A common misconception regarding the instruction of fencing in the 19th century is that there were easily identifiable military and civilian methods or styles of fencing, and that masters generally specialised in one of these two contexts. Furthering this confusion, especially in the case of Italy, is the fact that the press often made a point of noting whether someone taught within the military or in a civilian club. In reality, however, fencing itself was a discipline that faced little to no regulation within any of the pre-unification Italian states, and the chronic shortage of fencing masters within the military led to regiments frequently turning to civilian masters to fulfil their training obligations. The military-civilian distinction was not one of fencing methodology, but one of employment first and foremost. Focusing on the post-1874 era following the consolidation of the Milan Fencing Master's School, the military-civilian distinction becomes yet more confusing for modern readers, as the Ministry of War not only became the sole arbiter of who could be a 'military master', but it also created a role within the military's institutions for 'civil masters', who were not simply those employed from outside the Master's School pipeline. In this article I will outline how the profession of fencing master was regulated within the Italian military and explain the different roles it created, thereby hopefully alleviating some of the confusion on this topic.
As stated above, prior to the foundation of the military fencing master's schools in 1868 and 1869 there was no official national body in Italy which regulated the use of the title of 'fencing master'. While the National Academy of Fencing in Naples had existed since 1861, there is little evidence to suggest that it had much sway outside of Naples until beginning of the 20th century. The National Academy of Fencing did gain some level of national recognition in November 1880 when a royal decree by Umberto I declared it a 'moral body' (essentially an incorporated association), but in practice even this did not allow the masters it certified to teach in the corps and institutions of the military.1
A proper discussion of how fencing masters were certified prior to the foundation of the Military Fencing Master's Schools is worthy of its own article, but for now it will suffice to say that civilian certification traditionally served as a method of peer recognition. According to Alberto Marchionni, who was writing in the 1840s, the process that had been common since the beginning of the 19th century was for a candidate to be endorsed by at least three fencing masters, who were given a demonstration of the candidate's ability to give lessons, of their theoretical knowledge, and of their practical ability in bouting.2 Fencing masters who were certified in this manner were often employed in regiments or military institutions where such instruction was not already being provided by military staff.
Many of examples of this can be provided, but the most obvious is the case of Giuseppe Radaelli, who accompanied the Monferrato cavalry regiment, as a civilian, in its various postings around Italy during the 1860s and regularly taught fencing to members of said regiment.3 Recognising both the need to increase the quality of fencing instruction in its corps and address the lack of competent fencing instructors available to them, the Ministry of War generalised this arrangement in 1867: corps commanders of the infantry and cavalry were permitted to hire a civilian fencing master for three to four months of the year, with a salary of no more 80 lire a month, who would be tasked with training one or two fencing instructors to replace them by the end of their employment period.4
If this was intended to be anything more than a stop-gap measure, it was clearly insufficient, as just over a year later the ministry announced the 'special fencing courses' which gave birth to the Military Fencing Master's Schools in Parma, Modena, and Milan.5 The first graduates were referred to as maestri militari di scherma di punta e sciabola (literally 'military fencing masters of the point and sabre'), with there also being the provision for the rank of 'sub-master' (sotto-maestro), which may have been intended for fresh graduates. Promotion from sub-master to master could take place after five years of continuous service with good conduct. Initially all ranks of sottufficiali or non-commissioned officers (NCOs) could be accepted into these courses, but beginning in 1874 candidates could only be sergeants, and this remained the norm for the rest of the institution's existence.
Following the first experimental course, only the Parma and Milan schools were kept in operation, the former under the direction of Cesare Enrichetti and the latter under Giuseppe Radaelli, and by the end of 1874 only Radaelli's school remained. By this point the Ministry of War was seemingly quite satisfied with this institution becoming the sole regulator of fencing in the army, and the only fencing masters who had not been trained at either Enrichetti or Radaelli's school to continue in their positions going forward were those employed at military schools and academies. The 1874 ministerial acts outlining the responsibilities of the Master's School now made an explicit distinction between those who taught fencing in the military as soldiers and those who taught in the military as civilian employees. Those in the former category henceforth bore the title 'fencing instructor' (istruttore di scherma), a title also given to all former and future Master's School graduates. Those employed as civilians were given the title of 'civil fencing master' (maestro di scherma civile), while the 'sub-master' role was to be discontinued.6 The only people to bear the sub-master title from this point were the three civilian fencing masters employed at the Modena Military School, who had all been teaching there since 1860s, and two of whom were eventually appointed as proper civil fencing masters.7 Despite the fact that an NCO who was qualified to teach fencing the bore the official title of 'instructor', in the public press they were still often referred to as fencing masters, as 'master' was and is the typical title given in Italy to those who teach. For the sake of clarity, however, from here on I will only refer to these enlisted NCO fencing masters as 'instructors' or 'military instructors', while the term 'civil master' will be reserved for civilian employees of the military.
Military instructors were first and foremost non-commissioned officers, starting at the rank of sergeant, and they were still expected to fulfil the roles expected of an enlisted soldier. Upon graduating from the Master's School, by default they were assigned to a specific military regiment, where they continued to carry out the regular duties of a sergeant whenever their services are not required in the fencing hall. To distinguish themselves from other NCOs, fencing instructors and those training to become one wore a special patch on their right arm, which was embroidered in red woollen thread for student fencing instructors and silver thread for qualified instructors.8 Below on the left we see this patch on a young Carlo Pessina, possibly taken while he was a student at the Milan Master's School, and on the right is a close-up of the official design.
Due to the fencing instructor's increased responsibility within the regiment, they received a daily bonus of 0.60 lire, so long as they were with the regiment and not on leave or subject to disciplinary confinement. The daily wage for a sergeant in 1874 ranged from 1.68 lire to 1.81 lire, depending on whether they served in the infantry, cavalry, artillery, etc. The bonus received for being a fencing instructor at this time was therefore an effective pay increase of between 33 and 36%. If they remained in active service for five years after becoming a fencing instructor their daily bonus increased to 1.00 lire. But aside from this one-off increase, instructors had few prospects of progression within that role. After two promotions (which took 10 years) they would be at the highest non-commissioned rank possible, furiere maggiore (roughly equivalent to quartermaster), meaning that the only options for further promotion were to become a commissioned officer and thus abandon their role as a fencing instructor. A lucky few instructors would also occasionally be called to assist at the Master's School, for which beginning in 1886 they received a daily bonus of 1.65 lire instead of the usual 0.60 or 1.00 lire bonus, but this was rarely more than a short-term appointment.9
Civil masters, by contrast, enjoyed a much more stable and financially rewarding lifestyle. They were no longer enlisted soldiers, but rather fencing masters employed as civilians exclusively within what the Italian government referred to as 'civil institutions', consisting of the various military colleges, academies, and schools located throughout the country, including the Master's School. Depending on the specific institution, civilian employees could make up the majority of its administration and teaching staff, which also included civil fencing masters. As mentioned above for the Master's School, a small number of military instructors were also assigned to these military institutions as assistants, subordinate to the civil masters, but rarely more than two or three per institution, who tended to cycle out with the regular garrison changes. Even for several years after the foundation and consolidation of the singular Fencing Master's School in Milan, those who had not been certified by it continued to be employed by some civil institutions; however, as the existing positions became vacant and the institutions expanded, only currently-enlisted graduates of the Military Master's Schools filled those positions. Thus despite what the title may suggest, by the mid-1870s the civil master position was no longer an opportunity for civilians to teach fencing in the military, because the only people qualified to fill that position were trained by and serving in the military.
Almost no details on the civil master examination process is known prior to the school's transfer to Rome in 1884. The 1874 act simply states that civil master promotions would be carried out by 'special competition' at the Milan school, in which candidates had to demonstrate their knowledge of Radaelli's fencing method and 'to which only instructors and (civil) sub-masters may be admitted who are considered worthy through their conduct, zeal, and service seniority.'10 The first time any details are provided on the assessment process for civil masters is in 1888, when the Ministry of War announced what was presumably the first civil master 'competition exam' to be held since the transfer of the Master's School to Rome.11 The method of assessment detailed in these regulations bear a remarkable resemblance to the method outlined by Marchionni 40 years prior, suggesting that the process used at the Master's School was largely a formalisation of what was commonplace in civilian circles. The competition exam, which was open only to those who had been NCOs for at least eight years, consisted of separate 'theoretical-practical' and practical tests for foil and sabre, giving a total of four components to the assessment process. This was also the same examination process used for assessing students of the Master's School, so the civil master candidates would have been very familiar with this process already.
The theoretical-practical component involved the chairperson of the examination committee randomly drawing three 'theses' (perhaps a specific topic or technique) taken from the fencing curriculum, and then asking the candidate questions about one or more of these topics. The candidate had to give both a theoretical response to the topic as well as give a practical demonstration of how to teach these concepts to a student, with the current students at the Master's School acting in the latter role. Each of these theoretical-practical tests would last roughly 30 minutes. The practical test component simply required a candidate to bout with other candidates, in randomly assigned pairs, for however long the committee deemed necessary. By 1897 the examination process also included a theoretical-practical assessment on refereeing bouts, and later when the scope of the school was expanded in 1909 to include general physical education as part of the curriculum, the civil master exam also expanded to include this new material.12
At the end of the assessment the committee, which consisted of five members, gave a yes or no vote as to whether or not the candidate was suitable in each of the assessment areas. If the answer for all of them was yes, then each committee member would assign a score of between 1 and 20 to each assessment area. The average of these four scores across the committee gave the final score for each candidate, and thus a ranking of all candidates could be made. If a candidate received a score lower than 14, they were considered unsatisfactory and excluded from applying for the position again. While this alone suggests that taking part in the competition was a significant risk for those with less experience, even getting a score higher than 14 did not guarantee a promotion. Promotions were only awarded as civil master vacancies arose, with the highest ranking candidate receiving the first vacant position, the second-highest filling the next vacancy, and so on. If not enough vacancies emerged within that two-year period to allow a candidate to be promoted, then that person had missed their opportunity and was obliged to undergo the examination all over again. Not only that, but if they again failed to receive a promotion within the two years after their second attempt, they were forbidden from ever applying for the position again.
If a candidate did manage to overcome all these obstacles and be awarded a promotion to civil master, they would be appointed to a military institution and given a fixed yearly salary, instead of the daily wage and bonus given to an instructor. In the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s successful candidates started off as a '3rd class civil fencing master' with a generous salary of 2,000 lire.13 Beginning in 1892, however, new civil masters were given the lower position of '1st class assistant master' and a salary of 1,500 lire. After two years of good service they could then be promoted to 3rd class civil master, and then over the course of roughly 20 years' continuous service they would be gradually promoted up to 2nd and then 1st class civil master, receiving an additional 500 lire to their salary with each promotion. The few lucky masters who were chosen to teach at the Master's School received additional pay on top of their regular salary: civil masters of any rank received an additional 1,200 lire per year, while the vice-directors of the school received an additional 1,800 lire. The technical director of the Master's School, which from 1884 to 1910 was of course Masaniello Parise, received a handsome annual salary of 5,000 lire.14
After the first four civil master appointments were made in 1875—awarded to members of the Radaellian old guard Paolo Cornaglia, Giovanni Domenico Reverso, Giovanni Monti, and Giuseppe Ronga—the number of civil masters in the army reached 13 by the end of 1878, where it stayed for several years before rising steadily from 1883 to reach 36 civil masters in 1889.15 This appears to have been the ideal amount for the Ministry of War, as the number of civil masters under its employ hovered closely around this number right up until the outbreak of the First World War. With over five times as many military instructors as civil masters employed by the army at any given time—a study from 1893 counted a total of 188 military instructors—it is understandable that the competition for these positions would be fierce.16 Between 1875 and 1910 only 70 such civil master promotions were awarded, as those who managed to get into the role tended to keep it until they either retired or died. With anywhere between 10 and 30 military instructors graduating from the Master's School each year during this period, it is clear that the attrition rate was much higher for instructors than for civil masters.
Aside from the obvious pay benefits afforded to civil masters, achieving this promotion meant that one was no longer bound to a rigid military lifestyle. Civil masters were able to settle for long periods in a single city, as military institutions rarely changed location post-1880, and they were also free to give lessons outside of regular working hours, providing them with an additional source of income as well as access to considerable social capital through the typical clientele of a civilian fencing club—journalists, politicians, wealthy businessmen, and various other members of Italian bourgeois society. For those not lucky enough to become a civil master, there was one alternative that became increasingly popular from the mid-1890s. As the demand for Italian fencing masters grew in Europe during the 1890s, it became possible for many instructors to forgo the civil master exams and seek their fortune outside of the military. Thus we see that many of the Italian masters who became internationally famous at the turn of the century, such as Luigi Barbasetti, Italo Santelli, Antonio Conte, and Arturo Gazzera, were those who left the army when they were merely instructors.
The Master's School did indeed establish a monopoly on the certification of fencing masters for the army in the 1870s, but in the civilian world many masters continued to find alternative routes to certification through the traditional peer endorsement method or at the National Academy of Fencing in Naples. However, the high attrition rate of military instructors—which I contend was in large part a result of the high barrier for receiving a civil master promotion—meant that, through the Master's School, the regulatory decisions made by the Ministry of War also had huge repercussions for the civilian scene. This increasingly became the case internationally too, which was made evident in the disproportionate influence Italian military masters had during the 1890s and the first decades of the 20th century. Thus by understanding what the life of a fencing master in the Italian military was like at the end of the 19th century, we can gain significant insight into the pressures they likely felt when it came to deciding on how to progress in their chosen profession.
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1 Scans of this royal decree and the 1880 statue for the National Academy of Naples are available here.↩2 Alberto Marchionni, Trattato di scherma sopra un nuovo sistema di giuoco misto di scuola italiana e francese (Florence: Federigo Bencini, 1847), 205.↩
3 Jacopo Gelli, Bibliografia generale della scherma con note critiche, biografiche e storiche (Florence: L. Niccolai, 1890), 67–68.↩
4 Ministero della Guerra, 'Scuola di scherma per tutti i Corpi di fanteria che di cavalleria,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 48 (1867): 560–561.↩
5 Ministero della Guerra, 'Corsi speciali di scherma di punta e sciabola pei sott'uffiziali delle Armi di linea,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 44 (1868): 422–424; Ministero della Guerra, 'Corso speciale sul maneggio e sulla scherma di sciabola presso il reggimento cavalleggeri di Monferrato,' Giornale militare ossia raccolta ufficiale delle leggi, regolamenti e disposizioni al servizio ed all'amministrazione militare, no. 55 (1868): 566–567.↩
6 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, 'Atto N. 249. - ORDINAMENTO DELL'ESERCITO (Nota N. 29). - Istruttori e maestri di scherma per l'Esercito - 4 dicembre,' Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 489–492.↩
7 The three masters in question were Antonio Tinti, Alessandro Pavia, and Regolo Luppi.See Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia 1876 (Rome: Carlo Voghera, 1876), 301.↩
8 Gustavo Mazè de la Roche, 'N. 104. - DIVISA E VESTIARIO (Nota N. 189). - Distintivo speciale per gli istruttori, sotto istruttori ed allievi di scherma. - 3 luglio,' Giornale Militare 1879: parte prima, no. 28 (4 July 1879): 415–416.↩
9 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, 'N. 51. - STIPENDI, ASSEGNI ED INDENNITÀ. - Legge 15 aprile 1886 N. 3813 (serie 3a) portante modificazioni alla legge sugli stipendi ed assgni fissi per il R. Esercito. - 15 aprile,' Giornale Militare 1886: parte prima, no. 13 (6 May 1886): 86–91. An exceptional example of long-term appointment is seen in the career of Luigi Barbasetti, who spent six consecutive years teaching at the Master's School while only a military instructor.↩
10 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani. 'Atto N. 249. - ORDINAMENTO DELL'ESERCITO (Nota N. 29). - Istruttori e maestri di scherma per l'Esercito - 4 dicembre,' Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 491–492.↩
11 Giovanni Corvetto, 'N. 129. - Norme per l'esame di concorso alla nomina a maestro civile di scherma - (Segretariato generale). - 22 agosto,' Giornale Militare 1888: parte seconda, no. 40 (25 August 1888): 496–498.↩
12 Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento per la scuola magistrale di scherma (5 maggio 1897) (Rome: Voghera Enrico, 1897), 19; Collezione celerifera delle leggi e decreti, 20 September 1911, 1140–1141.↩
13 See the appointments of Ferdinando Masiello, Giovanni Vecchia, and Giuseppe Blandini in Ministero della Guerra, Bollettino uificiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli ufficiali dell'esercito italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare 1877 (Rome: Carlo Voghera, 1877), 227.↩
14 Ettore Bertolè-Viale, 'Atto N. 200. - STIPENDI, ASSEGNI ED INDENNITA'. - R. Decreto 4919 (serie 3a) che approva il Testo unico delle leggi sugli stipendi ed assegni fissi pel regio esercito - 27 agosto,' Giornale Militare 1887: parte prima, no. 49 (22 September 1887): 659–680; Ettore Bertolè-Viale, 'Atto N. 81. - AMMINISTRAZIONE CENTRALE ED IMPIEGATI CIVILI. - SCUOLE MILITARI. - Relazione a S. M .il Re e R. Decreto n. 141, che stabilisce le norme per la nomina, l'avanzamento e gli obblighi di servizio del personale insegnante civile nelle scuole e nei collegi militari. - 29 marzo,' Giornale Militare 1900: parte prima, no. 17 (28 April 1900): 309–329.↩
15 A list of civil fencing masters employed in a given year was published in the military annual, the Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia.↩
16 Luigi Moschetti, 'La scherma nell'esercito,' Scherma Italiana, 1 September 1896, 38–39.↩
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