Highlights

27 November 2018

Translation - Brevi note sulla scherma di sciabola per la cavalleria by Jacopo Gelli

Only a month before the report from the 1889 commission that rejected Masaniello Parise's sabre method for the cavalry headed by Prince Amedeo I, Duke of Aosta, Jacopo Gelli published a booklet addressed to the same man in the hope of having Radaelli's method officially reinstated in the cavalry.


Many of Gelli's arguments here we have already seen in his article La scherma italiana nell'esercito which was published a year later, but with less fluff in between the good points. The booklet discusses the current state of fencing in the Italian army in which the Parise method is that officially adopted by the army, yet the Radaelli method is still being taught to all cavalry regiments "unofficially".

Gelli calls on the Duke of Aosta, also Inspector General of the Cavalry, to reinstate the Radaelli method officially and even dissolve the current Scuola Magistrale in Rome, which Gelli argues is too expensive for its own good, comparing its costs to the two schools that preceded it, the schools of Milan and Parma. Gelli proposes that the Rome school be split into two separate schools, a school for the sword and a school for the sabre, which he nominates Ferdinando Masiello to run, presumably leaving Parise to run the sword school.

Whether or not the Duke of Aosta ever read this essay I cannot be sure, however it was only one month later that the aforementioned commission he presided over voted to maintain the teaching of Radaelli's method in the cavalry.

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