Comparing editions: Parise 1884 vs. 1904

A recurring topic on this blog has been the internal and external pressures placed on the Military Fencing Master's School in both the Radaelli and Parise periods. With respect to the latter master, I have discussed how dissatisfaction within the cavalry in particular lead to noteworthy reforms in Parise's sabre method, leading to the so-called Parise-Pecoraro method, which I discussed in a three-part series of the same name (1, 2, 3). As mentioned in the third article of that series, the post-reform cavalry regulations of 1896 show some similarities with the changes that were made to the sabre portion of Parise's fencing treatise for the fifth edition, which was published in 1904. However, these were not the only changes made to the material. Those interested in all the individual changes (at least those I was able to find) can find my side-by-side comparison of the first and fifth editions here. What follows is a summary of what I consider to be the most significant differences.

The introductory material, comprising the treatise commission report and Parise's historical summary, are almost entirely unchanged save for the addition of Del Frate's 1872 foil book as well as Bellini's 1882 sabre treatise in bibliography. The changes mostly concern the technical material, and in this respect the foil treatise remained remarkably intact. The opening paragraph of the foil material shows one change which, while relatively subtle, would no doubt have been noticed by a reader as fastidious as Ferdinando Masiello. In the first edition of the treatise Parise declared that 'haste and force are the prime enemies of fencing' and that the use of force causes a reduction in speed, a statement subsequently mocked by several Radaellians, Masiello in particular.¹ In the fifth edition this was changed to 'haste and rigidity', which seems to have been a more acceptable choice of wording for his critics.

The most obvious change from the first edition on the whole is the illustrations, which have been updated almost in their entirely to highly lifelike illustrations, probably copied from photographic references. One detail which these new illustrations bring into question is how rigidly Parise's students were adhering to the treatise's statement that the front foot should only move forward by one foot length in the lunge (§ 13), as the illustrations of the fifth edition show a more typical lunge of around two feet, as well as some variations in the angle of the torso and rear arm.

Top: Parry of half-circle, 1st edition
Bottom: Parry of half-circle, 5th edition

Some illustrations, such as those for the cartoccio and the invitations, were not reproduced for the fifth edition, although the imbroccata is newly depicted in the latter. The largest textual additions are the entire sections battuta di seconda and finta di fianconata di quarta o di seconda circolata al fianco, while other examples of changes are the several occasions where thrusts by glide are replaced with forced glides, and in the section on 'offensive actions from performed from one's own engagement' (§ 158) replaces the (tactically questionable) feint to the face with a feint to the chest. The rest of the changes largely consist of a few rearrangements of sections and paragraphs, added sentences, and minor word changes.

The most significant changes in the fifth edition are undoubtedly found in the sabre treatise, most prominently for the molinelli, which are now performed 'with assistance from the elbow' rather than 'minimal assistance' (§ 18). Despite what this minor change in wording suggests, the molinelli have been transformed from entirely wrist-focused actions to exercises involving the use of the whole arm. Where the first edition has all the molinelli performed by the wrist with the arm extended in front, the fifth edition has the fencer chamber the arm first, i.e. bending and raising the arm to head height before performing the cut, which greatly increases the power generation and represents a clear concession to Radaellian cutting mechanics. Compare the two descending molinelli from the first and fifth editions:

1st edition

5th edition

There are two diagonal molinelli from high to low, or descending, which are from the opponent's left to right and from their right to left. The molinello from left to right is performed in two movements: First, from the guard of third the arm is extended, with the hand turned to third-in-fourth at shoulder height, edge towards the ground; Second, keeping the same hand position, a powerful cut is given in a diagonal direction from left to right, and then turning the hand into second, the sabre is withdrawn by describing a circular arc with the point, grazing one's left shoulder, coming back into guard. The other molinello is performed in the same way, but from right to left, with the hand in second-in-third; and following this, while withdrawing the sabre, is an external rotation, that is, behind the shoulders, with the hand in fourth, carried out to bring the sabre back into the guard position.

There are two diagonal molinelli from high to low, or descending, which are from the right and from the left. The descending molinello from the right is performed in two movements: First, from the guard of third the sabre is raised, bringing the hand, turned into third-in-fourth, to a palm away from the right temple, with the blade diagonally to the rear; Second, keeping the same hand position, a powerful cut is given in a diagonal direction, and then turning the hand in second-in-third, the sabre is withdrawn by describing a circular arc with the point, grazing one's left shoulder, coming back into guard. The other molinello is performed in the same way, from the left, with the hand in second-in-third; and following this, while withdrawing the sabre, is an external rotation, carried out to bring the sabre back into the guard position.

Despite this significant change to the molinelli, the subsequent descriptions for the regular cuts remain completely unchanged from the first edition. Yet there is one more subtle change which also suggests a shift towards greater inclusion of forearm movement in Parise's system, and that is in the description of the transition from the parry of 2nd to parry of 3rd, where a somewhat Radaellian parry movement is prescribed (emphasis added):

1st edition	5th edition
The passage from parry of second to that of third is easily achieved by raising the point of the sabre solely through wrist rotation and vice versa.	The passage from parry of second to that of third is easily achieved by raising the point of the sabre through wrist rotation, simultaneously bending the arm, and vice versa.

A footnote is also added to the parries section noting that a defence system based on the parries of 1st, 2nd, and 5th is 'preferable', a system for which the Radaellians had been advocating for several decades and which in 1904 was beginning to be seen as characteristic of Italian fencers.² The then common Italian preference for lighter sabres, a trend sometimes attributed to the Radaellians, has also been reflected in the fifth edition, where instead of stating that sabre blades should be between 2 and 2.5 cm wide, Parise now only states that blades should be 2 cm wide, but in an added footnote begrudgingly concedes: 'For the bout the following proportions are tolerated: 15 mm at the base, 8 or 9 mm at the point.' The list of the sabre's parts is also missing the backstrap in the fifth edition, thereby matching the accompanying illustration which illustrates the 2nd Parise sabre model, introduced to the army in 1902, featuring a knurled aluminium handle rather than a wrapped wooden grip with a backstrap.³

As for the method of gripping the sabre, Parise has modified the wording to remove the advice to grip the weapon 'like a stick', and adds that the thumb should end up only a centimetre from the guard, perhaps to ensure that readers do not shift their hand too far down the grip. Two sections which are entirely new to the sabre portion of the book are those on the tocchi di passaggio (passing beats) and the inquartata, the latter being a fairly rare inclusion in Italian sabre texts.

Following the sabre portion are the largest single additions to the fifth edition, the first of these being a list of 95 theory questions regarding the preceding material. It is likely that students of the Master's School were prompted to answer several of these questions in their examinations to ensure that they had a good grasp of the theory curriculum. Precedent for these questions can be found in Barbasetti's handwritten notes contained in his special student edition of Settimo Del Frate's 1876 book, which suggest that this was a typical assessment or revision method for student fencing masters.

Immediately after these theory questions we find an added part four of the treatise entitled scherma da terreno or 'fencing on the ground'. This part, 46 pages in total, consists of advice on how to adapt one's technical and tactical approach when fencing in a duel or any other situation where the blades are treated as sharp and the traditional target and scoring conventions do not apply. Also provided are rules for a competition in the 'fencing on the ground' style (sometimes referred to as gare uso duello), which in 1903 the Ministry of War made a mandatory event for all corps or military schools to run at least once per year.⁴ Despite Parise's effort and the strong regulatory assistance from the Ministry of War, this style of fencing soon waned in popularity, and appears to have all but vanished by the end of the 1910s.

Returning now to the most noteworthy change to the sabre material, that being the revised sabre molinelli, it is worth emphasising how the shifting of the centre of rotation creates a disparity between the molinelli and the practical cuts, in that the former prescribe a chambering of the arm prior to extension, while the latter involve only extension directly from the guard position, with the cut's power coming from the lunge alone. It is therefore unclear how much of an effect these specific changes on their own would have had on how Parise's students wielded their sabres when bouting; however, there is convincing evidence to show that the chambered molinelli were indeed being taught at the Master's School and by many of its graduates. As mentioned in my series on the Parise-Pecoraro method, the chambered molinelli were likely being taught to all students and alumni of the Master's School from at least 1891. Despite the apparent concession to the Radaelli school which these molinelli represented, Luigi Barbasetti did not consider them an improvement:

What was taken from the Radaelli system ends up being inferior even to the true Neapolitan sabre school, which, by being the fruit of long experience and the inspiration for true and respectable artists in fencing, which was at least not without an organic homogeneity, and allowed those who practised it to develop such an exercise as to make themselves relatively strong, and thus a game which appeared logical and effective.⁵

Another graduate of Radaelli's school, Antonino Ferrante Caccamo, came to the same conclusion as Barbasetti, but differed from his colleague in that he even preferred the cutting mechanics of the 'old Neapolitan school' to the Radaellian mechanics he was originally taught.⁶ Despite this view, if a student of Parise did not eventually embrace Radaellian mechanics outright after leaving the Master's School, as many did, it is likely that the molinelli they taught to their students were the type described in the fifth edition. When Arturo Gazzera, who graduated from the Master's School in 1893, published an abridged German translation of Parise's treatise with the assistance of Jacob Erckrath-de Bary in 1905, it was the fifth edition and its chambered molinelli which they translated, even introducing their own subtle changes to deemphasise the use of the wrist.⁷

Similarly, after a Master's School graduate named Beniamino Alesiano spent several years teaching in Prague, a student of his by the name of Jindřich Vaníček published a sabre treatise which faithfully reproduced Parise's chambered molinelli, strongly suggesting that this was how Alesiano taught them, or at least that Vaníček had consulted the Parise's fifth edition text.⁸ Finally, in the posthumously published treatise of Leonardo Terrone, who graduated from the Master's School in the late 1890s, he includes two exercises to help 'develop cuts correctly' which are simply the fifth edition versions of Parise's two descending molinelli.⁹

Overall, the changes made in fifth edition of Parise's treatise do not constitute an overhaul by any means, even with the significant concession symbolised by the new sabre exercise molinelli, rather they an effort on Parise's part to better reflect the reality of the fencing curriculum at the Master's School as well as the Italian scene more generally. It is therefore crucial to be aware of these changes if we wish to develop a thorough understanding of how Parise's method was put into practice by his students, both long before and long after the fifth edition was published in 1904. Despite the regulation status given to the treatise by the Italian government, the text was not inviolable and should not be assumed to fully reflect the precise teachings of the Rome Master's School at any given time.

*******

1 Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: G. Civelli, 1887), 19, 128, 148, 173; Carlo Pilla, Arte e scuole di scherma: conferenza tenuta alla società bolognese di scherma nel febbraio 1886 (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1886), 38; Jacopo Gelli, Brevi note sulla scherma di sciabola per la cavalleria (Florence: Luigi Niccolai, 1889), 26.^↩
2 See for example Gustáv Arlow, A kardvívás (Budapest: Az Athenaeum Irodalmi és Nyomdai R.-T., 1902), 67–68.^↩
3 Coriolano Ponza di San Martino, "N. 22. — Amministrazione e contabilità — Sciabole e spade per le sale da scherma. (Con una tavola di disegni). — 28 gennaio," Giornale Militare 1902: Parte prima, no. 4 (1 February 1902): 137–140.^↩
4 Giuseppe Ottolenghi, "N. 126. — Istruzioni ed esercitazioni militari. — Scuole militari. — Regolamento per le sale di scherma dei corpi di truppa e delle scuole militari, e programmi per l'insegnamento della scherma. — 22 aprile," Giornale Militare 1903: Parte prima, no. 17 (25 April 1903): 359–370.^↩
5 Luigi Barbasetti, "Commenti e…. Commenti," La Rivista Sportiva, 10 January 1894, 3–4.^↩
6 Antonino Ferrante Caccamo, Dei varî sistemi di Scherma Italiana e del vero modo di muovere l'arma (Naples: G. Cozzolino, 1905), 25–27.^↩
7 Masaniello Parise, Das Fechten mit Degen und Säbel, trans. Arturo Gazzera and Jacob Erckrath-de Bary (Offenbach am Main: self-pub., [1905]).^↩
8 Jindřich Vaníček, O šermu šavlí (Prague: Pražské tělocvičné jednoty Sokol, [1919]), 47–54, https://kramerius5.nkp.cz/uuid/uuid:fa222078-6db5-43e3-8c7b-53f428659d54.^↩
9 Leonardo F. Terrone, Right and Left Hand Fencing (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1959), 94–96.^↩

Changed in translation: modifications to the Parise sabre method

The controversial yet highly influential treatise by Masaniello Parise entitled Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola, first published in 1884, was considered by many both in and outside of Italy to be the bible of Italian fencing. His work was translated at least twice in his lifetime, the first one being a Spanish translation in 1896 published in Argentina in 1896;¹ the second was an abbreviated German translation of the 1904 version (5th edition) of Parise's treatise, carried out by Arturo Gazzera and Jacob Erckrath de Bary and published in 1905.²

While the Spanish publication was a full and faithful translation of the 1884 edition, including the original illustrations, on close inspection the German translation is seen to deviate in certain areas from the 1904 edition it claims to be translating, most significantly with regard to the sabre instruction. This article is a discussion of the most noteworthy of these modifications and what they mean for the historical practice of the Parise method.

While there are some substantial differences between the 1904 and 1884 editions of Parise's treatise, the most significant of which being the change from wrist-based to full-arm molinelli as a concession to the Radaellians, an analysis of the differences between these two editions is outside the scope of this article. What follows here then is strictly a comparison of select passages in the original 1904 Parise treatise with its German translation by Gazzera and Erckrath de Bary.

Arturo Gazzera, c. 1902

Before we examine the treatise, however, it is important to consider who the translators were so that we may have a greater understanding of where these changes may have originated from in the first place. Unlike the translator of the Spanish version, Arturo Gazzera was a graduate of Parise's military fencing masters school in Rome, where he was a student of the celebrated Radaellian master Carlo Guasti. After graduating at the top of his class, Gazzera taught in the 3rd Alpini regiment as well as spending a short time as a bouting master at the Master's School before eventually leaving the army in 1896. He spent a few months teaching alongside Barbasetti in Vienna, then taught sabre at Károly Fodor's fencing hall in Budapest for three years until moving to Offenbach am Main, Germany. It is here that Gazzera would remain for the rest of his life, quickly becoming one of the most prominent fencing masters in Germany.³

Among Gazzera's earliest students was the prominent sportsman Jacob Erckrath de Bary. Having spent time in Milan in the late 1880s, Erckrath de Bary became enamoured with Italian fencing, and remained an avid promoter of which on his return to Germany. Here Erckrath de Bary served for several years as president of the Offenbach Fencing Club, and was instrumental in the club's decision to hire Gazzera to teach there. Erckrath de Bary later claimed it was his idea to translate Parise's great work into German, with the help of his new master, Gazzera. He was also a talented competitor in his own right, winning a gold medal as captain of the German sabre team at the 1906 Intercalated Olympic Games.⁴ Erckrath de Bary was one of the greatest advocates for the growth of fencing in Germany in the early 20th century, serving as the first president of the Deutscher Fechter-Bund (Germany's national fencing organisation) and representing Germany in the International Fencing Federation (FIE) for over 20 years.⁵

Jacob Erckrath de Bary

In the beginning of Gazzera and Erckrath de Bary's translation, aside from omitting Parise's dedication to his uncle and master Raffaele Parise and greatly shortening the historical summary, the translators also omit the Fambri report for the government's treatise commission; this was a report which largely gave a flawed and biased indictment of the Radaelli sabre method and justified the selection of Parise's treatise as the new regulation fencing text for the Italian army.⁶ Many smaller omissions and abbreviations of the original text can be found throughout the translation (the original is 420 pages long, whilst the translation is only 160), such as most insignificant footnotes and some longer paragraphs, but this report is by far the largest section of the original to not be included. On its own this particular omission may seem of little significance, but as we shall see, the changes later on in the translation give an indication of a deliberate attempt to alter the reader's perception of Parise's system, particularly in comparison to the Radaelli system.

The foil (/sword) section is largely unmodified, although a few differences are worth mentioning. The first minor technical divergence can be seen in the guard position. While the Parise illustrations show the front knee slightly further back towards the heel of the foot, thereby producing a subtly rear-weighted guard, the photos from the German translation depict a typical even-weighted guard, with the front leg more perpendicular to the foot. We also see a slight forward lean in the torso of the Parise illustrations which is not present in the German version. This torso lean is something that Parise only explicitly mentions in the sabre section,⁷ but not in foil, despite being noticeable in the illustrations for both weapons.

Left: Parise (1904)
Right: Gazzera & Erckrath de Bary

The descriptions of the lunge, advance, and retreat correspond closely with the 1904 Parise text, but the German version also adds in the balestra:

To be able to perform an advance and lunge together in two movements, a short jump forward is done with both feet at the same time, after which the legs must be found in the guard position and then the lunge immediately follows. Note: The movement must be carried out as quickly as possible without any pause between the jump and the lunge. To achieve this the jump must be short.⁸

The last alteration to the foil section worth mentioning (although insignificant) is in the notes on binding the weapon to the hand. In the original text Parise details three different methods of binding the weapon using a 1.5 m long ribbon or cord, while the German translation omits each of these descriptions and merely says that while the 1.5 m cord methods are still used in Italy, the practice is gradually being replaced with the use of a simple wrist strap which the pommel is inserted into.⁹ It is these wrist straps which soon become ubiquitous in Italian foil fencing until the widespread adoption of anatomic grips later in the 20th century, although they are still popular among some classical fencing traditions today. The wrist strap can be seen in the video at the end of this article.

As we reach the sabre section, it is here that we see the differences becoming more significant and indicative of Radaellian influence. To begin with, let us compare the descriptions of the method of gripping the sabre:

Italian

German

The sabre is gripped in the full hand, but with the thumb based along the knurled part of the grip a centimetre away from the guard, and the four fingers closed around, with the little finger resting against the end of the guard, so that the upper extremity of the grip protrudes somewhat underneath the little finger. To grip the sabre well with minimal use of force, and without it sliding in the hand, it is necessary for the handle to perfectly match the concavities formed by the position of the hand, and that the thumb does not impact the guard, and that the upper part of the grip is slightly curved, so that the little finger can easily lean against the guard. In this manner the grip will not turn in the hand, the fingers will be able to rest, and the rotations which follow the cuts will be facilitated. With the sabre gripped like so, the normal position of the wrist will as a result make a noticeable angle with the outside of the forearm.

The sabre is gripped with the full hand, the thumb lying on the roughened part of the backstrap, and the four fingers enclose the grip in such a way that the little finger lies on the curved part of the grip. The thumb should not collide with the guard.

Demonstration of the sabre grip, added to the German translation

While the text of the German edition resembles a summary of the original, the accompanying photo (which was not included in the original Italian edition) shows a grip more akin to the Radaellian method, with the little finger not resting against the bottom of the guard as Parise describes, although the hand does appear to be slightly further down the grip than what Radaellians such as Masiello and Barbasetti depict. Nevertheless, the grip shown in the photo is more similar to the Radaellian method than the Parise method, as it clearly shows the hypothenar eminence resting on top of the backstrap.

In the guard position, the same difference in body weight positioning noted in the foil section is also apparent here, as well as the German version showing a more extended sword arm, the elbow not resting against the flank.

Top: Parise (1904)
Bottom: Gazzera & Erckrath de Bary

The German version also removes the mention of a slight forward inclination of the torso in the guard position:

Italian	German
Whether in guard of third, or of first, the body will naturally come to be slightly forward, but perfectly balanced, so as to be exactly centred between the two heels.	Whether one is in the first or third guard, the body's centre of gravity must always be in the middle between the two heels.

Yet somewhat unsurprisingly it is in the descriptions for the molinelli that we find the strongest indications of Radaellian influence. Only the first sentence of the definition changes, with a small but significant change of word order (emphasis added):

Italian	German
Molinelli are those rotational movements which are performed with the sabre, and which are based principally on the wrist, with assistance from the elbow, in giving blows with the edge in all directions.	Molinelli are those movements performed with the sabre, which are based principally on the operation of the elbow and the slightest assistance of the wrist. They can be performed in all directions.

Although the subsequent descriptions for the individual molinelli (discussed in some detail here) are the same in the German translation, this small edit on the part of the translators does actually make the definition match more closely with the practical execution of the molinelli than the original Italian does, as the actions involve the full range of motion of the elbow and very little wrist movement. Nor could this be interpreted as a mistake on the part of the translators, as they also add the following to the note at the end of section 21:

Note: The teacher will make sure that when performing these molinelli, the thumb never leaves the back of the grip, the rotation of the blade itself is performed with proper use of the elbow and the least possible assistance of the wrist, completely excluding involvement of the shoulders.¹⁰

While the translated descriptions of the exercise molinelli correspond closely with Parise's text, the descriptions of the practical cuts in the subsequent sections remove the sole defining feature of Parise's cutting mechanics, that being the 'recovery swing'. Let us look at the descriptions for the cut to the head as an example:

Italian

German

The cut to the head is performed with a single movement; that is, from guard of third, by extending the arm forward, the hand in third position at shoulder height and the point of the blade above the opponent's head, so as to form an obtuse angle with the arm, with the edge towards the ground; the sabre is lowered decisively in a vertical direction until at the height of the flank, at the same time extending the left leg, without moving the sole of the foot from the ground, and driving the right foot forward, gliding along the ground for one foot length but without dragging it, so that the knee ends up perpendicular to the heel. After which one returns to guard, describing a circular arc, making the sabre go back up with the point hugging the left shoulder, at the same time the left leg is bent, bringing the weight of the body onto it and immediately placing the right foot in its starting position, accentuating the movement with a light beat of the foot.

The head cut is performed in one movement and from guard of third. One cuts out to the right side and strikes with a quick movement, extending the arm, edge down towards the opponent's head, lunging at the same time. One then takes the shortest path to guard of third.

Unlike Parise's original text, the cuts in the German translation do not prescribe any angle between the sabre and forearm, and the recovery to guard is not accompanied by the follow-through swing as practised in the exercise molinelli, but instead it advises to take 'the shortest path' back to the guard position. These same changes are reflected in the other cuts aside from the cuts to the chest and abdomen, where the reader is told to make a slicing motion back to guard, as per the molinello to the inside face.

This is the last significant change apparent in the German translation, with the rest of the sabre material corresponding more or less closely, if abbreviated, to the original text. The sabre method detailed in the book is still clearly Parise's despite the modifications to the cutting mechanics, but the fact that said deliberate changes exist at all (in what one would expect to be a simple translation from the Italian version) is likely indicative of a difference between the theory of Parise's method versus its practical application among the students of the Military Master's School. Indeed the renowned Radaellian masters Pecoraro, Pessina, Guasti, and Barbasetti were all teachers at the school during Gazzera's time there, with not all being as equally devoted to teaching the official method.¹¹

It is unclear if the changes seen in this translation reflect what was actually being taught at the Master's School in Rome or rather Gazzera's own personal method, but regardless of their origin they are nevertheless part of a noticeable trend among the graduates of the military school, which many contemporary commentators attributed to the influence of the aforementioned Radaellian masters. A discussion of these divergences on a broader scale will be the topic for a future article.

I will leave readers with a wonderful video of Arturo Gazzera's most famous student, Helene Mayer, giving a demonstration of Italian foil fencing. Things to note are the nails-up parries of 3rd and 2nd (given as 6th and 8th), the addition of the French parry of 7th, and her use of coupés, all of which show how Gazzera's system naturally continued to diverge from Parise's as time progressed and as the needs of modern fencing required.

Post last updated: 10 August 2024

1 Masaniello Parise, Tratado de esgrima teórico-praticó, trans. Sócrates Pelanda Ponce (Buenos Aires: Julio Ghio, 1896).^↩
2 Masaniello Parise, Das Fechten mit Degen und Säbel, trans. Arturo Gazzera and Jacob Erckrath-de Bary (Offenbach am Main: self-pub., [1905]). The original does not give a year of publication, but the news of its publication in the Austrian magazine Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 9 April 1905, p. 363, gives a likely candidate of 1905. For clarity, further citations of this work will use only the translators' names.^↩
3 "Tre Campioni della Scherma Italiana," Stampa Sportiva, 2 November 1902, 11.^↩
4 "La Confession d'un Escrimeur," Le Rappel, 22 July 1908, 3.^↩
5 Max Schröder, Deutsche Fechtkunst (Berlin: Georg Koenig, 1938).^↩
6 Radaellian commentary on this report may be found here and here.^↩
7 Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola: preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello, 5th ed. (Turin: Casa Editrice Nazionale Roux e Viarengo, 1904), 270.^↩
8 Gazzera and Erckrath-de Bary, Fechten mit Degen und Säbel, 12.^↩
9 Gazzera and Erckrath-de Bary, 98–99.^↩
10 Gazzera and Erckrath-de Bary, 111.^↩
11 Barbasetti left the school in 1892, Guasti in 1893.^↩