This is the second article in the 'Radaelli Under Fire' series. Click here to return to the introduction and view the other entries in the series.
Although Angelini's critique did not manage to foment radical reform of the army's fencing instruction, it did not go unnoticed within the fencing community. After many months had passed since its publication, one Radaellian at last decided that Angelini's affront could not remain completely unanswered. On the 19th of January 1878 in the military newspaper L'Italia Militare, it was Ferdinando Masiello who first stepped up to the plate to defend Radaelli's school.1
Masiello was not yet the vocal and fervent critic of the modern Neapolitan school that he would be known as starting in the late 1880s, but by 1878 he was already a well-regarded competitor and teacher as well as someone who had only learnt and been won over by the Radaellian method less than two years prior. His broad experience and professional achievements thus made him the ideal public spokesman for Radaelli's school.
In the article below, Masiello gives an overview of his professional background and how he came to be eventually convinced of the superiority of Radaelli's sabre method. He gives little in the way of refutation for Angelini's assertions, deeming them blatantly flawed and biased, but instead focuses on verifiable facts, with the genuine conviction of someone who had both witnessed and played a part in the school's achievements.
The Radaelli sabre fencing system
Mr. Achille Angelini (a retired general) has just published a work entitled Observations on the handling of the sabre according to the Radaelli method, where he censures said method and the relative regulation instruction.
Overall, General Angelini's work includes many of the observations on the subject which were published in 1876 in the newspaper l'Esercito by Lieutenant colonel Doux of the Piacenza cavalry regiment, which Captain Del Frate responded to with as many articles published in the newspaper l'Italia Militare, as well as part of the observations also published on the same topic in 1877 by Colonel Gnecco, and to which responded Colonel Costa-Reghini of the Novara cavalry, Colonel Rodriguez of the Monferrato cavalry regiment, and fencing master Paolo Cornaglia.
So, I will not abuse the kindness of those who are interested in the matter in question by refuting the cited work again and directly, because I would only be repeating arguments and facts already explained in a clearer and more convincing manner by other talented experts and partisans of the Radaelli fencing method.
However, since I have the fortune of deeply understanding the aforementioned school of fencing and thus have a profound conviction that it marks true progress in fencing, in general and mainly for sabre, in homage to the truth I feel obliged to seize the favourable opportunity of the publication of the work in question in order to express my appreciations in favour of the Radaelli school.
So that my convictions and my remarks may be more suitably appreciated, it is necessary that I start by saying that I was born in the southern provinces and I have attended the best schools of Neapolitan fencing; I have formed my own particular fencing system suggested to me, so to speak, by the instinct which directed me to the study of this favourite art of mine; I am a non-commissioned officer in our army, having done a regulation fencing course at the Parma school, graduating first in my course and then staying there for a year as a master teacher;2 I have done a year-long course at the Milan fencing master's school (Radaelli method) when the ministerial order was made that every fencing master who wished to continue in the same position had to learn the new Radaelli system; I had the fortune a few months ago to achieve a promotion by selection to civil fencing master in the army; I have competed in the fencing competitions in almost all the gymnastic congresses held in our country with the good luck of always achieving first prizes; finally, I too was an opponent of the fencing method in question when I did not understand it or had an inexact and incomplete idea of it.
Therefore my convictions on the excellence of the Radaelli fencing system were born from the theoretical and practical study I did of the system and from the full agreement which I found between my ideas on fencing with the fundamental principles of the above-mentioned school, and primarily on the method of using the articulations of the arm and hand to be able to move the blade and direct it with greater force, precision, and flexibility. It was during the year of my course at the Milan school that I realised that I have always instinctively followed the same fencing principles as the Radaelli school; it was there that I found said principles ordered into a perfect system. Proof of this is the fact that as I myself saw that Radaelli's students were instructed according to my principles, so too Radaelli himself had to ask me who had taught me his system, because I fenced exactly like his best students.
My convictions were again born from the fact of having seen for myself the brilliant results which the new fencing system yielded with the students of the aforementioned master's school, in which excellent instructors and strong and brilliant fencers were and still are produced.
I could also be mistaken, but I consider that all those who strive to fight the Radaelli fencing system cannot help but fall into erroneous remarks and judgements, both because they wish to fight a school and a teaching method which they do not know or know too imperfectly both theoretically and practically, and because—perhaps even with the intention of making a conscientious opposition—they do not realise that their spirit is overwhelmed by preconceived ideas which do not allow them to see the truth and primarily by a certain feeling of pride, offended by the fact that a new school is replacing the old and with this also the merit of its followers.
In fact, General Angelini expresses the above-mentioned sentiments without reticence, openly stating that he and his friends of the old school are worried and disturbed by the idea that the Radaelli school may shortly have prevalence over all others.
In this regard it seems obvious to me to note: if the lively opposition from the opponents of said school was made solely with the good of the country in mind and not through individual interest and pride, how can the idea of its growth worry them? Or the school I support is based on false and irrational principles, as Angelini's work claims, and then there is no doubt that it will fall on its own, because nothing can resist without solid foundations; or, on the contrary, the school is based on wise principles and fruitful with excellent results, and so then why should its growth be worrying if this fact can only be considered an advantage and a new glory for our country?
So, in my opinion, as long as the opponents of the Radaelli school are improperly informed both practically and theoretically about the system which they try to fight, and as long as they do not shed those prejudices which are the prime enemies of progress, not only must they be considered incompetent judges, but indeed in my opinion they will always be, I repeat, powerless to achieve their desired goal.
Angelini's work tries to prove primarily that the sabre fencing principles of the Radaelli system are erroneous both for sabre fencing properly speaking and for the handling of the sabre on horseback, and additionally also the rules written in the fencing text for the relative teaching. Nevertheless, with these principles and with these rules, sabre fencers emerge from the Milan master's school who are so powerful that they do not fear opponents of any school and who always voluntarily accept any noble fencing competition; who achieve first prizes in gymnastic congresses; who are very talented instructors; who earn the public's favour not only through their skill, but through the pleasant and brilliant manner in which they fence; who are praised unreservedly even by the same best masters of the old school; who wield the sabre on horseback in an admirable manner and who, in short, give all the most convincing factual evidence that the Radaelli school of fencing and its written rules are fruitful with the best possible results; finally, the Radaelli school of fencing, so criticised by General Angelini, was awarded with a 1st grade gold medal at the 8th gymnastics congress precisely due to the number and talent of its students taking part in the fencing competition at the congress, where the two first prizes both in sword and sabre were awarded to two students of the school in question.
Nor will I dwell longer on a subject which I believe has already been talked about enough and perhaps even too much; I will permit myself only to add that today, to fight the school in question, it seems to me that the sole suitable weapon can only be that of presenting another fencing school that is better than that which one is trying to demolish, both in its principles and in its teaching method, as well as its results. This alone would be in my opinion the best, the most noble, and the most beneficial opposition, without fear of being accused as an enemy of progress and its benefits.
In principle the Radaelli school of fencing marks a true progression in the field of fencing, and Radaellian sabre fencing is in my judgement not only the best I know of, but it is unique in its merits and in its results, and there is no other that compares to it.
The teaching method of Maestro Radaelli has an essential quality of not only making talented fencers, but also very skilled instructors. The instructional text for the system in question written by Captain Del Frate fits so well into the spirit of teaching and the ideas are so well-developed and ordered that it is to be considered an excellent guide for those who wish to educate themselves in the fencing system it propagates, and it was quite rightly awarded with the highest-honour gold medal at the 7th gymnastics congress in Rome.
This explicit declaration of mine in favour of the Radaelli fencing school can be accepted by all as a homage to the truth, and I am very fortunate to be able to enter into ranks of those who, with their common sense, their work and noble constancy, are powerfully influencing the development of this school which, I repeat, is a true progression in the noble art of fencing.
FERDINANDO MASIELLO
Fencing master at the Turin military academy
*******
1 Ferdinando Masiello, "La scherma di sciabola sistema Redaelli," l'Italia militare: giornale delle armi di terra e di mare, 19 January 1878, 3.↩
2 TN: 'maestro insegnante', i.e. a master who trains other masters.↩
