Comparing editions: Pecoraro & Pessina 1910 vs. 1912

The year 1910 is a pivotal one in the history of Radaellian fencing. For starters, less than a month into the year came the untimely death of arch-rival of the Radaellians, Masaniello Parise, aged only 59, which no doubt many Radaellians were hoping would provide an opportunity for the Rome Fencing Master's School to take on a new, non-Neapolitan direction. Four months later the vice-directors of the school, Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, announced their intention to publish a sabre treatise of their own, one which supposedly took into account the 'diversity of methods and views' followed in Italy at the time.¹ The book hit the shelves by August, a very respectable turn-around for a 255-page book.

Click *here* to view the 1910 edition and *here* for the 1912 edition.

The methodological foundation of Pecoraro and Pessina's work is undoubtedly Radaellian, even with their own additions and modifications which make them stand out from their contemporaries, which I have summarised previously. Nevertheless, their publication was subject to quite severe criticism from some of their Radaellian colleagues, in particular the formidable Ferdinando Masiello, who only a few months later published a 160-page book lambasting the treatise almost page-by-page.² The criticism clearly had an effect on the authors, as two years later they saw fit to publish a revised version (without ever labelling it as such). This must have been a sufficient enough improvement in the eyes of Masiello, as a decade later his judgement had noticeably tempered, deeming the second edition 'coherent and worthy of consideration'.³ I have compiled the following document which highlights the extent of the changes between the 1910 and 1912 editions of Pecoraro and Pessina's work.

*** Two-edition comparison ***

The vast majority of these changes will likely seem of little significance to modern readers, and indeed many are on an individual level. The single most profound and obvious difference between the editions lies in the preface, which was completely rewritten for the 1912 edition. To give a full appreciation of this, I have translated both of these prefaces below, starting with the original 1910 preface:

If Italian fencing, over a considerable period of time, and with heavy sacrifices, has finally been able to seat itself, a magnificent victor, on the glowing chariot of victory, this is in large part owed to sabre fencing.
However, as unfortunately happens in all human affairs, rather than raising a hymn to the shining steel which has managed to reap laurel branches in the most important tournaments and sought the perfection of the noble art in the unification of views and artistic principles, its importance has instead diminished, whether through the daily unveiling of new and always different systems, or with the acclamation, as almost everyone does, of foil and épée, to the detriment of the primacy which the sabre has been able to conquer for us.

It is very true that the foil and the épée offer considerable difficulties, both in the target area and in the execution of restricted movements, but one should not overlook the difference between the old and the modern method of fencing with the sabre.

One used to be forced to use protection for the legs, chest, thighs, and so on in order to not emerge from a bout in a battered state, while today, through the carriage and gradual balancing of the blade, the movements are performed almost with the lightness of embroidery, and with the same ease with which one performs wide movements, one performs those actions with the point which are characteristic of foil and épée.

One may therefore declare that the perfection of sabre fencing would implicitly mean the perfection of foil and épée, just as, by axiomatic truth, the whole comprises its parts.

Then why call the foil and the épée chivalric weapons par excellence, when the sabre belongs to the soldier, to whom the spirit of the knight, more than others, is suited?

What use would it serve if it were not used properly?

Fencing in general, and sabre fencing in particular, from the beginning of the century until to today has experienced the beneficial effects of a certain improvement, brought about on the basis of the different mechanical theories of the various pre-existing methods, but it is the task of those who harbour a lively and sincere affection for the noble art to perfect sabre fencing, considering that, in our opinion, it presents greater difficulties than foil and épée.

And since we have the full and profound conviction that, with respect to fencing, there are no absolutes, we have based ourselves on the relativity of execution of the various movements which make up the necessary whole of fencing.

We aim, therefore, for the unification of the various principles of different systems which, if on the one hand has practical importance for the perfection of our art, on the other will have the effect that, without distinction of regions or views, it may be fully called Italian fencing.

And here is the 1912 version:

In the first edition of this treatise we did not mention clearly enough the fundamental principles of our sabre method, believing that they would emerge by reading the first chapters, and perhaps this was the reason why the criticism was essentially limited to emphasising issues of pure form, in part acceptable and which we do not disdain to take to heart in this edition.

Here we offer, also for the suitable guidance of the reader, to express in a clear manner the principles our text is founded on and the aim which we have set ourselves in its publication.

Until now sabre fencing has been taught with different methods. There were those who based their system exclusively on wrist movements, thus creating an artificial, unnatural method; others, also keeping the system based on wrist movements, managed to improve its mechanics.

Redaelli was the one who understood the error of the aforementioned systems, and with a method based on forearm movements he came closer to the natural system of fencing with that weapon and had, in fact, results of an undoubtable superiority over the others.

Experience, however, has proven that all the fencers coming from the above-mentioned schools in practice carry out sabre fencing in a singular manner which is the most natural of all, and essentially consists of the Redaelli method combined with wrist movements rationally performed and always accompanied by the forearm.

But every fencer could not help but feel the effects of the received school and therefore frequently fall into the same errors: the Redaellians tended towards exaggeratedly wide and violent movements, those of the Parise school instead used movements that were tight in the wrist but wide with the point, with cuts not appropriately extended; meanwhile, most ended up adopting, with experience, a single system of fencing which is commonly called mixed.

Our treatise has the aim of ordering this mixed system and bringing it to its maximum perfection, making actions with the point as easily as those with the edge, adding actions never yet considered, however natural they are in sabre fencing, basing the system of execution on the naturalness and spontaneity of the movements.

Then with a series of preliminary exercises never before dictated, in those terms and in those lines, by any author, one will be able to achieve greater finesse and confidence in the mechanical execution of the various actions, a blade carriage which is not otherwise possible to obtain.

Thus our treatise, while for body carriage it is closer to what was masterfully dictated by Masaniello Parise, for blade carriage and the parries it is closer to Redaelli, in that the movements are performed essentially with the forearm but are based on a greater spontaneity and naturalness of execution.

This method of fencing—already generally known, as was said, in its broad outlines and with the improvements we have introduced—we hope will lead to the unification of the various systems, which will contribute to the development of this noble art.

The most immediately obvious difference in the 1912 version should be the repeated mention of Radaelli's method. While the original preface only refers vaguely to the aim of their method being 'the unification of the various principles of different systems', the updated edition makes it clear where their inspirations derive from, that being primarily Radaelli's foundation along with Parise's body carriage. The apologetic tone of the 1912 preface shows that they understood why a critical eye may have perceived the lack of credit to their masters in the original version as an attempt to pass off their method as something new and original. In the new preface they make it clear that their observations of Italian fencing at the time were that most people were already following a 'mixed' method similar to their own, and that the treatise was mainly an attempt at systematising this practical reality. The reference to their preliminary exercises as being 'never before dictated' in the same exact terms is likely a direct response to one of the many criticisms levelled by Masiello, who accused the two authors of copying Nicolò Bruno's 1891 work, which includes several elementary blade movement exercises that bear some resemblance to Pecoraro and Pessina's.⁴

Another obvious contrast between the two prefaces is the bemoaning in the 1910 version of the waning popularity of sabre fencing in favour of foil and épée, which was a common view among the older generation of Italian fencers at the time, particularly with regard to épée.⁵ The 1912 preface instead makes no allusions to a perceived decline of sabre fencing compared to the other disciplines. Along with the other changes mentioned, the overall result is that the latter edition takes on a much more positive, forward-looking attitude that does a much better job at setting readers' expectations of the rest of the material.

Looking beyond the preface, we find significantly expanded and revised explanations given to the section on the balance of the sabre, the explanation of how to grip the sabre, the introduction to the preliminary exercises (which goes from 135 words in the 1910 edition to 785 words in the 1912), and advice for bouting. Some material from the 1910 edition is simply rearranged within the book, such as the sections on invitations and the counter parries, while some were removed entirely. The blade transport in 1st is nowhere to be found in the updated edition, and the separate descriptions for the beat from each individual engagement is reduced to a single paragraph of general advice. Two completely new sections were added to the 1912 edition: a short section on beats followed by feints, and a full page of advice for actions to prefer in a duel.

On a much more general level, it is very easy to see an improvement in the general grammatical clarity of the writing in the 1912 edition. The first edition suffered greatly from poor copy editing, the authors being guilty of a serious overuse of commas and run-on sentences. Due to the sheer volume of these occurrences it was impractical to show this in my two-edition comparison, but is a single example taken from the section on the 'line of offence', translated literally to demonstrate the improvement in clarity made throughout the second edition:

1910 edition	1912 edition
It is called the line of offence, whenever the point of the sabre is found in a straight line with the chest, or with the flank, of the opponent, preventing the attack, without moving the blade.	The line of offence refers to that in which the point of the sabre is found in the direction of the opponent's chest or flank, in the natural act of threatening.

Individually these improvements may not mean much to readers today, but the awkward phrasing found throughout the 1910 edition could very easily have affected the perception of the authors at the time of publication. If the fencing masters were unable to convey their ideas well through text, it would be easy to accuse them of also being unable to teach these concepts to their students, whom the Ministry of War wished to portray as the best and brightest in all of Italy. It is unsurprising then that for the updated edition they shunned the publisher of the original edition, Giuseppe Romagna of Rome, instead employing G. Agnesotti of Viterbo in 1912. It is in this revised and greatly improved form that Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina's treatise would be most widely read. Although the Master's School was closed in 1914 as part of the Italian government's war preparations, when it was finally re-opened in 1926 Pecoraro and Pessina's works on both sabre and épée were again used as the official textbooks, which were republished for the sole use of the school's students (although this time both books were only credited to Pessina).⁶

In the next few posts we will take a closer look at some of the initial reactions to the publication of Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise, which will, among other things, provide more context around why the authors felt pressured to revise their work so soon after publication, as well as help to identify the specific critiques behind individual changes.

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1 The announcement is reproduced in Ferdinando Masiello, La Scherma di Sciabola: osservazioni sul Trattato dei Maestri Pecoraro e Pessina Vice-Direttori della Scuola Magistrale militare di Scherma (Florence: G. Ramella, 1910), 17–8.^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Ferdinando Masiello, "L'insegnamento della Scherma in Italia," La Scherma Italiana: Giornale degli schermidori, 2 September 1923. Translation available here.^↩
4 Masiello, La Scherma di Sciabola: osservazioni sul Trattato dei Maestri Pecoraro e Pessina, 45. For Bruno's blade exercises, see Scherma di sciabola: risorgiento della vera scherma di sciabola italiana basata sull'oscillazione del Pendolo (Novara: Tipografia Novarese, 1891), 63–5.^↩
5 . To give just a few examples: Agostino Arista, "Coltiviamo la sciabola," La Gazzetta dello Sport, 2 February 1907, 3; Vittorio Sartori, "Decadenza dell'arte delle armi," La Gazzetta dello Sport, 11 October 1907, 4; Giovanni Franceschinis, "Schermisti italiani, ritornate alla sciabola!!," La Scherma Italiana, 28 February 1914, 25–6.^↩
6 Carlo Pessina, Scherma di Sciabola: trattato teorico pratico (per uso esclusivo della Scuola e fuori commercio) (Civitavecchia: Prem. Stab. Tip. Moderno, 1927); Scherma di Spada (Civitavecchia: Prem. Stab. Tip. Moderno, 1927).^↩