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This book by Gelli is a response to General Achille Angelini's 1877 book Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Radaelli ("Observations of the handling of the sabre according to the Radaelli method"). It also contains a response to another article of Angelini's, Ultima parola sulla risorta questione Angelini-masiello intorno alla scherma della sciabola del defunto Maestro Radaelli ('Final word on the revived Angelini-Masiello matter regarding the sabre fencing system of the late Maestro Radaelli'), written in 1888. For those of you who may find some of Gelli's references in this book confusing, I will now provide some context to this text, so that it may be better understood.
In 1884, after over a decade of Radaelli's sabre system being taught at the Scuola Magistrale in Milan, a commission was formed with the purpose of adopting a new fencing system for the spada and the sabre (both infantry and cavalry). At the head of this commission was Achille Angelini, a decorated general of the Royal Army and a keen fencer. Greater detail on this commission can be found in the report published in Parise's 1884 manual (see Holzman's The Roman-Neapolitan School of Fencing, 2015), but suffice it to say that Masaniello Parise's system replaced that of Radaelli in 1884, and the Scuola Magistrale was moved to Rome. Radaelli had died by that point, so the only people that were left to get outraged over this decision were Radaelli's loyal students and admirers, Jacopo Gelli being one of them.
Rewinding back to the year 1877, General Angelini studied Del Frate's 1868 manual (translation here) and wrote a book entitled Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Radaelli, which consisted of 47 pages of poor interpretations of Radaelli's system. It seems this text may have been referred to by the 1884 commission to help form their opinion on Radaelli's system (which, as you may have guessed, was less than favourable), no doubt through the strong influence of Angelini, who presided over said commission.
Returning to the year 1888, we find that many shots had been fired back and forth between Radaelli's supporters and his opponents in the meantime, most notably between Ferdinando Masiello and General Angelini. In an attempt to do be done with the debate, General Angelini published Ultima parola sulla risorta questione Angelini-masiello intorno alla scherma della sciabola del defunto Maestro Radaelli, which showed that Angelini had not changed his views on Radaelli's system, and that he still believed that which he wrote in his 1877 book to be true. Masiello published a short response to this, which Gelli included in a footnote in this text.
