Scherma di sciabola: metodo d'insegnamento adottato presso la scuola militare di cavalleria

It has been a while since we have taken a look at a non-Radaellian sabre text, and that has largely been due to such texts gradually becoming available elsewhere (I am obliged to mention KU Leuven and their ongoing high-quality digitisation of the Corble Fencing Collection). As a rare book, the subject of this article is one which has flown under the radar seemingly for its entire existence, although it has great relevance to our usual Italian context. The book's full title is Scherma di sciabola: metodo d'insegnamento adottato presso la scuola militare di cavalleria ('Sabre fencing: teaching method adopted at the cavalry military school'), published in 1861 by Giuseppe Chiantore of Pinerolo.

*** Scans ***

The Pinerolo cavalry school was at the time of this book's publication the only dedicated cavalry school for the Italian army, giving two-year long courses for NCOs and low-ranking officers. Although no author is named in the book, through military records we can make an educated guess as to who may have had a hand in writing it or contributing to the method it contains.

The 1858 and 1860 editions of Calendario generale del regno list the cavalry school's head fencing master as Lieutenant Clemente Doux.¹ Although there is no 1861 edition of this yearbook, it is likely that Doux relinquished this role that same year after being promoted to captain in March and then adjutant major in July.² The roll was filled in March 1862 by Carlo Marella, who stayed there for 3 years. In late 1862 the school began a brief experiment of being split into two separate institutions under unified command, one called the Cavalry Military School and the other the Cavalry Normal School, with only the latter aimed at creating instructors for the cavalry. No specific individual is named as fencing master for the Military School, merely 'a non-commissioned officer of the Cavalry Normal School', while Marella assumed direction of fencing at the Normal School.³

If Doux was not actually directly involved in the writing of this book, it is nevertheless likely that he taught the method described, given that it was supposedly a summarised account of the school's fencing curriculum:

The soldiers who take part in a training course at this Cavalry Military School are generally, when they return to their unit, entrusted with directing the teaching of fencing to the lowest ranks of their respective squadron.
This instruction has been compiled in order to facilitate their task, and in it one finds the lessons which they received here laid out progressively, and briefly reminded of the indispensable notes for the regular execution of the same.

Nothing is known of Clemente Doux's pedigree as a fencer, but he would later be known for his public criticism of Radaelli's method, submitting several articles to the military journal L'Esercito.⁴ Attempts to obtain these articles have so far been unsuccessful, but at the very least this short treatise provides the best guess as to what kind of sabre method Doux preferred.

Although the book describes what was being taught at a cavalry school, the method resembles a typical on-foot sabre fencing system of the time, and in fact it contains no specific exercises or technical advice for applying the method on horseback. Like most 'military fencing' books of the time, it is clear that fencing is the end for which the method is intended, as further reflected in its description of bouting and the recommended lesson structure: the material in part one of the book—describing the guard position, footwork, parries, exercise molinelli, and the lunge—is to be taught as a group, while parts two and three are done as individual lessons, with the master wearing a mask and plastron.

It is expected that 15 to 20 lessons are sufficient to teach the material in the book's first part, 35 to 40 lessons for part two, and part three taking even longer. The only note in the entire book about a cavalry application of the method is that such an application means that only the material in sections one and two are sufficient 'to make a soldier of even mediocre aptitude capable of fighting advantageously', requiring 50 to 60 lessons in total.

The techniques described are fairly standard for the time and, in part, recognisably Italian, namely the high extended guard of 3rd as well as the familiar parry positions and numbering: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th (the latter also taking the name 'yielding 2nd'). The exercise molinelli are wrist-centric done with an extended arm; only descending and rising molinelli are included, but separate cuts to the head and face are described later on. It is interesting to note that while the cutting mechanics in this book focus on wrist motion, unlike Parise the molinello is performed before contact is made with the opponent's body, instead of afterwards while recovering from the lunge.

The book contains one large fold-out plate of illustrations, depicting first position, the guards of 3rd and 4th, the seven parries, and a drawing of the master's plastron. The book is only 67 pages long, but is a valuable point of comparison with the other Piedmontese works of the period, such as the 1853 cavalry sabre instruction, Blengino, and Ferrero.⁵ Given that Giuseppe Radaelli was interacting with various cavalry officers such as Gerolamo Avogadro while teaching in Turin in the 1850s, his hall would have been visited by those who had previously learnt this very method, some at the Pinerolo school itself.

Special thanks to the kind staff of the Biblioteca Sportiva Nazionale for helping me see this book and the rest of their wonderful collection.

* * *

1 Ministero dell'Interno, Calendario generale del regno pel 1858 con appendice di notizie storico-statistiche (Turin: Stamperia dell'Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1858), 538; Ministero dell'Interno, Calendario generale del regno pel 1860 con appendice di notizie storiche sull'ultimo decennio (Turin: Stamperia dell'Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1860), 914.^↩
2 See the March and July 1861 issues of Giornale militare 1861: Bollettino delle nomine, promozioni ed altre variazioni occorse negli uffiziali dell'armata di terra e di mare non che delle amministrazioni militare e marittima.^↩
3 Ministero della Guerra, Annuario ufficiale dell'esercito italiano 1863 (Turin: C. Cotte e F. Capellino, 1863), 779–804.^↩
4 Cited in: Achille Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli (Florence: Tipi dell'Arte della Stampa, 1877), 3; Ferdinando Masiello, L'Italia Militare, 19 January 1878, 3.^↩
5 Istruzione pel maneggio della sciabola approvata dal Ministero di Guerra (Turin: Officina Tipografica di Giuseppe Fodratti, 1853); Cristoforo Blengino, Teoria di scherma sulla sciabola (Ivrea: Tipografia Violetta, 1851); Giovanni Battista Ferrero, Breve trattato sul maneggio della sciabola (Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1868).^↩