To understand how fencing theorists thought about and systematised their theories of fencing, ample material can be found in the form of fencing treatises; to best understand how this theory was put into practice, however, it is imperative to look beyond the treatises and examine contemporaneous observations and discussions from the broader fencing public. This is where newspapers, but especially specialist sporting periodicals, become invaluable. In contrast to treatises, most of which can be found among the shelves of a typical antique book store in Europe, individual copies of these periodicals are rarer on the antique market, let alone as complete sets of a year or more.
I am fortunate, therefore, to have been able to acquire two (almost) complete years of Lo Sport Illustrato, one of the first and most widely-read general sporting magazines in Italy for over 30 years, beginning weekly circulation in 1881 and ending in 1915 when Italy entered the First World War. In its earlier years of publication, the Milanese magazine mostly devoted its columns to hunting and horse racing, but by 1890 it had become established enough to attract contributions from various known figures in the Italian fencing community. The two volumes in my collection are complete sets of the years 1888 and 1891 except for a single issue in the latter year, missing no. 482 (26 November). Due to the large number of pages of both volumes, I have limited my scans (for now at least) to only the pages with fencing-related content as well as the front pages of the respective issue.
Selected 1888 issues | Selected 1891 issues
These two hefty volumes (weighing over 2.5 kg each) were evidently purchased and bound by the Rowing-Club Italiano, which was founded at Turin in 1888 and eventually became the national governing body for the sport of rowing in Italy.
Besides being a trailblazer for sporting magazines in Italy, Lo Sport Illustrato was also of a very high production quality for the time. Each issue included one or more large illustrations, sometimes full-page and very rarely in colour spread across two pages, showing scenes from sporting life or nature. The large page format (roughly 27 x 36 cm) of the magazine makes these illustrations all the more striking when viewed in person, but I hope some of the photos provided in this article give a sufficient impression. In the two volumes I posses, the only illustrations related to fencing consist of a three-part cartoon satirising contemporary duelling culture (see issue numbers 442 and 449 of the 1891 volume).
As for the articles, the 1888 volume contains only 8 issues with fencing content, all but one being reports on fencing exhibitions, while the 1891 volume contains fencing content in nearly every issue for that year. Sporting magazines in general experienced a great surge in popularity in Italy starting in the early 1890s, and this was no less the case for fencing, which may have motivated Lo Sport Illustrato to set aside more space for the flourishing sport. Frequent fencing contributors to the magazine in 1891 are the retired master Giuseppe Perez, whom we have previously seen condemning Radallian foil fencing in the 1870s, and amateurs Giulio Franceschi (writing under the pseudonym 'Bottone') and Giuseppe Nini (pseudonym 'Ras').
The 3 September issue contains Ferdinando Masiello's response to the constructive criticism of his work published by the jury of the national tournament in Bologna earlier that year. To Masiello's response (entitled 'Due lettere intorno alle opere di Ferdinando Masiello' and also published separately as a booklet), Carlo Pilla and Salvatore Arista give a counter-reply in the 12 November issue in their capacities as jury members at that tournament. This discussion provides a helpful reminder that divergences of opinion existed even within the Radaellian camp, however minor. It is quite possible that discussions such as these regarding Masiello's work prompted some of the modifications he introduced in subsequent editions of his treatise.
Containing a healthy mix of event coverage and theoretical pondering, these issues of Lo Sport Illustrato give a good demonstration of the variety of written material that was becoming increasingly more available for Italian fencers in the late 19th century, and place the fencing treatises of this time into a broader and active literary context.
