The first bouts for the fencing portion of the Naples Gymnastics Congress began in the morning of 26 September 1881, the second day of the congress. Previous congresses had seen only a modest attendance from Neapolitan fencers, as they were all held in northern or central Italy; this instalment promised a much broader, and thus more representative, roster of Neapolitan fencers of all skill levels. A total of 76 fencers competed at the Naples congress, 61 in foil and 48 in sabre, which was a slight drop from the 75 foil and 55 sabre fencers who had originally registered.1 A singular piste was erected in the middle of the grand hall in the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, measuring 16 metres long and 8 wide, raised off the ground by about a metre to provide all spectators a satisfactory view of the action.2
The fencing bouts on the 26th were to determine admissions; that is, fencers had to demonstrate that they were sufficiently skilled to be admitted into the rest of the competition. Here, as in the rest of the competition, no distinction was made between amateurs and masters, and bouting pairs were assigned indiscriminately of a fencer's professional status. While the regulations stated that a fencer could be rejected from participation if they were lacking in technical skill, variety, composure or politeness, jurors instead decided to ignore the regulations and be very forgiving in their admission judgements for the sake of simplicity. The result was that all fencers who attended were admitted to the competition, and those who had already done an admission bout in foil were exempt from doing another in sabre.3
Although this was mostly consistent with previous congresses, the skill level of the worst fencers made universal admission a controversial move in some eyes. In particular, it was felt that many of the Radaellians fencers present were of a poor standard and should have been excluded entirely. Nicola Lazzaro, writing for Gazzetta Piemontese, felt that it was 'a mistake' to admit everyone, because the fencing masters of the military 'in their generality made a poor showing and proved how perfectly defective the fencing school being taught in the army is'.4
To compensate for admitting everyone, the jury vowed to be much more discerning in the subsequent classification stage, which began on the following day. The foilists were divided into four groups of 15 pairs each, with the first two groups fencing on 27 September and the remaining two on the 28th.5 At the end of each bout, jurors were tasked with ranking both fencers in accordance with set aesthetic and technical criteria. Here again, however, the jury opted to simplify the process, disregarding individual scores for each criteria and allowing themselves to simply write on their ballot cards which of the three categories they thought a fencer should be assigned to based on their general impression.6 While the original scoring method made it possible to receive a moderate overall score by, for example, being athletic and skilled at touching even if one's fencing was aesthetically off-putting, eliminating this distinction could conceivably have increased the impact of personal bias, as it did not force jurors to consider each performance criterion separately.
Whether or not this did end up significantly affecting the results, a distinctly negative impression of the Radaellian fencers is reflected very early in the event's press coverage. After the first day of fencing, the Gazzetta d'Italia observed a great disparity between the Radaellians and those of the 'so-called National school' (equated here with Neapolitan fencing), finding in the former 'little or no taste, an ugly guard, uncomposed movements', while a fencer of the latter school made 'the perfect gentleman'.7 After the second day of foil classification bouts, the same journalist declared that the Radaelli school 'had emerged from the Naples competition with a new condemnation on its shoulders', impressions which were further confirmed by the general assembly on the night of the 27th, as discussed in part 1.8 For the correspondent of Paris's L'Événement, the bouts of that day were 'fatal to Redaelli's ridiculous system'—the Neapolitans had 'pulverised' their Radaellian opponents, who supposedly scored only one hit for every ten that landed on them.9
Even the Enrichettian competitors, whom Neapolitan partisans were generally more accepting of, mostly flew under the radar in these bouts. The only exception in the classification bouts was the one between the Enrichettian master Giovanni Pagliuca and Masaniello Parise, which for many was one of the most exciting of the entire event. The speed and complexity of their movements was particularly captivating:
The series of ripostes followed one another, the beats, the direct thrusts, the disengages, the feints, all sorts of parries interweave, meddle, and merge. The eyes cannot follow everything that happens.10
The only marginally positive impression expressed by L'Événement for a Radaellian foilist was in regard to a 'very difficult' recent graduate of the Milan school, Carlo Pessina. Even still, he was no match for his experienced opponent, the Neapolitan amateur Antonio Miceli, a 'colossus of fencing' whose wall of steel was entirely impenetrable to Pessina's speedy attacks.
If many of the foil bouts were perceived as one-sided affairs, this certainly did not diminish the curiosity of the general public. In the first few days of the congress, Nicola Lazzaro noted that the pistol and gymnastics competitions were only sparsely attended, mostly by enthusiasts, and 'the only section of the congress which a reasonable crowd rushed to, including a good number of women, was fencing.'11 Attendance and enthusiasm grew each day, the crowd being noted as 'enormous' on the 28th, with the male journalists always keenly observant of the many fashionable women among them.12
In contrast to the strong attendance of local fencers and onlookers, a reduced contingent of military masters, at least compared to the recent Milan tournament, was noted by some. Rome's Fanfulla suggested that while the Neapolitan fencers were clearly superior at the congress, the event could offer no conclusions on the state of the national scene, as the local fencers were not opposed by 'the strongest champions of the other schools'.13 Among other absences, Gazzetta d'Italia notes that Ferdinando Masiello had a bad knee (he would undergo a surgical procedure just two weeks later) and Giordano Rossi was ill, while Milan's Il Secolo offered another explanation: 'the Redaellists did not want to go to this congress, because they already knew that things had been prepared to issue a vote against the Milanese school.'14
Compounding with the general apathy towards sabre fencing in Southern Italy, the absence of many top-tier Radaellians led to an underwhelming start to the sabre event, at least if the meagre press coverage is anything to go by. The 26 sabre classification bouts took place on 29 September (although there may possibly have been more on the 28th) with L'Événement only mentioning Vincenzo Bellini's drubbing of Radaellian master Alessandro Saccenti.15 In an interesting contrast with the article Niccola Lazzaro wrote for L'Illustrazione Italiana, which was discussed in part 1 of this series, his coverage for Gazzetta Piemontese was noticeably harsher towards the Radaellians. He felt that the condemnation of Radaelli's system which was pronounced at the assembly on the 27th was only further justified in light of the sabre classifications:
Consider these words carefully, weigh their importance and you will see how they attack an entire method so far held in high regard in the army and known by the name of Radaelli, which has given the result that every amateur of the true Italian school fully defeated a military fencing master—with some exceptions—as we saw yesterday in the sabre bout between the Prince of Santa Margherita (amateur) and a certain Gentiluomo (military master). The prince had a flawless victory, that is he landed all his blows without receiving a single one.16
The resulting classifications broadly reflected the opinions of journalists with regard to foil, but the jury was appeared slightly more forgiving towards the Radaellians with respect to sabre. Below is the list of every fencer who was classified at the congress according to the official report.17 Unlike the Milan tournament of that year, amateurs and masters were classified together, and the report does not distinguish between them in any way. What the report does helpfully note, however, is the fencing school each fencer belonged to, which I have represented with a letter next to each name.
Foil classification:
| 1st Category | 2nd Category | 3rd Category |
|---|---|---|
| Barraco, Gaetano (N) Bellussi, Federico (M) De Marinis, Ernesto (N) d'Ondes, Lorenzo (N) Miceli, Antonio (N) Pagliuca, Giovanni (E) Parise, Eduardo (N) Parise, Masaniello (N) Parise, Raffaele (N) Pinto, Giulio (N) Rizzo, Antonio (N) |
Ardito, Giuseppe (N) Bellini, Andrea (N) Bellusci, Achille (N) Cafarelli, Pasquale (E) Cesarano, Federico (N) Cipolla, Luigi (N) Cipolla, Michele (N) Colombo, Lorenzo (R) Cuddia, Baron Staiti (N) Dattola, Giovanni (N) Emanuele di Villabianca, Gaetano (E) Farina, Baron Francesco (N) La Marca, Vincenzo (N) Musdaci, Raffaele (E) Pellegrini, Giuseppe (R) Pessina, Carlo (R) Robertella, Achille (N) Saccenti, Alessandro (R) Scotti, Arcangelo (E) |
Annicchiarico, Concezio (R) Armista, Arturo (R) Audisio, Michele (E) Ballo, Nicola (R) Baroni, Vincenzo (N) Botti, Stanislao (R) Candeloro, Alfonso (R) Capasso, Vittorio (N) Cecirelli, Pasquale (S) Cirillo, Felice (N) Dal Mulin, G. Battista (M) Ferrajuolo, Giuseppe (E) Ferrara, Camillo (R) Ferri, Ferruccio (R) Ferrigni, Raffaele (N) Flauti, Raffaele (N) Franceschi, Nunzio (R) Gabelli, Enrico (M) Gentiluomo, Annibale (R) Massa, Andrea (M) Musciomarra, Francesco (N) Muti, Michele (N) Palmieri, Giuseppe (R) Pasetti, Vittorio (R) Pecci, Scipione (R) Rispoli, Luigi (N) Rossi, Sabato (E) Sirigatti, Salvatore (R) Tagliaferri, Luigi (R) Vacca, Carlo (N) Ugolino, Cesare (R) |
Sabre classification:
| 1st Category | 2nd Category | 3rd Category |
|---|---|---|
| Barraco, Gaetano (N) Bellini, Vincenzo (N) Cipolla, Luigi (N) Candeloro, Alfonso (R) Dattola, Giovanni (N) De Marinis, Ernesto (N) Emanuele, Gaetano di Villabianca (E) Locascio, Cristofaro (N) Pagliuca, Giovanni (E) Pessina, Carlo (R) Saccenti, Alessandro (R) | Armista, Arturo (R) Annichiarico, Concezio (R) Audisio, Michele (E) Bellussi, Federico (M) Botti, Stanislao (R) Colombo, Lorenzo (R) Caffarelli, Pasquale (R) Corvino, Celeste (R) Del Pozzo, Giuseppe (N) Ferri, Ferruccio (R) Musdaci, Raffaele (R) Maffei, Vito (R) Pasetti, Vittorio (R) Pellegrino, Giuseppe (R) Pecci, Scipione (R) Palmieri, Giuseppe (R) Spinelli, Giuseppe (N) Siciliani, Carlo (N) Sammartino, Salvatore (R) S. Margherita, prince (N) Sirigatti, Salvatore (R) Ugolino, Cesare (R) | Atticciati, Ernesto (R) Barone, Vincenzo (N) Ballo, Nicola (R) Bozza, Augusto (R) Dal Mulin, G. Battista (M) De Peppo, Alfredo (N) Ferrara, Camillo (R) Ferrajuolo, Giuseppe (E) Gabelli, Enrico (M) Gentiluomo, Annibale (R) Rossi, Sabato (R) Sallazzaro de Nunnatores (R) Tagliaferri, Luigi (R) Vial, Pietro (N) Valcarenghi, Giordano (R) |
One striking observation is that the third category in foil is considerably larger in proportion to the first two, a contrast that is absent in the sabre classification. The difference, as one might have guessed, lies in how the Radaellians were classified. In foil, 15 out of 19 fencers listed as Radaellians were classified in the third category, with the remaining four in the second category. In sabre, Radaellians were more distributed among the three categories, with the bulk (16 out of 28) in second category. Three Radaellians achieved a first category rating and only nine were relegated to the third category.
Of the Enrichettian masters, it is curious to see that several all are listed as such for both foil and sabre. Since late 1877, every Enrichettian had been trained in, and were presumably obliged to teach, Radaelli's method. Assuming fencers self-nominated their fencing school attribution for the sake of this report (although we cannot certain this was the case), choosing to be known as an Enrichettian sabreur rather than a Radaellian one may have given some military masters the opportunity to distance themselves from the Milan school and its controversial director. Giovanni Pagliuca had publicly criticised Radaelli's foil method in a recent publication, and may have wanted to further his standing among the Neapolitans by listing himself as an Enrichettian sabreur at the Naples Congress. Michele Audisio, on the other hand, had been listed as a Radaellian sabreur in the report for the Milan International Tournament that same year, which prompts the question of why he his fencing would be considered any different just five months later.18
It is also interesting to note that of the three members of the Parise family competing at the Naples Congress—Masaniello, his cousin Eduardo, and uncle Raffaele—not one of them competed in sabre. A higher proportion of fencers competed only in foil, 28 out of 61, than did in sabre only (14 out of 48). Of those 28 foilists who only competed in foil, 25 of them were of the Neapolitan school. While this indicates a lack of interest in sabre in Southern Italy, it is worth noting that eight out of the 14 sabreurs to only fence in that weapon were also of the Neapolitan school, with the remaining being all Radaellians. Of those Neapolitan sabre specialists, Maestro Vincenzo Bellini was considered by many to be the south's answer to Radaelli, having developed his own 'Neapolitan school' of sabre and publishing a short treatise on it a year after the Naples Congress.19 Before the competition had even begun, L'Événement asserted that the Bellini was 'one of the strongest sabre fencers of Italy, and, in everyone's opinion, he should take the place of that babbler Redaelli.'20 Bellini firmly secured a place in the first category, while his students Cristofaro Locascio and Carlo Siciliani placed in the first and second categories respectively.
All those classified in the first category received a gold medal, those in the second category a silver medal, and those in the third category a bronze medal. More importantly though, the categorisation established was which fencers would be able to take part in the subsequent fencing events of the congress. Only those classified in the first category could compete in the 'pools', which were single-touch single elimination tournaments, and fencing in the grand exhibition was reserved for those in the first and second categories. The pools for foil and sabre were originally set to take place on the evening of the 29th, but the classification bouts went on for longer than anticipated. Meanwhile, the foilists who had been classified in the first category decided amongst themselves that winning a single-touch pool was of no great importance to them, as the outcome of a single-touch bout was considered little more than a coin toss. The foilists volunteered to give up the special medal reserved for the winner of that foil pool for the jury to award it to whomever they pleased.21 Thus only the sabre pool and the grand exhibition would go ahead, both on the following day.
As midday on 30 September approached, a large crowd filed into the grand Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, anxiously awaiting the day's events. Over 2000 people had been invited to the grand exhibition, and there seemed to be few absences among them.
There was no room left for a man's foot to stand which had not been taken up by a curious onlooker. The grand windows, the arcades on the upper floors which faced the hall, were crowded with people. Slightly after midday, amidst feverish anticipation, the sabre pool took place.22
The referee for the day's action, Mario Del Tufo, mounted the raised piste followed by the first two competitors, Alfonso Candeloro and Giovanni Pagliuca, with the former emerging victorious. Alessandro Saccenti then defeated his opponent, Cristofaro Locascio, Vincenzo Bellini defeated Gaetano Barraco, and Carlo Pessina defeated Ernesto De Marinis. With both Giovanni Dattola and Luigi Cipolla being absent from the pool for unspecified reasons, there was an odd number of sabre fencers. This was solved in the customary way by matching the last remaining fencer with someone who had already fenced and won in that round. The person who had to fence a second time would remain in the competition regardless of the bout's outcome. In this instance the odd one out was Gaetano Emanuele di Villabianca, who was paired with and subsequently defeated Pessina (who was therefore not eliminated). In the second round, Pessina defeated Saccenti and Bellini defeated Candeloro. Emanuele was again paired with one of the preceding fencers, this time Bellini, who defeated Emanuele and knocked him out of the pool.23 The last two remaining fencers, Pessina and Bellini, then took to the piste:
A single sabre blow will bring victory to one of these two. Everyone is on their feet, one dares not even breathe. Bellini vigorously attacks his opponent on the march; the latter retreats while parrying, and at the moment the former finishes his action with a successful blow to the head, Pessina, believing he was still in time to make a stop hit, delivers a descending cut and lightly touches Bellini's arm.24
As the journalist for L'Événement continues, the referee Mario Del Tufo was visibly indecisive about what had occurred. The outraged journalist insists that Pessina was at fault, and that anyone who had spent at least six months in a fencing hall knew it. When pressed by the jury, Del Tufo is unable to make a decision, and they take no heed of Bellini's own attempts to explain the exchange. The jury retires to another room for discussion, emerging six minutes later to declare that a double touch had occurred and that the touches are annulled for both. The bout must continue. The fencers come on guard once more, and an irritated Bellini rushes his opponent, receiving a clean stop thrust to his chest. Pessina wins the sabre pool.
 |
| The sabre pool bracket, visualised. The numbers indicate the order of the bouts, while the asterisks mark the extra bouts to resolve the odd number of fencers. |
After a 20-minute intermission for the public to recover from the sustained tension of the pool, the grand exhibition begins. The crowd is treated to seven foil bouts from those in the first category, the most memorable of which being Masaniello Parise's bouts with Ernesto De Marinis and Antonio Miceli, the bout between Federico Bellussi and Gaetano Barraco, and the final one between Eduardo Parise and Pagliuca. Five bouts among the first category sabreurs followed, including one between Neapolitans Locascio and De Marinis as well as an exciting rematch between Pessina and Bellini. This time around, the press was in full agreement that Bellini was the better of the two fencers, with the Gazzetta Piemontese commenting that the bout 'showed that the Jury was not entirely right in awarding the prize for the pool to Pessina.'25
At around 4 pm the crowd saw three bouts between the second category foilists, the more appreciated of which being between Enrichettian masters Emanuele di Villiabianca and Raffaele Musdaci. The poor choice of the organisers to schedule the most exciting bouts at the beginning of the exhibition meant that, by the late afternoon, the crowd's interest was waning, and many had started making their way home. Just two sabre bouts from the second category fencers were carried out before the grand exhibition was finally concluded at 6 pm.
In the third and final part of this series, we will see what conclusions the jury drew from the Naples Congress, also taking into account the additional fencing awards presented on the congress' final day as well as considerations on the written works submitted to the didactic exhibition. I will also explore how the congress influenced events in Italian fencing over the following years and how its results were utilised by partisans on either side of the Radaellian-Neapolitan debate.
*******
1 Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 18. The actual number of fencers who attended was tallied up from the lists on pp. 99–102.↩2 'Napoli,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 29 September 1881, 1.↩
3 Cesare Parrini in Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 97.↩
4 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Ultime notizie,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3.↩
5 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 1 October 1881, 1; 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 30 September 1881, 2; 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2. There was evidently some confusion about this among the press. Lazzaro's account states that each of the four groups contained 16 fencers each, while the Gazzetta d'Italia states there were 15, but is inconsistent in the number of groups.↩
6 Parrini in Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico, 97. The original judging criteria from the congress regulations is quoted in Giacomo Massei, Il XI congresso ginnastico e la sua giuria di scherma (Naples: Stabilimento Tipografico dell'Unione, 1881), 6–7.↩
7 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 29 September 1881, 2.↩
8 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2.↩
9 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2.↩
10 Id.↩
11 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 1 October 1881, 1.↩
12 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2; E. W. Foulques, 'Chronique de Naples,' Le Voltaire, 12 October 1881, 2.↩
13 Picche, 'Cose di Napoli,' 4 October 1881, 1–2.↩
14 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2; 'Napoli,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 29 September 1881, 1; 'La scuola milanese di scherma,' Il Secolo, 1 October 1881, 3. On Masiello's knee operation, see Nunzio Spina, 'La prima meniscectomia in Italia: storia di armi, di coraggio e di felici intuizioni,' Giornale Italiano di Ortopedia e Traumatologia 34, no. 2 (June 2008): 90–96, https://old.giot.it/article/la-prima-meniscectomia-in-italia-storia-di-armi-di-coraggio-e-di-felici-intuizioni/.↩
15 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2.↩
16 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3.↩
17 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 99–102.↩
18 Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881 (Naples: Tipi Ferrante, 1881), 126.↩
19 Vincenzo Bellini, Trattato di scherma sulla sciabola (Naples: G. de Angelis, 1882).↩
20 Fioretto, 'Lettres de Naples,' L'Événement, 27 September 1881, 2.↩
21 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 91; Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2.↩
22 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 91–92.↩
23 Confusingly, Cosenz's official report on the pool lacks one of these bouts and does not explain the additional bouts resulting from the odd number of fencers. A better list of the pool bouts is found in 'Congresso ginnastico,' Corriere della Sera, 3 October 1881, 2. This system of resolving an odd number of fencers was also utilised at the 1881 Milan Tournament. See Cariolato & Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma, 57.↩
24 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2.↩
25 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3. On the shared opinion of Bellini's superiority, see Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2; 'Congresso ginnastico,' Corriere della Sera, 3 October 1881, 2.↩
