Radaellians Respond to Pecoraro and Pessina (Part 2)

In the immediate aftermath of Masiello's last article, in which Pecoraro and Pessina received an occasionally warranted harsh assessment of their sabre treatise, no response from the authors was forthcoming. In the meantime, another grizzled Radaellian veteran, Giovanni Pagliuca, took up the pen to provide their own nit-picky and often sarcastic impressions of Pecoraro and Pessina's method. Pagliuca's first appearance in the public press was in 1880, when he published a booklet criticising Radaelli's foil curriculum, which he had learnt at the Milan Master's School in 1876. Aside from that single publication, Pagliuca had shied away from the partisan debates of the 1880s and 90s, being best known as a stellar representative of the Enrichetti school of foil, but occasionally also considered among the old-school Radaellians.¹ In the twilight of his career, Pagliuca resoundingly removes any doubt over his allegiance to Radaelli's theories in his unforgiving review of Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise, which appear in La Nazione of Florence on 7 October 1910.

After my renowned friend and colleague Ferdinando Masiello reviewed the pages of the sabre pseudo-treatise by the gentlemen Pecoraro and Pessina so well, it would seem that nothing else could be said regarding this treatise, so many and innumerable indeed were the flaws found within.
Yet from a less salient but perhaps more practical point of view than that of my friend Masiello, I will try to lay bare all the harm that the theories of the two aforementioned authors would do to the art of fencing if, unfortunately, they found some followers among the innocent beginners of the practice.

First of all, a declaration: when the publication of the treatise in question—the work of Pecoraro and Pessina—was announced, I immediately thought that the theories discussed in it would have neither scientific basis nor proof.

Masiello wrongly reproaches this deficiency, because he himself and everyone knows that the aforementioned authors were unable to do so. I rather expected, along strict, simple, and perhaps primitive lines, a theoretical exposition of what they have carried out very well, indeed excellently, for about forty years: beautiful practice. But unfortunately even this they were unable to do. Overcome by the obsession of wanting to be authors at any cost, to appear original, even at the risk of bordering on ridicule, they have even forgotten essential principles which do not change, but mould to the evolution of the art, principles which they repeated—and here it must be said by ear—millions of times to their pupils at the Master's School. Thus they have defined speed as a movement, measure as an intuition, tempo (keeping in mind that tempo is almost everything in fencing) as 'the moment the fencer chooses', without reflecting that the moment chosen by the fencer cannot be the tempo: this in the 'artistic sense', as the authors say, 'is the propitious moment for the execution of an action', which is something totally different.
But in the fencing treatise the word tempo has become a myth at the complete discretion of the authors. They toss it around like a toy, to the point of writing on page 60, note 1: 'Since the direct thrust is one of the simple actions, it is necessary, in its execution, for a rapid and coordinated combination of the individual movements and such timing as to overcome, with its simplicity, the opponent's potential defence.'
Timing that overcomes with its simplicity...?! Well, I do not understand that at all. How impressed I was, indeed I was alarmed to discover on page 190 that there is 'GREAT timing'. I hope that the authors also wish to publish something else which announces and explains to the fencing world what medium and small timing are.
And now to the most interesting subject, which demonstrates how the treatise in question can actually bring the art to ruin rather than facilitate its progress.
Since a book which deals with fencing can make itself useful even in small proportions, it is necessary that in such proportions there is an advantage over preceding authors to assist the practice all the more so, facilitating it with suitable simplification. Pecoraro and Pessina's book instead aims at precisely the opposite goal, that is to get even the few connoisseurs of fencing that still exist to avoid those possible complications, those incomprehensible and, even worse, absolutely impracticable prolixities which they wish to introduce 'for artistic finesse' (sic) to the practice of sabre fencing.
Can you imagine a sabre fencer who attempts a circular feint by forced glide with a feint? Or a fencer who amuses himself by melting the air with parries in the opposite direction while his opponent dispenses a powerful descending cut to the head and a strong traversone?
Moreover, the first and indispensable quality of a fencing book which aspires to call itself a treatise is that of presenting the definitions in the clearest and simplest form and at the same time the most synthetic, the most exact, and the most rational form.
Do you want some examples of the precise definitions contained within the book in question?
'The jump back serves to gain a lot of ground' (page 24). Since when one takes a step forward, one loses ground—understood?
'When, in order to defend oneself from the opponents blows, one performs with the sabre a rapid movement aimed at avoiding them, (!) one is said in a fencing sense to have completed a parry' (page 32).
So, the parry avoids a blow; it does not oppose the blow, as every fencer in the world has repeated until now and as the same authors of the ever under-appreciated book have always performed in practice. Yes, a blow can be avoided, but not 'with a rapid movement of the sabre', but with a rapid movement of the body.
Continuing: 'Half-counter parries are those through which it is necessary for the sabre to cover half the path' (page 74). They could at least have added 'of our life'.²
Consequently, dear readers, throw a sabre into the air: when it has reached the halfway point of what it can travel, it will have performed a half-counter parry.
But interrupting ourselves on the topic of definitions—an enormous amount of space would be needed, and we would bore readers too much—I must confess with full sincerity that I did learn something new from Pecoraro and Pessina's book, and with my 63 years of age I will nevertheless try to put it into practice, as it seems to be the most practical thing in fencing and within reach of any person young or old, like me, to immediately finish off any opponent.
I learnt that one imprisons the opposing sabre (pages 105 and following).
So from today onwards I will come on guard with good custody, into which I will immediately introduce my opponent's sabre, locking it up. Except then launching at that poor wretch, who has let their sabre be imprisoned, a good number of flat hits on the meatiest parts of their body.
Finally, irony aside, it can safely be asserted that the book by the aforementioned gentlemen, more than a work of fencing, has resulted in a work of comedy, capable of giving an hour of good humour to anyone who wishes to enjoy looking through it, and nothing more.
As Giuseppe Radaelli, the creator of sabre fencing in Italy, was unable to write the treatise of his theories himself, he was obliged to turn to Captain Del Frate; but he had the frankness to declare it, explicitly publishing in the title:
'The sabre fencing of Giuseppe Radaelli written by Captain Del Frate'.
While the same frankness did not guide the two renowned masters Pecoraro and Pessina, in their defence we should not convince ourselves that everything contained in the book was developed independently of their ability to understand it.
I end with a new declaration: as an old master and old artist of arms I could not help but protest against a book which is the negation of the art of fencing.
If, in pointing out the enormous faults of this book, I was forced to implicate the authors' responsibility, I will not cease harbouring for them, as artists and executors, the greatest respect. And it is through this respect, through the sincere esteem that I have always had in their fencing ability, that I regret the vain ambition that induced them to write a treatise, an ambition which certainly throws them—in their quality as vice-directors of the Military Fencing Master's School—from the lofty pedestal which they had created for themselves with their undisputed practical ability.

Maestro GIOVANNI PAGLIUCA
Via della Croce, 34 — Rome

If we peel away Pagliuca's witty and casual writing style, it becomes apparent that many of his issues with Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise stem from their poor choice of words and unrefined definitions, something which we have seen Masiello point out already. Any criticism of the technical material itself and the overarching method is certainly lacking in Pagliuca's case, but slightly better in Masiello's. Pecoraro and Pessina seem to have had a similar reading of both Masiello and Pagliuca's articles, as is evidenced in their eventual response to their critics on 23 October in Rome's Giornale d'Italia.

Dear Mr. Director,

Since publishing the sabre fencing treatise of which we, Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, are the authors, if there has been no lack of praise from many quarters, especially in private and authoritative letters, from some individuals we were not spared censure. And we would not lament this if the censures had always been proportionate and had not revealed, in the fury of critique, something other than a pure love of the art. In any case, we will not let this distract us from serenely following our path; but we will limit ourselves to a few words in legitimate defence. 
It was our precise intention to collect in our treatise what the experience of a not inglorious artistic career had taught us. To this end, we freely jotted down our thoughts as they flowed from the pen, without any literary pretence and with the conviction that, above all, true fencers would have considered the substance. We were instead deceived, since our detractors—particularly Ferdinando Masiello and Giovanni Pagliuca—met to attack us primarily for literary form, stating with regard to substance only criticisms which, if they express an individual judgement of theirs, have a very relative value that is based on poor familiarity with the special weapon, to which we instead have given and will give all our activity as people and as fencers.
This being the case, while it will not be difficult for us to eliminate in a second edition of our treatise those flaws of a literary nature which our opposers have been pleased to highlight in a noble sentiment of fencing fraternity, we will have the opportunity to better illuminate the quality of our method's substance, which we are not at all disposed to compromise on, and which we are always ready to give a practical demonstration of.
We will declare, however, that any cross-examination of an artistic nature will be accepted by us with those connoisseurs who have deeply studied and taught the noble art of the sabre, achieving practical, and not just theoretical, results.
Because among those who have always studied and sought the progress of sabre fencing, dedicating to it all their physical and intellectual energy, because they considered this art truly sovereign, and those who instead, even setting themselves up as the god almighty of fencing, have defined it as the art of butchering, and, naturally, cannot boast of a single product worthy of remembering, they will serenely judge the true fencers.

SALVATORE PECORARO

CARLO PESSINA³

It is noteworthy that in this brief defence the authors are already talking of a revised second edition to correct the errors of the work's 'literary form', thus accepting at least in part the criticism that Masiello and Pagliuca have directed at them. However, their dismissal of other aspects of the criticism as well as their reference to some self-proclaimed 'god almighty of fencing', aside from being unsatisfying as a response, may have also struck Masiello as a veiled personal attack on him. Therefore on 27 October yet another letter bearing his name appeared in the pages La Nazione.⁴

In this reply Masiello is quick to assert that his own well-reasoned observations were unfairly lumped together with all the other critics, and in doing so they had overlooked all his observations of substance in order to focus on those relating to form. He admits that he did repeatedly highlight their substandard grammar, but he considers the problems with their definitions to be far more important than they are willing to acknowledge. Pecoraro and Pessina's accusation that Masiello possessed 'poor familiarity' with the sabre is one which Masiello was unable to go unanswered, as he asserts that his tireless advocacy for sabre fencing was by then indisputable. Aside from his 1887 treatise as proof of the quality of his studies, he refers to a well-received public demonstration of his sabre method that he gave in Rome in 1890, which Pecoraro and Pessina curiously did not attend, as well as the fact that he personally went to London to organise the British army's fencing programme at Aldershot in the 1890s.

As to their own practical results from their teaching at the Master's School, Masiello does not consider this enough to make somebody a good author, nor are one's competitive accomplishments sufficient to demonstrate the quality of a fencing system. Masiello is slightly comforted, however, that the two authors are already proposing a revised and corrected second edition of the treatise, for which he hopes his own observations might serve some use to them. Just as Pecoraro and Pessina had asked their detractors to withhold judgement on their treatise before reading it, Masiello now asks them to wait for his imminent publication, in which he will expand upon all his gripes and grievances regarding their method. Through this more detailed response, Masiello hopes that they might reconsider their view of him as being simply a 'detractor' and take his observations to heart for the benefit of their method, and not simply in a literary sense.

In the next post we will be focusing on this long-awaited, expansive critique from Masiello.

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1 For more biographical information on Pagliuca, see Sebastian Seager, "Radaelli Under Fire: Giovanni Pagliuca," Radaellian Scholar (blog), 18 April 2023, https://radaellianscholar.blogspot.com/2023/04/radaelli-under-fire-giovanni-pagliuca.html.^↩
2 Translator's Note: This tongue-in-cheek remark is a reference to the opening line of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: 'Midway upon the journey of our life ...'.^↩
3 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), 23–4^↩
4 Ferdinando Masiello, "Polemiche schermistiche: Una lettera del M.° Masiello," La Nazione, 27 October 1910, 2.^↩