The Radaelli-Enrichetti alliance and the 1882 Modena tournament

Following the closure of the Parma Fencing Master's School under Cesare Enrichetti, the graduates of this school were obliged to attend a 9-month course at the Milan school to learn Radaelli's method. Later reflections on this period from those who witnessed it remark that this formal meeting of the two schools was the beginning of a period of great collaboration and improvement for both parties.

The majority of Enrichettians could clearly see the results that experimentation among the Radaellians had produced with regard to sabre fencing, while the Radaellians were able to benefit from the established tradition inherited by Enrichetti and his students. It should also be noted that this exchange of knowledge was not purely confined to each school's respective specialisation, and while the Radaellians were in general not highly regarded for their sword fencing,¹ both Arista and Masiello (products of the Radaelli and Enrichetti schools, respectively) noted that Enrichettians recognised the value in relying less strictly on wrist movement in sword fencing, as was typical in traditional and Southern Italian schools.²

Neapolitan commentators and their supporters, on the other hand, made sure to differentiate between the Radaellians and the Enrichettians, as they generally respected the latter camp as an offshoot of the Neapolitan school while the former were an insult to their great fencing traditions. While northerners championed the military fencers on the whole as a shining example of the Italian military's educational achievements, Neapolitan partisans considered Radaelli's sword method 'seriously harmful' to the young men of the military.³ Because of this, they had to frame the competitive successes of the Radaellians, particularly in sword fencing, to factors unrelated to the merits of the Radaelli school. Take for example the very pro-Neapolitan official report of the 1881 Milan tournament:

We then saw Arista, who, despite the statement he made of belonging to the Radaelli school, fenced with an Italian foil, and except for a few things he showed us how, with good will and by fencing with fencers of a pure school, as well as by seeing them fence among themselves, he who has natural dispositions and love for the art can make serious progress. [...] In Giordano Rossi, strong in the Radaelli system, beautiful and composed in guard, we found a tight game, due to his frequent fencing with members of the Italian school. Pecoraro owes the speed of his parries and ripostes to his special talents more than to the Radaelli school.⁴

While the growing opposition towards the Milan Fencing Master's School—exemplified in this report, the report on the Naples Gymnastics Congress⁵ later that same year, and various publications of the late 1870s—was an issue for the Radaellians, in February 1882 they suffered their greatest blow when the very founder of their school, Giuseppe Radaelli, died tragically after a protracted illness. Although Radaelli had not been able to teach for some time beforehand, his death provided a golden opportunity for change. Proposals of this nature can be found in the aforementioned reports, made while Radaelli was still alive, and they naturally favoured putting a champion of the Neapolitan or 'Italian' school in power:

And given Radaelli's illness, the post of directing master of the Master's School in Milan is open, and since the directing master must start clearing the way, one must start by appointing to that post a master who is not only a good fencer, but also a good master, and shown to have made good students. This master must also not be driven by partisan spirit and must have the character of a perfect gentleman. Having appointed such a master to direct the Master's School, his first task should be to make use of all the good members that are in it, putting them on the good path, unifying the system with a single sword form (the Italian).⁶

Those who supported the current generation of Enrichettians and Radaellians, however, likely saw this more as chance to formalise the union of these two groups and create a new curriculum more representative of their collective experience and experiments.

And so it was in this tense climate that the Modena tournament took place, in July 1882. Although billed as a 'national' tournament, the competitors appear to have all come from Northern Italy and Tuscany. 67 masters and 40 amateurs competed, which was a reasonable turnout, but nevertheless overshadowed by the famous Milan tournament of the previous year, which saw competitors not just from Southern Italy, but also Austria and France.

Similar to the 1881 Milan tournament, well over a dozen special prizes were donated to the organisers by fencing societies and government ministries, to be awarded not just for those who won the sword and sabre pools, but also for the pairs deemed to have done the best bouts and for the 'best fencer' of the tournament. With the lack of competition from Southern Italians, however, most of the special prizes awarded to fencing masters went to Radaellians, with Salvatore Pecoraro alone receiving five by winning both pools, taking part in the best bouts, and winning the prize for best fencer.

The jury contained two amateurs and seven masters, the latter group consisting specifically of Paolo Cornaglia, Giovanni Ciullini, Giuseppe Perez, Cesare Enrichetti, Alessandro Pavia, Giovanni Domenico Reverso, and Antonio Tinti.⁷ Perez was the only master out of the jury not teaching in the military at the time, although he had in fact spent around 5 years in the 1860s teaching at the Modena school, where Enrichetti, Pavia, Reverso, and Tinti were teaching in 1882.⁸

The reason this tournament intersects with the topic at hand is not just that it was held in a very divided period of Italian fencing and only five months after the death of Giuseppe Radaelli, but because of a short report on the tournament that appeared first in the Milanese newspaper Il Secolo on 18 June, then again the following month in a slightly expanded form in Turin's Gazzetta Piemontese on 4 July. The anonymous journalist clearly favours the Radaellians, ignoring the many prizes awarded to non-Radaellian amateurs, but the second half of the article (the part republished from Il Secolo) demonstrates the author's main agenda. To this writer, the army already had all the resources it needed to establish a more solid theoretical foundation for its fencing instruction, through the combined knowledge of the champions of both the Enrichetti and Radaelli schools.

This hopeful vision for a formalised union of the two schools, to be brought about through a collaboration of military fencing masters alone, lies in stark contrast to what would result from the Ministry of War's treatise competition, announced in September that same year, the submissions for which to be judged by a commission made up entirely of amateurs, both military and civilian.

Below is the Gazzetta Piemontese's version of this article, translated in full.

---

On the day of 18 June the national fencing tournament initiated by the La Fratellanza Society of Modena ended.

The royal and ministerial prizes placed at the disposal of the tournament jury surpassed in number and value those of all other tournaments and fencing congresses, and well-deserved praise for this is owed to the honourable deputies Corvetto and Triani, who left no stone unturned for the success of the tournament.

The two distinguished deputies, urged by Maestro Cav. Cornaglia, promised to make every effort at the Ministry of War to improve the conditions of military fencing masters.

Worthy of special commendation are the Marquis Carandini, president of the La Fratellanza Society, promotor of the tournament, vice-president Avv. Martinelli, responsible for receiving the jury, and the engineer Cialdini, secretary of said jury—who with their untiring activity contributed so much to the good progress of the tournament.

The champions of the tournament were the masters Pecoraro, Corsini, Rossi, Pessina, Scarani, and Varrone, all students of Maestro Radaelli, graduates of the Milan Master’s School.

There were 67 masters and 40 amateurs who took part in the competitions, and they declared themselves to be of various schools, that is: Radaelli, Enrichetti, Italian, mixed, and several: Enrichetti sword, Radaelli sabre.

The competitions always proceeded regularly and the fencers all competed with skill and chivalry.

In this tournament everyone admired the indisputable quality of the Radaelli sabre school, and these facts are worth far more than any contrary judgement given by people who, if not incompetent, are certainly very biased.

Until now a true fencing system has not existed in the army; in order to have one single system the Ministry of War should form a Commission of masters of the two schools, Radaelli-Enrichetti, and adopt a uniform Italian school, which is suited to our military needs.

Then if the Ministry of War wants a sabre fencing treatise which serves as the basis of training in the army, it could entrust the task to any of the current masters in the military institutes who have been teaching in the army for several years.

The basis of this system should be Radaelli’s, because it is too rational to be changed; so true is this that almost all the old sabre fencing masters practise the Radaelli system even though they criticise it, because they recognise its utility.

Proof of the quality of the Radaelli sabre system is seen in the fact that in all the congresses, national and international tournaments, including the last one in Naples and the recent one in Modena, the first prize in sabre was always won by the students of Radaelli.

And as evidence, even in the recent tournament the prizes from His Majesty the King, Prince Amedeo, the Ministers of War, the Navy, the Interior, Public Education, and from Modenese gentlemen, were all won by the students of Radaelli, and the prize from the Foreign Minister was won by Maestro Provenzale, a student of Enrichetti for the sword and Radaelli for the sabre.

* * *

1 The best example can be seen in the first hand impressions in Giovanni Pagliuca, Cenni di critica sul sistema di scherma Redaelli (Turin: Tipografia Letteraria-Forense-Statistica, [1880?]).^↩
2 Salvatore Arista, Del progresso della scherma in Italia (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1884), 8–9; Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: G. Civelli, 1887), 129.^↩
3 Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881 (Naples: Tipi Ferrante, 1881), 37.^↩
4 Ibid., 139–40.^↩
5 Luigi Cosenz, Il XI congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881).^↩
6 Cariolato and Granito, Relazione del torneo, 149.^↩
7 "Torneo nazionale di scherma," Corriere della Sera, 15 June 1882.^↩
8 A list of civil fencing masters employed by the Italian army can be found in the yearly releases of Annuario militare del Regno d'Italia, published in Rome by Carlo Voghera.^↩

Fencing at the 1875 Siena Gymnastics Congress

In 1870s Italy, competitive fencing was very much still in its infancy. The dominant fencing events of the time were exhibitions: non-competitive public displays designed to entertain and to show off the skills of the fencers and the master's ability to train well-rounded students. These exhibitions were generally organised as a local club's yearly celebration or by a visiting fencing master seeking to build their reputation. Starting in 1873, however, the Italian Gymnastics Federation began holding a fencing competition as one of the events at their annual congress.

Following the success of this new addition at the 1873 and 1874 congresses, in preparation for the 1875 Siena congress the organising committee sent a request to the Italian government to send a group of fencers to represent the Milan military fencing master's school, which had formally become the sole military institution of its kind in December of 1874. The ministry of war accepted this request and sent six young sotto-maestri or 'assistant masters': Luigi Scarani, Giordano Rossi, Giordano Moccagatta, Benedetto Toziani, Salvatore Pecoraro, and Giuseppe Alciatti.

By the beginning of the congress a total of 42 fencers had enrolled in the event, all of them from northern and central Italy and the majority being military fencing masters. Compared to the grand tournaments that would later be seen in the 1890s and beyond, the Siena congress was relatively modest, and with no fencers from the southern provinces it was certainly not a 'national' competition in the truest sense. Nevertheless, like the other congresses of the 1870s, the results of this competition contributed to the growing reputation of the military fencing masters and the schools that created them.

As alluded to above, at the end of 1874 the Parma military fencing master's school, directed by Cesare Enrichetti, was absorbed by the Milan school, thus marking the total unification of the military's fencing instruction under Giuseppe Radaelli. In May 1875 the first conversion course took place at the Milan school for military fencing masters that had not yet been taught Radaelli's method, which was the beginning of a period of great collaboration between the Radaellians and the champions of the Enrichetti school, resulting in further refinement for both sabre and sword (foil) fencing. In August 1875, however, this fusion of the two schools was still very much in its early stages, with the first conversion course at the Milan school still underway.

The fencing competition in Siena took place on 16 August 1875, with the jury's speaker Giovanni Boffi noting in his report that despite observing several disappointing double touches, the quality of the fencing on the whole had improved substantially since the previous congress, where he had noted that 'the fencers did not fully observe the laws which the art of fencing teaches, both due to the lack of composure during the bouts, the positions of the fencers, and the implementation of the actions.' Boffi also expressed his views on how to avoid these lamented double touches in future competitions:

Any amateur of fencing knows very well that in fencing the first things that should be observed are the elegance of one's position, the invitation to the actions, parries, and ripostes, anticipating the opponent's intentions, and by adhering to these rules, in my opinion, I believe that discussions during the bout and double touches would vanish—these double touches being most deplorable during a bout. And with these words of mine I do not pretend to maintain that during a bout there can be no double touches, and that is why I have allowed perfect and imperfect tempi, i.e. the intentions of the two fencers lunging at the same time. We know very well that the tempo cannot be taken on simple actions, but rather on compound actions and on the opponent’s faulty attack; and he who makes the action in tempo should not be touched, and if he is touched, the fault should fall on the one who did the action in tempo.

Ferdinando Masiello came in first place for the sword competition, and Giuseppe Ronga (a Radaellian) for sabre, with both having achieved these same results at the Bologna congress the year prior. Although Masiello would eventually become the most vocal proponent of Radaelli's method, at this stage he was still the star pupil of Enrichetti, having not yet attended the Milan school, but still came in 4th place overall in the sabre competition. The Enrichettians as a whole were given great praise, with their solid collective performance backed up by elegant and composed form throughout. Of the 6 students from the Milan master's school: in the sword competition Rossi came in 5th and received a silver medal and Pecoraro earned an honourable mention; in sabre, only Alciatti received a bronze medal, being in 10th place overall. Also of historical note was the winner of the amateur sword pool—a 15-year-old Eugenio Pini, who would eventually become famous both in Italy and throughout the western fencing world.

Three days later came the grand fencing exhibition, scheduled as one of the final events of the Siena gymnastics congress. The congress report does not give its own account of the exhibition, but instead reproduces the following article published in Gazzetta d'Italia on 22 August, which is once again full of praise for the Enrichettians but with some critical remarks for the Radaellians:

This morning at 11:30 in the Lizza Theatre the fencing exhibition took place. The audience is estimated to have risen to as many as 2000 people, among whom many ladies. There were 28 bouts from 46 fencers, of whom 38 masters, and what masters they were! In the intermissions the town band let us enjoy good musical pieces.

Colonel Corrado Colli opened the exhibition with the fencing master of our military recruiting headquarters,¹ Arlunno Carlo. In this demonstration we saw how, even at a rather advanced age, exercise can maintain that virile strength which usually disappears as the years pass; in fact Colli made a great impression, even with a fencer as correct as Arlunno. The latter dealt marked and distinct coupés, and the colonel, among other blows, showed us a magnificent blow in controtempo. Those present greatly applauded the two opponents.

The second sword bout which interested us most was from the other cavalry colonel Giuseppe Colli, together with the distinguished master Bellincioni. Mr. Colli showed himself to be an expert connoisseur of fencing. He has a tall, slender figure, truly a handsome soldier. His guard is very elegant, an uncommon subsidence of struggles. His competitor Mr. Bellincioni is a precise and skilled player, very quick in his actions. His short stature confines him to a somewhat low game, but his blows never miss.

The sabre clash between the masters Giuseppe Ronga and Massimiliano Roggia was also very satisfactory. However, it must be noted how in general the students of the Radaelli school are not devoid of certain flaws. Their guard lacks composure because they keep their left foot out of line and they raise it when they lunge, this with a serious continuous loss of balance; moreover, since their bouts look like raids, it sometimes happens that when marching down the piste their out-of-line feet meet and the fencer falls, as happened here in Siena and six times last year in Bologna.

To us the Radaelli method seems to be based on a rising rotation from the left side; a continuous rotation which imposes a posture of preparation to these rotary movements, which, by bringing the weapon arm to the left side, leaves the fencer's body almost completely exposed, since the sabre is then positioned out of line. Nor can we understand how this method is suited to a cavalry soldier, when the lance and the horse's head prevent this precise rotation which seems to be the basis of the system. This is without taking into account that with the descending cuts being thrown a bit too violently, they do not help to keep the cavalryman in his saddle, nor do they give the impression of fencers who are masters of a weapon that they must know how to dominate.

With this sincere critique we do not intend to condemn the ability and goodwill of the students, who, with their seemingly lovely dispositions and slender figures, could outdo themselves if the teaching they imparted were free of these defects. Everyone knows that it is not possible to be an eminent sabre master without knowing well enough about the sword, and it is equally well-known by everyone that before today it was customary to take at least a year of sword lessons before moving on to handling the heavier weapon. That the students of the Radaelli school had very little knowledge of the foil was seen in the competitions where, in the course of a bout, we did not see one clean blow, nor a varied action or an attempt in tempo.

The master from Ancona, Mr. Italiano Enrici, who had not received the full sympathy of the spectators during the competition due to his slightly strange and advantageous guard, showed us in the exhibition that he also knows how to hold an elegant guard, and conduct a bout in the manner of a true and talented master.

The honour of closing the first part of the exhibition was given to our master Mr. Cesare Picconi along with Bellincioni. We had never had the fortune of seeing our talented fellow citizen fence, but his bout showed him worthy of his great fame, which confirms yet again the excellence of the methods he learnt from his poor father. He directed the exhibition himself, and honourably exhibited his students Rinieri de' Rocchi and Sergardi.

The masters Arlunno and Masiello, students of Prof. Enrichetti, inaugurated the second part. I spoke about both of them in my past correspondence, and if I wanted to fully describe the beautiful things of their bout, I could not, because it is impossible to repeat the delicacy, the taste, and the perfection of their play. At the moment they appeared in the limelight there was frenetic applause, which was repeated a good three times. The blows which I managed to observe distinctly were two coupés masterfully given by Masiello; then Arlunno dealt a thrust of inquartata in second intention, and after him Masiello gave an arrest and the sword curved on the opponent's chest. The bout closed with a sbasso² of the rarest precision. Needless to say, thunderous applause broke out and the fencers were called to the stage multiple times with their master, who wished to kiss them as a reward for the height at which these two excellent students held the Enrichetti school even within the walls of Siena.

The latter master met with Colonel Corrado Colli, and they carried out an exemplary fight. Enrichetti sculpted magnificent coupés and a surprising sbasso. The match between these fine contenders was confirmation of the professor's skill, and convinced us how such a master could create students like Masiello, Arlunno, Vergiati, and others. There is no doubt: Enrichetti's method will always give the most remarkable impression in any fencing gathering. It is a school which for the good of the army we would like to see imitated by many, and which would be eminently useful if it were studied and applied in fencing halls.

Also distinguishing themselves were the masters Paolo Cornaglia, Paolo Bianchi, Lorenzo Del Vivo, Ettore Marchi, and all those who eventually took part in the marvellous exhibition.

Closing the day were Masiello and Count Giuseppe Colli with a bout brilliant for its variations of attack, parrying changes, and many blows of tempo, controtempo, and proposal. With the exhibition finished—which, in the words of the masters themselves, was unlike any other so far—prolonged and unanimous applause saluted all the fencers and brought an end to such an impressive day.

1 TN: Recruiting centres in Italy were in charge of both the recruitment and training of soldiers.^↩
2 TN: Otherwise known as passata sotto.^↩

The remarks regarding the Radaellians' less aesthetic form is a criticism that would continue to follow them for many years after this competition, often being a point of contention in how it should affect their classification scores at the tournaments which took aesthetics into account, such as in the 1881 Milan tournament. The observation on their twisted body position is particularly interesting, seemingly indicating that the Radaellians at this time put an emphasis on rising cuts from the left. The described out-of-line position with the feet may be similar that seen in several of the fencers in the following footage of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, with the rear foot further to the outside than the traditional position:

Despite the various critical remarks, both the competition and the exhibition were evidently popular with the public, and the overall impressions of the above Gazzetta d'Italia article and Giovanni Boffi showed positivity in this event marking significant progress in Italian fencing and demonstrating the art's recent resurgence in popularity. Given the number of military masters present at the tournament, it is therefore understandable why many commentators would later attribute this great resurgence to the institution of the military fencing master's schools.

Bibliography

"Congresso ginnastico." Il Secolo, 4 August 1875, 2.

Federazione Ginnastica Italiana. Sesto congresso-concorso ginnastico italiano tenuto in Siena dal 15 al 20 Agosto 1875. Relazione fatta a cura del comitato esecutivo. Siena: Stab. tip. di A. Mucci, 1876.

Ricotti-Magnani, Cesare Francesco. "N. 251. — SCUOLE MILITARI (Nota N. 5). — Scuola magistrale di scherma. — 6 dicembre." Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 492.

⸺. "N. 57. — Istruttori e sott'istruttori di scherma chiamati alla scuola magistrale di scherma in Milano. — 4 aprile", Giornale Militare 1875: parte seconda, no. 12 (15 April 1875): 105–6.

Masiello, Ferdinando. La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola. Florence: G. Civelli, 1887.

Valletti, Felice. Relazione sull'operato del VI congresso ginnastico tenutosi in Siena - Agosto 1875. Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1875.

Trattato di scherma teorico-pratico illustrato by Vittorio Lambertini

It is with great pleasure that I can share with you today the 1870 treatise by Vittorio Lambertini, its full title being Trattato di scherma teorico-pratico illustrato della moderna scuola italiana di spada e sciabola ('Theoretical-practical fencing treatise on the modern Italian school of sword and sabre'). This particular book comes from my own collection, so I have been able to take high quality photos of every page; the resulting PDF is thus quite large. I have also provided a transcription to make it easier to search through the text for study purposes.

Scans  |  Transcription

The 150-year-old book shows many signs of its age, largely due to it being a paperback, but its 29 fold-out plates are mostly in good condition. I personally find the illustrator's art style to be rather elegant despite is simplicity.

My particular copy appears to have been purchased by the highly decorated war veteran Leopoldo Serra in 1875, as indicated by the signature near the front of the book and by what seems to be part of a receipt for a magazine or newspaper subscription that was found between pages 60 and 61, probably being used as a bookmark.

Nothing is yet known about Lambertini's life or career, and his treatise was, unfortunately, largely overlooked in its time. Nevertheless, Lambertini's treatise is significant for the modern reader as it provides a very detailed look into the sword method of Luigi Zangheri, a fencing master who was highly regarded in the 19th century but never wrote a treatise himself. Clemente Lambertini was a student of Zangheri, and passed the method on to his son, Vittorio.¹

Luigi Zangheri was a fencing master from Cesena who opened a fencing hall in Bologna around the year 1825, where he taught sword, sabre, counterpoint, and bastone. He soon developed an outstanding reputation as a fencer, a teacher, and as a man who was reviving the art of fencing in northern Italy.² His method was not revolutionary in the same sense as Radaelli's, but rather he was largely seen to be preserving the traditional Neapolitan method whilst also making his own modifications, such as using a slightly lighter and shorter Italian foil, abandoning the practice of binding the sword to the hand, and allowing the use of certain 'French' techniques such as the coupé. Zangheri produced several celebrated fencing masters, such as Giuseppe Borelli, Gaetano Simonetti, and Cesare Enrichetti.³

Enrichetti was already quite famous by the time Lambertini published his treatise, having been appointed as the head of the Scuola Magistrale in Parma in 1868 and himself producing a host of talented fencers such as Ferdinando Masiello, Giovanni Pagliuca, Gaetano Baracco, and Giovanni Ciullini.⁴ Enrichetti published his own treatise a year after Lambertini did, and so by being able to compare the two, we can achieve an excellent understanding of Zangheri's method.

Aside from containing more detailed information on the teaching progression and pedagogy of his method than Enrichetti's treatise, Lambertini's book also contains a treatise on the sabre. The exact origins of this sabre method are not stated, but it nevertheless provides an added insight into the sabre fencing methods of northern Italy prior to the rise of the Radaellians. It is also possible that it resembles the kind of sabre fencing that was being taught at Enrichetti's school before it was merged with Radaelli's in 1874.

A full, detailed analysis of Lambertini's method and its differences compared to Enrichetti's is a topic for another day, but one example of this is something which Lambertini himself points out, which is that he only includes five parries in his method, those being 4th, 3rd, half-circle, 2nd, and 1st, compared to Enrichetti who also includes the 'intermediary' parries of low 3rd and low 4th. Lambertini states that it was his father who reduced the number of parries to five.⁵

1 Vittorio Lambertini, Trattato di scherma teorico-pratico illustrato (Bologna, 1870), iii.^↩
2 "Accademia di scherma," Teatri, arti e letteratura, 14 May 1835, 86.^↩
3 Carlo Pilla, Arte e scuole di scherma (Bologna: Società tipografica già compositori, 1886), 34–5.^↩
4 ibid., 36.^↩
5 Lambertini, Trattato di scherma, 39.^↩

The founding of Radaelli's Scuola Magistrale

Here I have collected a few excerpts relating to the founding of what became the Scuola Magistrale in Milan, directed by Giuseppe Radaelli, starting with the first 'special courses' in 1868 up to its official founding in 1874.

L'Emporio Pittoresco, 10-16th January 1869, published in Milan:

In recent days at the depot of the Lucca Lancers, stationed in our city, a fencing course has been opened for lower officers of the army in order to provide the army with distinguished instructors.
We praise the minister of war highly for having founded this school and we commend the choice of city, because Milan and Naples are the sole population centres in Italy where this science, so useful and beneficial for the physical and moral development of the youth, is cultivated. The distinguished Maestro Radaelli has taken on the commitment of this teaching with the system he used in his well-known fencing hall.

Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia, published on the 3rd February 1869:

Special point and sabre fencing courses.

In order to provide the army corps with able fencing masters, and through this promote in these corps the good principles of this art, 3 special courses were founded, one in Milan, under the management of the territorial cavalry command, for NCOs, corporals, and soldiers of the cavalry regiments and those of the field artillery; there the course will last 2 to 3 years.

One in Modena, at the Military School of Infantry and Cavalry, for 25 infantry and Bersaglieri NCOs; and another in Parma, at the Normal School of Infantry, for another 25 infantry NCOs. The duration of these two courses was fixed at around 9 months, that is from the 1st November 1868 to the 31st July 1869; and it is understood that after this course the same number of NCOs will be called until all the corps have fencing masters.

Those who have successfully completed the course will be issued with a license, by the Ministry of War, as military maestri for point and sabre fencing, and as such they will be recognised and adopted in their respective corps.

Similarly the Monferrato Light Cavalry Regiment was charged with teaching four low-ranking military men of each of the light cavalry regiments in a special method of handling the sabre both on foot and on horseback, which will then have to be adopted by all the cavalry regiments of the army.

The same text lists Cesare Enrichetti as being the 'Maestro for fencing' at the Modena military school, having attained that position on the 28th January 1865. It also lists as "Assistant maestri for fencing" Antonio Tinti, Alessandro Pavia, Felice Defilippi, Regolo Luppi, and Achille Tinti. A fencing master is not explicitly listed for the Parma normal school.

Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia, published on the 3rd February 1870:

Special course on sabre handling and fencing with the Monferrato Light Cavalry Regiment.

In view of the good results obtained by the special course on sabre handling and fencing, which took place last year with the Monferrato Light Cavalry Regiment for 4 NCOs, corporals, or soldiers of each light cavalry regiment, the same course was renewed for the same number of NCOs, corporals, or soldiers for each regiment of lancers.

The course began on the 16th November 1869, and should end on the 30th April 1870.

A notice in this text states that the Parma Normal School of Infantry is now the 'Central School of Shooting, Gymnastics, Fencing for the Infantry', and lists Cesare Enrichetti as its head fencing master. The 'Maestro for fencing' at the Modena Military School of Infantry and Cavalry is listed as Agostino Gioberti. The same Gioberti was listed as just an instructor in the previous year's Annuario Militare for the Parma normal school, so it seems like a safe assumption that he was initially directing the special fencing course at Parma from November 1868.

In the Ministry of War's act no. 251 from the 6th December 1874, published in Giornale Militare, the Scuola Magistrale di Scherma in Milan is officially founded:

1. In the Milan military district a Scuola Magistrale of fencing has been founded in order to train NCO fencing instructors and assistant fencing instructors for the Army.
2. The direction of this school will be entrusted by the general commander to a brigade commander of the Milan garrison, and the instruction will be given by the professor of fencing Mr. Giuseppe Radaelli.
3. Both the students sent to this school and its required personnel will remain active in the corps to which they belong, and during their stay at the school they will be included in the Milan district.