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'. ^↩

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.

---

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 ^↩

About This Blog

Hi there, my name is Sebastian Seager and I study HEMA in Melbourne, Australia. Since starting HEMA earlier this year, I have been constantly searching for more information and resources regarding the Radaellian sabre tradition, my main area of interest. However, due to the Radaellian system being fairly niche (relative to the whole of HEMA), I was always left wanting. Hence the creation of this blog, which I hope will serve as a useful resource for others.

This blog will serve as a platform to share my interpretations, translations, and discussions as they relate to HEMA. My main area of interest is in the 19th century Italian fencing traditions, particularly that of Giuseppe Radaelli, but also those that continued his lineage such as Rossi and Masiello.

My translations are the product of a very limited knowledge of Italian, so readers should always feel free to suggest corrections where they feel it is necessary or appropriate.