Readers of this blog are likely well aware that Luigi Barbasetti is often considered one of the most influential figures in both Radaellian fencing and modern fencing in general. Fabrizio Orsini begins with a similar premise in his recent book Luigi Barbasetti: Il più celebre maestro di scherma del mondo, published by the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma in Naples. This is Orsini's second contribution in what is hoped to be a series of biographical books on significant Italian fencing figures, his first being a biography on the Neapolitan Masaniello Parise published last year.
After giving a brief cultural and architectural tour of late 19th-century Vienna, the site of Barbasetti's most prominent achievements, the book then follows a typical chronological structure, beginning with a discussion of Barbasetti's likely birthplace (Udine or Cividale?) and providing some insight into his younger years, for which Orsini has made good use of state archives. Orsini's talent of setting a visual scene and providing socio-political context for the locales of Barbasetti's career continue throughout the book. Unfortunately, its usefulness as a work of history is limited because these commendable writing gifts are often overshadowed by sparse use of citations and unnecessary speculation.
A particularly unfortunate and glaring instance of such speculation is the frankly absurd theory that there were Savoyard plots to both manipulate the Italian populace through state-funded sporting education and to use Italian fencing masters as diplomatic and intelligence agents deployed throughout the rest of Europe. It is on this theory that Orsini centres his hypothesis as to why Barbasetti and many other Italian masters eventually left Italy and established themselves in prominent positions abroad (pp. 29–30, 39, 89). No proof is provided for these claims—Orsini himself admits that he has none—and the far more obvious and likely cause for this phenomenon of poor pay and job satisfaction is not brought up at all.
It was no secret at the time that most military fencing masters were dissatisfied with their working conditions, being underpaid and underappreciated compared to others with similar roles and levels of training in the army.1 The military master's rank of non-commissioned officer meant that they had little authority over their students in the regiment, many of whom were officers, and their salary quickly stagnated unless they were able to obtain one of the few and highly-coveted 'civil master' positions, which came with better working conditions and, perhaps most importantly, better pay.2 In 1889 a regular military master teaching at the Rome Master's School such as Barbasetti would have a total annual income of around 1,400 lire, while a civil master at said school such as Carlo Pessina (who graduated from Radaelli's school around the same time as Barbasetti) was earning around 3,200 lire per year.3
What made it so difficult to obtain such a promotion was that a military master could only apply for it twice, and if they were unsuccessful in both instances they were unable to ever apply again. Barbasetti is known to have applied for this promotion in October 1892, but ended up in 5th place overall, with three of the four available promotions going to younger and less experienced masters than Barbasetti.4 Given that Barbasetti had been teaching in the military since 1881, it is likely that this was his second and final chance to achieve such a promotion. Two months later, he had left the army and accepted an offer to direct the Trieste Fencing Society. This phenomenon of military fencing masters leaving Italy was already known about at this point, with an article from August 1892 putting the matter much more succinctly: 'One asks, why do they go? and the answer is simple [sic]. Because the position of non-commissioned officer is incompatible with that of a fencing master. And soon who knows how many more will leave.'5 Of the 69 people promoted to civil master between the years 1876 and 1910, only two of these masters would leave Italy to teach abroad.6
Although the specific facts and figures provided here require some original research, the basic facts surrounding military fencing masters and the logical conclusions which emerge (although far less dramatic than a secret government plot) are plain to see when consulting primary sources for this period. This is particularly evident from Italian sporting magazines, several of which Barbasetti submitted articles to. Perhaps the most notable of all these was the short-lived Rivista Sportiva of Trieste, which at the end of 1893 began including a large section on fencing for which Barbasetti was the editor until the magazine's final issue in May 1894. Perhaps Orsini was not aware of any of these articles by Barbasetti, as none are cited in the book; in any case, this instance appears to be the product of over-reliance on secondary sources for understanding the sporting context of Barbasetti's most formative and outspoken years in Italy.
The absence of discussion on these other writings of Barbasetti also highlights the lack of critical discussion regarding Barbasetti's own motivations. Orsini quickly takes for granted that once Barbasetti left the Master's School and the army he became a firm opponent of said school and its leadership—but why was this the case? After over ten years of military service, six of those (in theory) spent teaching Parise's method at Parise's school, why had he seemingly all of a sudden become so disillusioned with his employer and his role? Why did he not remain in Italy and teach in somewhere like Palermo, a place he speaks so fondly about in subsequent years? Such questions would give real insight into the personal development of Luigi Barbasetti, but unfortunately this book does not ask them.
Even when Orsini does engage with primary sources, in many cases it is in a frustratingly superficial manner, showing a lack of understanding of both the specific context of Radaelli's system and the sporting environment it existed in. His multiple assertions that Radaelli's sabre method had the duel as its primary intended application (pp. 39–42) fly in the face of all the primary evidence from this period, particularly the explicit cavalry-focused aims laid out in Settimo Del Frate's 1868 book on Radaelli's system.7 Orsini also claims that, unlike Parise and Barbasetti, the original Radaellian method gave little importance to footwork and instead emphasised body leaning as the primary means of distance management, thus avoiding the need for footwork 'especially because they lived in an era in which rubber had not yet been invented' (p. 41), again with no supporting evidence. This presumptiveness continues with his analyses of works by the book's main subject, where he mistakenly identifies the positions Barbasetti depicts in his foil treatise for performing a parry-riposte in the lunge as instead being a 'totally innovative' method of parrying in the act of lunging (pp. 89, 105, 161).
As for general sporting context, Orsini states that they supposedly practised 'spada da terreno' at Radaelli's school, and that Radaellian sabre fencing 'did not take convention into account like for the foil' (p. 84), despite rules for assigning fault in the case of double touches being found in almost every Radaellian sabre treatise as well as tournament regulations starting in the 1870s.8 While at other times Orsini is willing to admit that little is known (at least by him personally) about certain persons of interest or events, these aforementioned false assertions are simply unnecessary, and merely serve to undermine any attempt at providing a solid context for Barbasetti's career.
While the previous examples of deficiencies in this book might be brushed off as honest mistakes or the result of a desire to give only a general overview of Barbasetti's life as opposed to a rigorous, scholarly one, Orsini's continuous attempts to paint Masaniello Parise in the most positive light possible seem more calculated. In addition to Orsini's biography on Parise released last year,9 in which he lauds Parise heavily, throughout his biography of Barbasetti, Orsini appears to almost compulsively give Parise credit for the majority of Italian fencing's achievements post-1884, parroting period propaganda about Parise's system being the true 'Italian school'; ascribing Barbasetti's advocacy of the second intention as being 'obviously' something he had learnt at the Rome Master's School (p. 64); accusing Barbasetti's foil treatise of being largely derivative of Parise's by posing the not-so-subtle question 'was it perhaps plagiarism, although not totally?' (p. 89); or believing the main reason why Parise's sabre system was so heavily criticised (and then replaced at the Master's School after his death) was due to a personal vendetta by people such as Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina (p. 160).
Throughout the biography, Orsini shows a determination to find hidden (and often speculative) narratives within each story he comes across rather than engage critically with the evidence at hand. Orsini's knowledge of the political contexts in which Luigi Barbasetti's career took place is strong, and his passion for the material very evident. However, while the book provides a good overview of Barbasetti's career and a few original archival findings, the end result is let down by questionable speculation and a general lack of rigour, leaving the reader without much insight into Barbasetti as a human being. It is nevertheless encouraging to see growing scholarly engagement with the figures of this period, and I hope that Orsini's works will prove to be the first contributions to a wider conversation on the history of Italian fencing.
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1 To cite just a few articles from the period: Giuseppe Perez, 'I Maestri di Scherma nell'Esercito', Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile, 16 May 1891, 4; Ricasso, 'Il grado ai maestri di scherma militari', Rivista Illustrata Settimanale, 30 August 1891, 3–4; 'I maestri di scherma', Scherma Italiana, 15 December 1891, 181–2.↩
2 Note that despite the word 'civil' being used, the fencing master with this title was still employed by the military.↩
3 Jacopo Gelli, Brevi note sulla scherma di sciabola per la cavalleria (Florence: Tipografia di Luigi Niccolai, 1889), 9.↩
4 The examination rankings are mentioned in: Scherma Italiana, 27 October 1892, 70. The record of the four promotions may be found in the 1892 and 1893 volumes of the Ministry of War's Bollettino ufficiale delle Nnomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli ufficiali del R. Esercito Italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare (Rome: Voghera Enrico).↩
5 Veritas, 'Istruttori di scherma militari', Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile, 20 August 1892, 51.↩
6 These being Edoardo Lupi-Bonora, who became the head fencing master at the cavalry school in St. Petersburg, and Agesilao Greco, who was sent to Argentina by the Italian Ministry of Foreign affairs to teach at their military fencing school before returning to Italy a few years later.↩
7 Settimo Del Frate, Istruzione per maneggio e scherma della sciabola (Florence: La Venezia, 1868), vii–xix.↩
8 Rules for assigning fault in doubles: Giordano Rossi, Manuale teorico-pratico per la scherma di spada e sciabola (Milan: Fratelli Dumolard, 1885), 134–6; Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: G. Civelli, 1887), 577–8; Nicolò Bruno, Risorgimento della vera scherma di sciabola italiana basata sull'oscillazione del Pendolo (Novara: Tipografia Novarese, 1891), 231–3. Simplified conventions can be found in the regulations for the national fencing tournament in Turin, 1877: VII congresso ginnastico italiano: regolamenti e programmi (Turin: Stefano Marino, 1877), 20.↩
9 Fabrizio Orsini, Masaniello Parise: La vita e l'opera del più importante maestro di scherma del mondo (Naples: Accademia Nazionale di Scherma, 2021).↩
