern of self-esteem, it is natural that conventionalism prevails, because there the bout is only a game, just as military manoeuvres are in comparison to war; however, theoretical understanding and practical study give a firm awareness of one's own courage, they give confidence and, I would almost say, a sort of artificial courage to those who are not particularly gifted with this precious faculty as a result of that psychic conviction which is acquired by studying danger, even only theoretically, and through the improvement of one's physical means, which are one of the main coefficients of mental strength.

It therefore cannot be asserted that, for the duel, fencing is insufficient solely because it is academic and conventional.

Fencing prepares for the duel as the school prepares scholars and scientists.

One often hears it repeated that this or that famous fencer in some far-flung town was defeated in a duel by someone who had never held a weapon before.

First of all, it would necessary to verify the celebrity of these heroes, but even if they were Bajardo or Fieramosca,² the fact would mean nothing since the probability—out of a thousand, out of a hundred, out of ten— that the untrained person has could favour him on the very first blow.

Fencing does not concern itself with this: its aim is much higher than in the duel; its aim is eminently civil.

It would be necessary to shout this to the masses, like the apostles repeated to the masses the words of the Rabbi of Nazareth.

But...but unfortunately we professionals are often lacking in culture and demeanour and, consequently, even that moral authority which is necessary to be able to convince our students.

And too often we yield to the temptation to discredit ourselves and our craft.

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I return willingly to a topic which I find very interesting and on which I insist through the profound and immutable conviction which I have formed over years lived among and for arms.

I wish that this conviction of mine were widespread, but I would be over the moon if this ever gets instilled at least in those who study fencing as a preventative measure against the duel. And I touch on this topic because it seems to me the most sensible in the general opinion.

I will preface by saying that I am no friend of the duel, but of the art of fencing understood in its most elevated civil aim, for which reason I could be believed in good faith if I, as an adversary, speak in favour of something disagreeable to me.

It is said—because saying it is convenient—that the study of fencing has little use in the case of duelling; indeed it is asserted that almost always the fencer has the disadvantage on the duelling ground because they adhere too much to rules of art, as opposed to those who could not care less about rules.

If this nonsense is often supported by fact, it is because this follows on from more nonsense: that of considering as a fencer anyone who, perhaps by chance or through the insistence of friends, is member of a fencing hall, and the belief is conveniently taken advantage of by the ease with which a number of people pass themselves off as such with the poorly concealed aim of intimidating their neighbour.

This belief, well-ingrained, unfortunately exists, and it will not be I who manages to eradicate it. Let us therefore leave it be, and think rationally for a moment.

The study of fencing has the aim of teaching how to hit without being hit—and a fencer is simply someone who knows how to effectively demonstrate this axiom, in a fencing hall at least. Now, place him on the duelling ground, no longer protected by a mask, glove, etc., but animated by a sufficient dose of courage that allows him to be calm, and then tell me if he does not now have the same advantages—or if the matter is how many believe it to be, by those who evidently have no understanding of fencing.

But in what artistic state must the fencer appear on the duelling ground? He must appear in such a state as to be able to take advantage of all the attributes of their weapon in order to effectively achieve their aim.

And what are these attributes?

For the sabre—since this is what I intend to talk about—they are blows with the edge and point, but more particularly with the point, due to the effects it produces on one's instincts of self-preservation. And here is my subject.

In Austria-Hungary the use of the point in duelling is tacitly abolished, due to an instinctive terror produced in the minds of the seconds by the idea, by the dismay of a fatal blow. And it is precisely here that most of the errors, logically and artistically speaking, are located. We know that a thrust sends somebody to the next life better than a pistol bullet—very often a ball of flax—and this is precisely why duellists mutually respect one another, neither wishing to impale the other or let themselves get impaled like rotisserie chickens.

So if two opponents are placed opposite one another with sharpened points, you can be sure that there will be no need to advise them to keep their distance: they will keep it themselves!

It is precisely when life is at stake that the duel takes place with the rules of the utmost prudence, with well calculated blows, aiming more often at the arm, which is closest and which ninety times out of a hundred receives the baptism of blood. This is statistics, and there is no debating statistics.

It is therefore evident that those who have made even a mediocre study of fencing will be found in a position of great superiority over those who are ignorant of it, because with the use of the point he will remove the latter's primary resource of attacking wildly, with which, even at the risk of receiving a cut, he will, however, be likely to give one in return. Those who do not know fencing will not take so lightly the risk of giving a cut in order to eventually receive a thrust, and their instinct will lead them to defend their own hide, thus rendering them passive to the play of those who know how to direct blows and are educated in prudence.

The use of the point will abolish those scandalous, brutal, and barbarous massacres which in the fencing hall are simply called doubles, and you will arrive directly in the realms of the art which, however conventional it seems, is nevertheless the synthesis of theories and individual experience.

The point is the sole touchstone of the faculties acquired by duellists.

Those who know more will have the best chance, and those who know less will have at their disposal...legs to defend the body, if not their arm.

When this principle reaches the public, we will have achieved the dual aim of eliminating a great number of duels caused for ridiculous reasons—duels which too often end up fatal—and compelling the youth to study fencing, which is the true, the only medicine against the duel.

The indirect effects that come from a serious study of the art of fencing are precisely those which remove the opportunity for fighting over trivial matters, since the fencer avoids duelling through their education derived from the knowledge they have of danger, and from the moral superiority which they, with the increase of dynamic force, have reflexively acquired—though in individuals as in nations, well-directed physical force is a necessary coefficient in moral force, both collective and individual.

I therefore advise fencers especially not only to study the thrust closely, but to never agree to excluding, in a fight, the best, the most effective means of defence, which is the well-sharpened point—and this is not because they alone should have the pleasure of impaling their neighbour, but because the time occupied with love in the fencing hall can produce the benefit that will give them the right to be feared and respected by those irresponsible people who place the duel in the service of vain, childish causes.

If the duel is a remnant of barbarism, it is nevertheless still a godsend in comparison to the impotence of our laws with respect to honour, since if this honour, as we understand it, is threatened or tarnished, it cannot be defended or restored without taking up arms.

It is uncivil to maintain the principle of the duel substituting the law of force for the force of law; but it is ridiculous to condemn it when we ourselves fling dirt at those who choose not to fight but instead quarrel in court over a slap.

Luigi Barbasetti 

 

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1 Translator's Note: See Baron de Bazancourt, Secrets of the Sword, trans. C. F. Clay (London: George Bell, 1900).^↩
2 TN: The two duelling protagonists of Massimo d'Azeglio's 1833 historical novel Ettore Fieramosca o la disfida di Barletta.^↩

Rossi's Sword and Sabre Fencing, 2nd edition

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the release of my translation of Rossi's 1885 fencing treatise, I have created a revised edition which not only corrects the few errors that made it into the first edition, but also includes an updated translation of Rossi's 1890 booklet Considerations and proposals for the unification of the various fencing systems in Italy, which I first published on this blog back in 2019.

More significantly than this, however, is the fact that my translation is now proudly licensed under Creative Commons, meaning that anyone is free to download it here via the Internet Archive or via Google Drive and share it as they please. Physical copies can still be purchased, at cost, via Blurb.

Sword and Sabre Fencing

By Sebastian Seager

My sincere thanks to anyone who purchased a copy of the first edition over the past few years and supporting my work.

Dei vari sistemi di scherma italiana e del vero modo di muovere l'arma by Antonino Ferrante Caccamo

Among the many public critics of Radaelli's fencing system in the 19th century, you would be hard pressed to find a single one who had actual experience learning it from a qualified practitioner. Typically these critics limited themselves to commenting on the theoretical material relating to the system and their limited anecdotal evidence in support. Antonino Ferrante Caccamo's 1905 work Dei vari sistema di scherma italiana e del vero modo di muovere l'arma ('On the various systems of Italian fencing and the true method of moving the weapon') is a rare departure from this tradition in that his criticism of Radaellian fencing was in fact founded on an intimate knowledge of the system, being himself a graduate of the Milan Master's School. Below is a link to the full scans of the 50-page booklet, and what follows is a summary of the same, highlighting what I think are the more valuable and unique elements.

*** Click here for the scans *** 

Ferrante Caccamo's critique is by no means limited to Radaelli's system, as his aim with the work was to explain in detail the mechanical foundations of the dominant fencing systems in Italy at the time, which to him were: the old Neapolitan school, the Radaelli school, the Parise school, and the Masiello school. Due to Ferrante Caccamo's focus on mechanics, much of his writing is quite tedious, not at all helped by the frequent run-on sentences and sometimes confusing technical terminology. Nevertheless, throughout all this the author presents the argument that each of the extant Italian fencing systems (and some more than others) makes imperfect use of the arm's mechanics, and that only by combining the best elements of each can Italian fencing continue to progress to a state of ultimate perfection.

Despite his Radaellian origins, of all the aforementioned systems Ferrante Caccamo finds the 'old Neapolitan school' to be the most sound in its handling of weapons. The hand, he states, is the best of the three 'motors' for initiating the movement of the weapon, but it should still be accompanied with movement of the forearm whenever the hand must necessarily deviate from the line of attack. Thus Ferrante Caccamo's ideal system would have the hand as the 'primary motor' of the weapon and the forearm as the 'secondary motor'. His explanation of what this perfected system looks like goes much further than this, and a significant part of the booklet is a direct refutation of Masiello's mechanical theories in particular, but the section that I wish to highlight is his description of the mechanical systems advocated by each of the four aforementioned Italian fencing schools. The way he describes the historical development of the old Neapolitan and Radaelli systems is interesting in itself, but most interesting of all are his comments on pages 25 to 27 regarding Parise's system. Here Ferrante Caccamo echoes similar observations made by Gelli, Rizzotti, Barbasetti of how graduates from the Master's School showed consistent deviations from system as described in the official textbook, proving that the instructors hired at the school incorporated elements of Radaellian fencing in their teachings.

In 1881, with Prof. Giuseppe Redaelli dead and a competition having been announced for the appointment of a new director, the distinguished gentleman Masaniello Parise, Neapolitan master and current technical director of the Military Master's School in Rome, was selected. This appointment was a victory for the Neapolitans, and they thought that the old school, whose flaws I just noted, would once again take the upper hand. But to everyone's surprise the new director, instead of calling on followers of his own method to be his assistants, surrounded himself with the most outstanding Redaellians who, not wanting to abandon their system (already proven superior) without reason, initially submitted to his theories out of disciplinary duty and convenience.
But being unable in practice to change their habits, automatically acquired through so many years of long educational practice to the contrary, they were forced to maintain their own habits and opinions, continuing to teach their own method.
So what kind of fencing has been taught at the Rome Master's School from then until today? With the hand or with the forearm?
Some of the masters who graduated from this school called themselves Pariseists in word, but in practice they always proved themselves to belong to the method of the masters who trained them; others called and still call themselves students of this or that master at the school, but save for a few theoretical changes in the disengagement, which instead of with the forearm is prescribed with the hand, and others in the sabre guards, which instead of third or second in line is taken angled third or first, otherwise in practice everything is done according to the dictates of the Redaellian School.
It is therefore clear that, despite the appointment of Mr. Masaniello Parise in the post of director of the Master's School, the aspiration of the Neapolitans was not completely fulfilled, and the old wrist fencing was never practically implemented.

Thus despite Ferrante Caccamo's disagreements with the Radaellians and his preference for the old Neapolitan wrist-focused mechanics on a theoretical level, even he acknowledges that it was the Radaellians themselves who had brought sabre fencing to the high level of development it was in by the end of the 19th century, and this in spite of the theoretical inferiority of their method. He begins his concluding remarks with the following:

I have demonstrated in this work, putting forth every argument, that each of our three schools is defective. Yet of these, strictly speaking, the one which should have given the best results is the Neapolitan school, because by adopting the hand as the initial motor—the primary motor—it was in a position, in preference to the other two, to give attention to the economy of space, which in large part also produces [economy] of tempo and force. But for the aforementioned reasons it remained inferior, as is seen by the proof of the facts that the one which yielded the best results was instead the Redaellian School. This teaches us that, in fencing, motive power has a greater importance than economy of space, and therefore, by achieved both of them, the results of a fencing movement can be doubled.

He observations that, in comparison to the Italians, the French have near ideological unity in the fencing they taught, a unity which allowed them to reach a greater level of perfection for their national system. His final call to action could hardly have proved unpopular even among those who disagreed with his mechanical analysis: To ensure similar development and a successful future for Italian fencing, it was necessary for everyone to recognise the flaws of their respective systems and work to unite the best elements of each and create the most effective method possible.

Teaching the molinelli

When discussing the practical application of Radaelli's sabre method, I try to defer as much as possible to the texts rather than personal observations of what does and does not work in tournaments. When it comes to teaching it, however, I do feel that I have developed a good amount of advice through trial and error which others may find helpful in their own endeavours to spread this method to others. The molinelli will be my focus here, as they are the most unique and foundational aspect of the Radaelli method.

This advice is primarily intended as a resource for instructors who already have a decent grasp on Radaellian fencing, but those who are still learning may find my observations useful in their own development. The vast majority of my advice is simply a distillation or extrapolation from what is already written in the Radaellian treatises, and I encourage everyone who finds themselves having to teach these techniques to read each of the Radaellian the authors' advice on how to perform the molinelli, as you may find something useful that I did not mention here.

 

Adapting the molinelli for differing abilities

When teaching a new student, I rarely if ever begin with the full weight shifting and body leaning prescribed by Del Frate. For one thing, I have found that the physical fitness of your average beginner leads to them becoming quite fatigued after only a few minutes of doing these types of molinelli, giving them less energy for the rest of the lesson. Secondly, and more importantly, the arm movements alone can be difficult enough for many beginners to grasp without also synchronising this with the body and legs.

Performing the molinelli in the guard position with only slight or no torso movement is perfectly suitable for this early stage. If the guard position is too taxing on the legs, then simply let them assume a relaxed, upright position with heels together as per Bruno and Barbasetti. Once the student has become more confident in guiding the sabre along the proper path, slowly add in some upper body movement and demonstrate how it can make the execution of the molinelli easier and more fluid.

Sometimes students may experience some difficulty with these movements not entirely related to their physical fitness, but from issues with general coordination or proprioception. In these cases the six preliminary exercises detailed in Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise or the similar flessione exercises in section 26 of Nicolò Bruno's treatise serve as a gentle introduction to Radaellian blade carriage. These basic exercises are also very useful when having to instruct a group of people, as they are easy to demonstrate and few corrections are typically needed.

General advice

Before they start swinging the sabre, a student should have a good understanding of how to grip it correctly (in a Radaellian sense). Throughout these exercises, keep an eye on the student's hand to ensure that the thumb does not bend, that it stays pressed on the back of the grip, and that the hypothenar eminence remains on top instead of sitting alongside the grip. The thumb alone may slide very slightly up and down the grip in order to bring the blade more or less in line with the forearm, but this should not be exaggerated.

In general, when performing the molinelli for the first time, people have a tendency not to lift their elbow high enough. I tell students to aim with the elbow. If they are trying to hit the opponent's head, then after the arm is bent the elbow should be pointed at the opponent's head at head height, because when the arm is extended this is precisely the direction the forearm (and sabre) will end up in.

Fluid movement between each position in an exercise molinello is hindered when the arm is tensed. The easiest way to check if the student is tensing their arm too much is to look at their shoulder after the final movement as their arm lies extended. A raised shoulder indicates a tense arm and an unnecessary focus on 'hitting' with the sabre. Emphasise instead that final movement consists of extending the arm forward rather than hitting or chopping with the sabre. Fluidity takes precedence over speed and force.

Molinello to the head from the left

The overall motion of this molinello from beginning to end should be conceived as a circle confined entirely to the vertical plane. Many errors in this molinello's execution stem from the blade deviating from this vertical plane, which is what the Radaellians are referring to when they use the term 'oscillation'. You can easily tell whether the student's final movement is vertical or not by where it lands on the opponent's mask. If their sabre inconsistently lands on top of the opponent's mask, sometimes hitting the side of the mask or even shoulder, then oscillation is occurring and they are deviating from the vertical plane.

To remedy this, the student should imagine their arm and blade hugging the body as closely as possible right up until extension. The blade should almost skim the rear leg as it comes back, and the forearm should brush past the top of their head (making sure they do not hit themselves with the guard as the sabre comes forward, of course). Exaggerating this motion of the arm hugging the body can be useful to convey the general aim.

Turning the edge up prior to moving the sabre (i.e. the first movement of the molinello as per Del Frate) is the most important part of the molinello, as the success of the following motion relies on it. Even when the molinello's movements are combined into a fluid, single action, emphasise the necessity of turning the edge first. At the end of the molinello, ensure that the arm does not swing through the target, but comes to rest fully extended in front at shoulder height. It is not important at this stage how hard the student is hitting; it is much more important that they maintain control of the sabre and pass through each position correctly.

Molinello to the head from the right

The same advice given for the previous molinello applies here, noting in particular again that the path of the sabre sabre should be as vertical as possible. Rotating the arm so that the palm faces up before beginning the molinello is vital to ensuring that the rest of the action is performed correctly. From here, observe that the student lifts the elbow up and across the body, and the hand will naturally follow. If the student is observed letting go of the grip with one or more fingers, then this is an indication that the elbow is not being lifted up high enough. Profiling the torso as much as possible during this movement also allows a greater range of motion in the shoulder. Note how high the elbow is in the Del Frate illustration below.

Molinello to the face from the left

Unlike the previous two molinelli, those to the face are semi-circular. The point of the sabre does not follow a circular path in a single plane from beginning to end, rather it is only in the final extension that the sabre stays in the horizontal plane.

While Del Frate describes bringing the sabre back into a vertical position prior to extension, I have found the position advocated for by Masiello, Barbasetti, and Pecoraro/Pessina to be convenient when teaching, as it makes the final movement a simple extension of the arm. In this way it is easier to ensure that the sabre extends only horizontally without any oscillation. Focusing on making a complete circle from the beginning will cause the blade to oscillate during extension, as the first and second half of the movement take place on different planes.

Note that if teaching the molinelli to the face with forward body lean or with a lunge, the student will end up lower relative to their opponent's head than in if they were in the guard position, so they will have to compensate for this by cutting slightly diagonally up in order to still hit the opponent's face.

Molinello to the face from the right

What was stated for the previous molinello applies here, but with additional factors to consider. Firstly, like with the molinello to the head from the right, emphasise to the student that they should focus on lifting the elbow when they bring the sabre back, rather than focusing only on the hand. It is better for the elbow to be at eye height in this position rather than below the shoulder. Keeping the elbow high facilitates correct direction along the horizontal plane.

Extending from this position requires a twisting motion from both the arm and upper body. Tell the student to push their elbow across the body (i.e. to the left if they are right-handed) and to twist the torso. By doing so, the hand will naturally be thrown forward, at which point it is simply a matter of extending the arm to complete the molinello. I again emphasise that the arm does not swing forward, but extends. It is the tip of the blade that follows the semi-circular path, not the hand, which should instead travel more or less straight forward, in line with the shoulder.

A tendency students have is to twist the hand as it extends. Ensure that when the arm is moved back the edge is directed to the outside, and remains in this orientation during the entirely of extension. One analogy I use is for the student to imagine that they are carrying a tray of drinks in their hand: they must to reach out and hand the tray to you without letting any of the drinks tip over.  

While the student's upper body should twist to assist the motion of the arm, ensure that their knees remain fixed in the direction of the toes. If they develop a habit of twisting both the upper and lower body simultaneously, then they will find it difficult to combine this molinello with a lunge later on.

 

Rising molinello from the left

I rarely find students struggle with this molinello after having learnt the others, but it is still worth emphasising that the path of the blade should be as vertical as possible when extending. The more vertical the plane the blade follows, the harder it is for the opponent to parry. Tell the student to make the blade travel as closely to the body as possible in order to achieve this angle. Rotational movement of the torso movement in this molinello is detrimental, and should be discouraged.

Rising molinello from the right

Successful execution of the the molinello to the face from the right is an absolute necessity before progressing to the rising molinello. The execution of these two molinelli has a great deal in common, so it would only serve to demoralise the student to have them attempt this molinello before they have wrapped their head around the horizontal one. The main difference for the rising molinello is the need to direct the sabre in a rising diagonal or near-vertical plane. This is achieved in two ways:

1. After carrying the sabre back horizontally alongside the head as in the molinello to the face from the right, the student simply relaxes the wrist and lets the point drop, with the blade hanging almost vertically alongside their back;
2. The student bends at the waist to further put the sabre in a vertical position.

From there, the student simply has to extend the hand straight forward at shoulder height, as in the molinello to the face from the right. At this point I often refer to Rossi's description of the molinello, in which he states that by keeping the hand sufficiently high as the blade travels forward, the arm and blade will pass through a position very similar to parry of 7th. It can therefore be helpful to point out to the student that the movement for this molinello is essentially the same as the molinello the head from the right, but in reverse. Performing these two molinelli repeatedly in succession (i.e. to the head, rising, to the head, rising, and so on) can help to accustom the student to the way that the shoulder and elbow must work together to allow the sabre to stay in the vertical plane.

The student can also imagine the sabre describing a vertical circle through the air purely through its own weight. Their hand simply holds on to the sabre as it moves and their body moves out of its way.

Depending on the student's body and flexibility, they may or may not be able to achieve a near-vertical rising molinello from the right even with constant practice. This is not an issue. If a student has limited arm movement such that they cannot perform a rising cut on this side, then switching to a horizontal molinello aimed at the abdomen is a perfectly adequate substitute that even some Radaellians preferred to do (see Masiello and Barbasetti).

 

Lo Sport Illustrato

To understand how fencing theorists thought about and systematised their theories of fencing, ample material can be found in the form of fencing treatises; to best understand how this theory was put into practice, however, it is imperative to look beyond the treatises and examine contemporaneous observations and discussions from the broader fencing public. This is where newspapers, but especially specialist sporting periodicals, become invaluable. In contrast to treatises, most of which can be found among the shelves of a typical antique book store in Europe, individual copies of these periodicals are rarer on the antique market, let alone as complete sets of a year or more.

I am fortunate, therefore, to have been able to acquire two (almost) complete years of Lo Sport Illustrato, one of the first and most widely-read general sporting magazines in Italy for over 30 years, beginning weekly circulation in 1881 and ending in 1915 when Italy entered the First World War. In its earlier years of publication, the Milanese magazine mostly devoted its columns to hunting and horse racing, but by 1890 it had become established enough to attract contributions from various known figures in the Italian fencing community. The two volumes in my collection are complete sets of the years 1888 and 1891 except for a single issue in the latter year, missing no. 482 (26 November). Due to the large number of pages of both volumes, I have limited my scans (for now at least) to only the pages with fencing-related content as well as the front pages of the respective issue.

Selected 1888 issues  |  Selected 1891 issues

These two hefty volumes (weighing over 2.5 kg each) were evidently purchased and bound by the Rowing-Club Italiano, which was founded at Turin in 1888 and eventually became the national governing body for the sport of rowing in Italy.

Besides being a trailblazer for sporting magazines in Italy, Lo Sport Illustrato was also of a very high production quality for the time. Each issue included one or more large illustrations, sometimes full-page and very rarely in colour spread across two pages, showing scenes from sporting life or nature. The large page format (roughly 27 x 36 cm) of the magazine makes these illustrations all the more striking when viewed in person, but I hope some of the photos provided in this article give a sufficient impression. In the two volumes I posses, the only illustrations related to fencing consist of a three-part cartoon satirising contemporary duelling culture (see issue numbers 442 and 449 of the 1891 volume).

As for the articles, the 1888 volume contains only 8 issues with fencing content, all but one being reports on fencing exhibitions, while the 1891 volume contains fencing content in nearly every issue for that year. Sporting magazines in general experienced a great surge in popularity in Italy starting in the early 1890s, and this was no less the case for fencing, which may have motivated Lo Sport Illustrato to set aside more space for the flourishing sport. Frequent fencing contributors to the magazine in 1891 are the retired master Giuseppe Perez, whom we have previously seen condemning Radallian foil fencing in the 1870s, and amateurs Giulio Franceschi (writing under the pseudonym 'Bottone') and Giuseppe Nini (pseudonym 'Ras').

The 3 September issue contains Ferdinando Masiello's response to the constructive criticism of his work published by the jury of the national tournament in Bologna earlier that year. To Masiello's response (entitled 'Due lettere intorno alle opere di Ferdinando Masiello' and also published separately as a booklet), Carlo Pilla and Salvatore Arista give a counter-reply in the 12 November issue in their capacities as jury members at that tournament. This discussion provides a helpful reminder that divergences of opinion existed even within the Radaellian camp, however minor. It is quite possible that discussions such as these regarding Masiello's work prompted some of the modifications he introduced in subsequent editions of his treatise.

Containing a healthy mix of event coverage and theoretical pondering, these issues of Lo Sport Illustrato give a good demonstration of the variety of written material that was becoming increasingly more available for Italian fencers in the late 19th century, and place the fencing treatises of this time into a broader and active literary context.

Fencing masters in the Italian military

A common misconception regarding the instruction of fencing in the 19th century is that there were easily identifiable military and civilian methods or styles of fencing, and that masters generally specialised in one of these two contexts. Furthering this confusion, especially in the case of Italy, is the fact that the press often made a point of noting whether someone taught within the military or in a civilian club. In reality, however, fencing itself was a discipline that faced little to no regulation within any of the pre-unification Italian states, and the chronic shortage of fencing masters within the military led to regiments frequently turning to civilian masters to fulfil their training obligations. The military-civilian distinction was not one of fencing methodology, but one of employment first and foremost. Focusing on the post-1874 era following the consolidation of the Milan Fencing Master's School, the military-civilian distinction becomes yet more confusing for modern readers, as the Ministry of War not only became the sole arbiter of who could be a 'military master', but it also created a role within the military's institutions for 'civil masters', who were not simply those employed from outside the Master's School pipeline. In this article I will outline how the profession of fencing master was regulated within the Italian military and explain the different roles it created, thereby hopefully alleviating some of the confusion on this topic.

As stated above, prior to the foundation of the military fencing master's schools in 1868 and 1869 there was no official national body in Italy which regulated the use of the title of 'fencing master'. While the National Academy of Fencing in Naples had existed since 1861, there is little evidence to suggest that it had much sway outside of Naples until beginning of the 20th century. The National Academy of Fencing did gain some level of national recognition in November 1880 when a royal decree by Umberto I declared it a 'moral body' (essentially an incorporated association), but in practice even this did not allow the masters it certified to teach in the corps and institutions of the military.¹

A proper discussion of how fencing masters were certified prior to the foundation of the Military Fencing Master's Schools is worthy of its own article, but for now it will suffice to say that civilian certification traditionally served as a method of peer recognition. According to Alberto Marchionni, who was writing in the 1840s, the process that had been common since the beginning of the 19th century was for a candidate to be endorsed by at least three fencing masters, who were given a demonstration of the candidate's ability to give lessons, of their theoretical knowledge, and of their practical ability in bouting.² Fencing masters who were certified in this manner were often employed in regiments or military institutions where such instruction was not already being provided by military staff.

Many of examples of this can be provided, but the most obvious is the case of Giuseppe Radaelli, who accompanied the Monferrato cavalry regiment, as a civilian, in its various postings around Italy during the 1860s and regularly taught fencing to members of said regiment.³ Recognising both the need to increase the quality of fencing instruction in its corps and address the lack of competent fencing instructors available to them, the Ministry of War generalised this arrangement in 1867: corps commanders of the infantry and cavalry were permitted to hire a civilian fencing master for three to four months of the year, with a salary of no more 80 lire a month, who would be tasked with training one or two fencing instructors to replace them by the end of their employment period.⁴

If this was intended to be anything more than a stop-gap measure, it was clearly insufficient, as just over a year later the ministry announced the 'special fencing courses' which gave birth to the Military Fencing Master's Schools in Parma and Modena in 1868 and Milan in early 1869.⁵ The first graduates were referred to as maestri militari di scherma di punta e sciabola (literally 'military fencing masters of the point and sabre'), with there also being the provision for the rank of 'sub-master' (sotto-maestro), which may have been intended for fresh graduates. Promotion from sub-master to master could take place after five years of continuous service with good conduct. Initially all ranks of sottufficiali or non-commissioned officers (NCOs) could be accepted into these courses, but beginning in 1874 candidates could only be sergeants, and this remained the norm for the rest of the institution's existence.

Following the first experimental 9-month course, only the Parma and Milan schools were kept in operation, the former under the direction of Cesare Enrichetti and the latter under Giuseppe Radaelli, and by the end of 1874 only Radaelli's school remained. By this point the Ministry of War was seemingly quite satisfied with this institution becoming the sole regulator of fencing in the army, and the only fencing masters who had not been trained at either Enrichetti or Radaelli's school to continue in their positions going forward were those employed at military schools and academies. The 1874 ministerial acts outlining the responsibilities of the Master's School now made an explicit distinction between those who taught fencing in the military as soldiers and those who taught in the military as civilian employees. Those in the former category henceforth bore the title 'fencing instructor' (istruttore di scherma), a title also given to all former and future Master's School graduates. Those employed as civilians were given the title of 'civil fencing master' (maestro di scherma civile), while the 'sub-master' role was to be discontinued.⁶ The only people to bear the sub-master title from this point were the three civilian fencing masters employed at the Modena Military School, who had all been teaching there since 1860s, and two of whom were eventually appointed as proper civil fencing masters.⁷ Despite the fact that an NCO who was qualified to teach fencing the bore the official title of 'instructor', in the public press they were still often referred to as fencing masters, as 'master' was and is the typical title given in Italy to those who teach. For the sake of clarity, however, from here on I will only refer to these enlisted NCO fencing masters as 'instructors' or 'military instructors', while the term 'civil master' will be reserved for civilian employees of the military.

Military instructors were first and foremost non-commissioned officers, starting at the rank of sergeant, and they were still expected to fulfil the roles expected of an enlisted soldier. Upon graduating from the Master's School, by default they were assigned to a specific military regiment, where they continued to carry out the regular duties of a sergeant whenever their services are not required in the fencing hall. To distinguish themselves from other NCOs, fencing instructors and those training to become one wore a special patch on their right arm, which was embroidered in red woollen thread for student fencing instructors and silver thread for qualified instructors.⁸ Below on the left we see this patch on a young Carlo Pessina, possibly taken while he was a student at the Milan Master's School, and on the right is a close-up of the official design.

Due to the fencing instructor's increased responsibility within the regiment, they received a daily bonus of 0.60 lire, so long as they were with the regiment and not on leave or subject to disciplinary confinement. The daily wage for a sergeant in 1874 ranged from 1.68 lire to 1.81 lire, depending on whether they served in the infantry, cavalry, artillery, etc. The bonus received for being a fencing instructor at this time was therefore an effective pay increase of between 33 and 36%. If they remained in active service for five years after becoming a fencing instructor their daily bonus increased to 1.00 lire. But aside from this one-off increase, instructors had few prospects of progression within that role. After two promotions (which took 10 years) they would be at the highest non-commissioned rank possible, furiere maggiore (roughly equivalent to quartermaster), meaning that the only options for further promotion were to become a commissioned officer and thus abandon their role as a fencing instructor. A lucky few instructors would also occasionally be called to assist at the Master's School, for which beginning in 1886 they received a daily bonus of 1.65 lire instead of the usual 0.60 or 1.00 lire bonus, but this was rarely more than a short-term appointment.⁹

Civil masters, by contrast, enjoyed a much more stable and financially rewarding lifestyle. They were no longer enlisted soldiers, but rather fencing masters employed as civilians exclusively within what the Italian government referred to as 'civil institutions', consisting of the various military colleges, academies, and schools located throughout the country, including the Master's School. Depending on the specific institution, civilian employees could make up the majority of its administration and teaching staff, which also included civil fencing masters. As mentioned above for the Master's School, a small number of military instructors were also assigned to these military institutions as assistants, subordinate to the civil masters, but rarely more than two or three per institution, who tended to cycle out with the regular garrison changes. Even for several years after the foundation and consolidation of the singular Fencing Master's School in Milan, those who had not been certified by it continued to be employed by some civil institutions; however, as the existing positions became vacant and the institutions expanded, only currently-enlisted graduates of the Military Master's Schools filled those positions. Thus despite what the title may suggest, by the mid-1870s the civil master position was no longer an opportunity for regular civilians to gain employment teaching fencing in the military, because the only people qualified to fill that position were trained by and serving in the military.

Almost no details on the civil master examination process is known prior to the school's transfer to Rome in 1884. The 1874 act simply states that civil master promotions would be carried out by 'special competition' at the Milan school, in which candidates had to demonstrate their knowledge of Radaelli's fencing method and 'to which only instructors and (civil) sub-masters may be admitted who are considered worthy through their conduct, zeal, and service seniority.'¹⁰ The first time any details are provided on the assessment process for civil masters is in 1888, when the Ministry of War announced what was presumably the first civil master 'competition exam' to be held since the transfer of the Master's School to Rome.¹¹ The method of assessment detailed in these regulations bear a remarkable resemblance to the method outlined by Marchionni 40 years prior, suggesting that the process used at the Master's School was largely a formalisation of what was commonplace in civilian circles. The competition exam, which was open only to those who had been NCOs for at least eight years, consisted of separate 'theoretical-practical' and practical tests for foil and sabre, giving a total of four components to the assessment process. This was also the same examination process used for assessing students of the Master's School, so the civil master candidates would have been very familiar with this process already.

The theoretical-practical component involved the chairperson of the examination committee randomly drawing three 'theses' (perhaps a specific topic or technique) taken from the fencing curriculum, and then asking the candidate questions about one or more of these topics. The candidate had to give both a theoretical response to the topic as well as give a practical demonstration of how to teach these concepts to a student, with the current students at the Master's School acting in the latter role. Each of these theoretical-practical tests would last roughly 30 minutes. The practical test component simply required a candidate to bout with other candidates, in randomly assigned pairs, for however long the committee deemed necessary. By 1897 the examination process also included a theoretical-practical assessment on refereeing bouts, and later when the scope of the school was expanded in 1909 to include general physical education as part of the curriculum, the civil master exam also expanded to include this new material.¹²

At the end of the assessment the committee, which consisted of five members, gave a yes or no vote as to whether or not the candidate was suitable in each of the assessment areas. If the answer for all of them was yes, then each committee member would assign a score of between 1 and 20 to each assessment area. The average of these four scores across the committee gave the final score for each candidate, and thus a ranking of all candidates could be made. If a candidate received a score lower than 14, they were considered unsatisfactory and excluded from applying for the position again. While this alone suggests that taking part in the competition was a significant risk for those with less experience, even getting a score higher than 14 did not guarantee a promotion. Promotions were only awarded as civil master vacancies arose, with the highest ranking candidate receiving the first vacant position, the second-highest filling the next vacancy, and so on. If not enough vacancies emerged within that two-year period to allow a candidate to be promoted, then that person had missed their opportunity and was obliged to undergo the examination all over again. Not only that, but if they again failed to receive a promotion within the two years after their second attempt, they were forbidden from ever applying for the position again.

If a candidate did manage to overcome all these obstacles and be awarded a promotion to civil master, they would be appointed to a military institution and given a fixed yearly salary, instead of the daily wage and bonus given to an instructor. In the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s successful candidates started off as a '3rd class civil fencing master' with a generous salary of 2,000 lire.¹³ Beginning in 1892, however, new civil masters were given the lower position of '1st class assistant master' and a salary of 1,500 lire. After two years of good service they could then be promoted to 3rd class civil master, and then over the course of roughly 20 years' continuous service they would be gradually promoted up to 2nd and then 1st class civil master, receiving an additional 500 lire to their salary with each promotion. The few lucky masters who were chosen to teach at the Master's School received additional pay on top of their regular salary: civil masters of any rank received an additional 1,200 lire per year, while the vice-directors of the school received an additional 1,800 lire. The technical director of the Master's School, which from 1884 to 1910 was of course Masaniello Parise, received a handsome annual salary of 5,000 lire.¹⁴

After the first four civil master appointments were made in 1875—awarded to members of the Radaellian old guard Paolo Cornaglia, Giovanni Domenico Reverso, Giovanni Monti, and Giuseppe Ronga—the number of civil masters in the army reached 13 by the end of 1878, where it stayed for several years before rising steadily from 1883 to reach 36 civil masters in 1889.¹⁵ This appears to have been the ideal amount for the Ministry of War, as the number of civil masters under its employ hovered closely around this number right up until the outbreak of the First World War. With over five times as many military instructors as civil masters employed by the army at any given time—a study from 1893 counted a total of 188 military instructors—it is understandable that the competition for these positions would be fierce.¹⁶ Between 1875 and 1910 only 70 such civil master promotions were awarded, as those who managed to get into the role tended to keep it until they either retired or died. With anywhere between 10 and 30 military instructors graduating from the Master's School each year during this period, it is clear that the attrition rate was much higher for instructors than for civil masters.

Aside from the obvious pay benefits afforded to civil masters, achieving this promotion meant that one was no longer bound to a rigid military lifestyle. Civil masters were able to settle for long periods in a single city, as military institutions rarely changed location post-1880, and they were also free to give lessons outside of regular working hours, providing them with an additional source of income as well as access to considerable social capital through the typical clientele of a civilian fencing club—journalists, politicians, wealthy businessmen, and various other members of Italian bourgeois society. For those not lucky enough to become a civil master, there was one alternative that became increasingly popular from the mid-1890s. As the demand for Italian fencing masters grew in Europe during the 1890s, it became possible for many instructors to forgo the civil master exams and seek their fortune outside of the military. Thus we see that many of the Italian masters who became internationally famous at the turn of the century, such as Luigi Barbasetti, Italo Santelli, Antonio Conte, and Arturo Gazzera, were those who left the army when they were merely instructors.

The Master's School did indeed establish a monopoly on the certification of fencing masters for the army in the 1870s, but in the civilian world many masters continued to find alternative routes to certification through the traditional peer endorsement method or at the National Academy of Fencing in Naples. However, the high attrition rate of military instructors—which I contend was in large part a result of the high barrier for receiving a civil master promotion—meant that, through the Master's School, the regulatory decisions made by the Ministry of War also had huge repercussions for the civilian scene. This increasingly became the case internationally too, which was made evident in the disproportionate influence Italian military masters had during the 1890s and the first decades of the 20th century. Thus by understanding what the life of a fencing master in the Italian military was like at the end of the 19th century, we can gain significant insight into the pressures they likely felt when it came to deciding on how to progress in their chosen profession.

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1 Scans of this royal decree and the 1880 statue for the National Academy of Naples are available here.^↩
2 Alberto Marchionni, Trattato di scherma sopra un nuovo sistema di giuoco misto di scuola italiana e francese (Florence: Federigo Bencini, 1847), 205.^↩
3 Jacopo Gelli, Bibliografia generale della scherma con note critiche, biografiche e storiche (Florence: L. Niccolai, 1890), 67–68.^↩
4 Ministero della Guerra, 'Scuola di scherma per tutti i Corpi di fanteria che di cavalleria,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 48 (1867): 560–561.^↩
5 Ministero della Guerra, 'Corsi speciali di scherma di punta e sciabola pei sott'uffiziali delle Armi di linea,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 44 (1868): 422–424; Ministero della Guerra, 'Corso speciale sul maneggio e sulla scherma di sciabola presso il reggimento cavalleggeri di Monferrato,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 55 (1868): 566–567.^↩
6 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, 'Atto N. 249. - ORDINAMENTO DELL'ESERCITO (Nota N. 29). - Istruttori e maestri di scherma per l'Esercito - 4 dicembre,' Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 489–492.^↩
7 The three masters in question were Antonio Tinti, Alessandro Pavia, and Regolo Luppi.See Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia 1876 (Rome: Carlo Voghera, 1876), 301.^↩
8 Gustavo Mazè de la Roche, 'N. 104. - DIVISA E VESTIARIO (Nota N. 189). - Distintivo speciale per gli istruttori, sotto istruttori ed allievi di scherma. - 3 luglio,' Giornale Militare 1879: parte prima, no. 28 (4 July 1879): 415–416.^↩
9 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, 'N. 51. - STIPENDI, ASSEGNI ED INDENNITÀ. - Legge 15 aprile 1886 N. 3813 (serie 3a) portante modificazioni alla legge sugli stipendi ed assgni fissi per il R. Esercito. - 15 aprile,' Giornale Militare 1886: parte prima, no. 13 (6 May 1886): 86–91. An exceptional example of long-term appointment is seen in the career of Luigi Barbasetti, who spent six consecutive years teaching at the Master's School while only a military instructor.^↩
10 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani. 'Atto N. 249. - ORDINAMENTO DELL'ESERCITO (Nota N. 29). - Istruttori e maestri di scherma per l'Esercito - 4 dicembre,' Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 491–492.^↩
11 Giovanni Corvetto, 'N. 129. - Norme per l'esame di concorso alla nomina a maestro civile di scherma - (Segretariato generale). - 22 agosto,' Giornale Militare 1888: parte seconda, no. 40 (25 August 1888): 496–498.^↩
12 Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento per la scuola magistrale di scherma (5 maggio 1897) (Rome: Voghera Enrico, 1897), 19; Collezione celerifera delle leggi e decreti, 20 September 1911, 1140–1141.^↩
13 See the appointments of Ferdinando Masiello, Giovanni Vecchia, and Giuseppe Blandini in Ministero della Guerra, Bollettino uificiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli ufficiali dell'esercito italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare 1877 (Rome: Carlo Voghera, 1877), 227.^↩
14 Ettore Bertolè-Viale, 'Atto N. 200. - STIPENDI, ASSEGNI ED INDENNITA'. - R. Decreto 4919 (serie 3a) che approva il Testo unico delle leggi sugli stipendi ed assegni fissi pel regio esercito - 27 agosto,' Giornale Militare 1887: parte prima, no. 49 (22 September 1887): 659–680; Ettore Bertolè-Viale, 'Atto N. 81. - AMMINISTRAZIONE CENTRALE ED IMPIEGATI CIVILI. - SCUOLE MILITARI. - Relazione a S. M .il Re e R. Decreto n. 141, che stabilisce le norme per la nomina, l'avanzamento e gli obblighi di servizio del personale insegnante civile nelle scuole e nei collegi militari. - 29 marzo,' Giornale Militare 1900: parte prima, no. 17 (28 April 1900): 309–329.^↩
15 A list of civil fencing masters employed in a given year was published in the military annual, the Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia.^↩
16 Luigi Moschetti, 'La scherma nell'esercito,' Scherma Italiana, 1 September 1896, 38–39.^↩

From Benevento to Naples (Part 3)

The third and final part of our fencing tour of Naples features many of the people introduced in part two, with the additions of notable Neapolitan journalists Vittorio Argento and Enrico Casella, some of whose articles I have translated for this blog in the past.

In addition to Ferruccio's observation of the large number of beggars in the streets of Naples, the last portion of the article in particular, while unrelated to fencing, serves as a poignant reminder of the great economic disparity between the northern and southern parts of Italy which still lingers today.

It also demonstrates the highly skewed perspective offered by sporting magazines like the Gazzetta dello Sport. Ferruccio and his fencing friends were undoubtedly all very wealthy men, with time for leisure and the means to travel wherever they liked, at a whim, to attend exclusive sporting clubs and social events. Not only that, but at the beginning of the 1910s literacy rates in many parts of Southern Italy were still under 50%, especially so for women, making the audience for articles such as these a very select portion of Italy's population.¹

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From Benevento to Naples

III.

A great idea; before returning to Benevento, where my affairs and bills are calling me, I thought it would be good, in order to make your Gazzetta dello Sport more well-known and popular, to penetrate various fencing halls not only as your Benevento correspondent, but as a man of arms for your newspaper, and with that said, I pulled from my trunk a fencing jacket, canvas pants, and my little 'service' sword, which had been sleeping peacefully for months and months.

You can easily understand how excellent a result this decision of mine has yielded if you consider that I made sure it was very clear that the armiger of the Gazzetta dello Sport would only cross blades with gentlemen of the 'Order of Subscribers'.

Once this decision was made, it goes without saying that I had to work like a dog. Incidentally, I do not know why people use this expression when dogs are known for spending the whole day…lounging about.

It was Maestro Galimi Lacaria, whom I believe I spoke to you about in my previous correspondences, who first obliged me with a sword bout in Cerchione's hall.

Galimi is a clean, elegant, and very correct fencer: a gentleman fencer.

Felice Galimi Lacaria, c. 1913.
Source: byterfly.eu

Then I 'went at it' with Maestro De Simone, whom I can assert with complete certainty has become much stronger than he was years ago at the Mantua tournament, and then again with Captain Pinelli who, like a good wine when bottled, improves with age.

I had a sabre bout with Marquis Mastelloni, a fencer with a good eye and a firm parry, and endured a sword bout with Mr. Vittorio Argento, fencing editor of Napoli-Sport.

'Press versus press,' I said as I came on guard.

Vittorio Argento, an excellent writer on fencing matters, from his ever-sound judgement and that competence which his eyes exude, as evident as the nose of Cyrano de Bergerac, he is also a fencer of uncommon strength, from his wide, flying, and somewhat irregular game, perhaps carried out more by intuition and personal conviction than by an assimilation of lessons, but enough to bewilder even the oldest sly foxes of the piste. With the utmost ease he touches and takes the blade from any position, and I assure you that once he has launched into action, his final thrust or remise rarely misses.

I freely admit that even my 'metal grinders', as your man Weysi called them when I was in Milan, had little effect with him; but I was nevertheless very pleased to have pitted myself against this opponent, because I have always liked when those who usually wield a pen when discussing matters of fencing can also wield a sword and a sabre.

For the record: recently in one of Greco's exhibitions, the closing sabre bout was reserved for him and Argento. Greco, who can serve as wonderful touchstone between the various opponents who are pitted against him, was still Greco, naturally, and there would be no reason for a parallel between him and the opponent; but I was told that Vittorio Argento had an 'edge' which many other fencers must have envied.

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To cut it short, I endured seven long bouts in less than three days, with different opponents, in various halls, and I can tell you that, for me, who for a long time has found himself in an auxiliary position, they were Herculean tasks.

I cannot claim that your Benevento correspondent left too good an impression as a fencer. Certainly if my place had been taken by Weysi, Balossi, Galbiati, Tiboldi, Carabelli, Mossotti,² or someone else, things would have gone better; but on this sublunar planet you have to know how to be satisfied or resign yourself, and even the most beautiful girl on earth cannot give more than she has.

When it was the seventh day of my sojourn in Naples, I felt the need to rest, just like good Lord felt many years ago...in the time of the world's creation, so I went wandering here and there through this vast and noisy metropolis, which would be so beautiful if not for the plague of three thousand carriages and their coachmen, as bothersome and insistent as flies and as arrogant as the genuine professional beggars here who, in numbers ten times greater than the coachmen, scour every road, every street corner, every café, every theatre, day and night, at all hours.

So it was that, while idling about with Maestro Cerchione, I had the pleasure to again see Edoardo Casella, a distinguished amateur foilist, whom I had seen at the Palermo tournament—and so it was that, while idling about, I had the pleasure to be introduced for the first time to his brother,

Source: gallica.fr

Enrico Casella.

Enrico Casella—very well-known for his sporting articles and for organising Le Figaro's first tournament in Paris—was with Miceli, the Baron of San Giuseppe, Baron Anzani, Dusmet, and other very talented amateurs of the Neapolitan fencing tradition, whose flag he held high for many years, with the pen and the sword, in the French capital, where he took up permanent residence.

Enrico Casella, who was in Naples for just a few days, is the one who recently played a very important and likeable role in the Dreyfus affair.

Tall, elegant, a speaker endowed with a wholly Southern accent and wholly Parisian wit, he is the model sportsman in the loosest sense of the word.

After Cerchione introduced me—and I told him that I was your correspondent—Enrico Casella was drawn by me to talk about fencing and sport in general, and his words flowed as easily and rapidly as water from a swollen creek, and in less than half an hour he was rattling on—lucidly—about so many sport-related projects that, if it had been possible for me to record them on a dictaphone, I would have no difficulty sending you at least a dozen excellent articles for the various columns of the Gazzetta dello Sport.

But there was one thing that I aimed to do when talking with Enrico Casella, and it was to encourage him to send me some of his writings, from Paris, for your newspaper—in short, to make him one of your correspondents; and, God willing, when I left him I took with me an almost formal promise.

Are you pleased with my work, or will you dare ask for more and better?

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When I had achieved this unexpected success, I 'turned my prow' towards Benevento; but to have a little bit of fun and rest my eyes in the still dense greenery of these lands blessed by nature but not by the farmers—who barely feel the sting of progress and who still break up dirt clods with the plow of Virgil—I thought to follow the road through Cancello, Arienzo, Montesarchio, Benevento, as picturesque as any other.

The journey from Naples to Cancello is half an hour by train; then a one-horse carriage, which in less than half an hour leads to Arienzo, where you leave the carriage for a prehistoric stagecoach with two horses as thin as temporary government employees, with which you bounce along directly to Benevento.

While in Arienzo, a pleasant, pretty, and modern town of over 4,000 inhabitants, as the carriage was being sheltered in the depot and the stagecoach horses were prepared and harnessed with that slowness which these regions are typically known for, I thought of going to get a cup of coffee.

And on seeing in the piazza a shop bearing the heavy sign 'Café del Genio'³, I headed there, looking forward to the delight of my mocha or my Puerto Rican coffee, at the owner's pleasure.

But the single hall, which served both as an entrance and the rest of it, I found deserted. And do you want to know what furniture adorned it? A double bed with a red quilt covered in stains; a rickety kitchen table; in one corner, a brick fireplace with two burners and above this, hanging on nails, three frying pans, a skimmer, and a coppino (a ladle); against the wall in front of the bed, a large maple cupboard which the flies had slowly but surely varnished with small, shiny black dots; on the ground, a small tub of water; next to the bed, a chest of drawers, with exquisite wood perforations owing to the brilliant nocturnal work of a friendly woodworm; four chairs dangling from the walls like four hanged men; six chickens pecking around and under the bed, where towered a vase as large as Pandora's, but which certainly wasn't the real one—and nothing else.

As soon as I had entered, I unhooked one of the four chairs from the gallows and sat down comfortably, waiting for the owners, taking these notes undisturbed to kill time. After a good quarter of an hour I thought of going to take a seat in the stagecoach and, still undisturbed, I headed off.

However, when I was almost halfway across the piazza a dark-haired young lady, with her bulging breast 'to the wind'⁴ and in her arm a rosy young baby angrily gnawing at the breast, explained to me that coffee could be served to me at the opposite side of the piazza, there, behind a door with the word 'Club' written on it.

I set forth; I knocked with my hands and my feet three times; I waited five minutes—nobody came to open it, and I started thinking that maybe in Arienzo coffee is a luxury that is only displayed on signs.

What sacrifices the work of a correspondent demands!

And to think there are those who dare suggest that this wage is stolen!

Ferruccio.

*******

1 Gabriele Cappelli and Michelango Vasta, 'A "Silent Revolution": school reforms and Italy's educational gender gap in the Liberal Age (1861-1921),' Cliometrica 15 (2021): 203–229, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-020-00201-6.^↩
2 All prominent amateur fencers in the Milanese scene.^↩
3 The word genio can refer to both a genius or an engineers corps in the military.^↩
4 A pun on the word poppa, which can mean both a human breast or the stern of a ship.^↩