Fencing masters in the Italian military

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.^↩

The Early Career of Luigi Barbasetti

In the Radaellian tradition, no other fencing master boasts quite the same level of name recognition as Luigi Barbasetti. As a result of his trailblazing work introducing Italian fencing to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as boasting the only Radaellian sabre and foil treatises to be translated in their entirety into English prior to the 21st century, Barbasetti's work was what introduced many Europeans to Radaellian fencing in the late 19th and 20th centuries, and it continues to do so for many fencers around the world today.

Less known to modern readers are the many articles Barbasetti wrote across many periodicals throughout his career, particularly those written in the two-year between him leaving military service in 1892 and his fateful move to Vienna in late 1894. By nature of the period in which these articles were written, they give significant insight into Barbasetti's motivations as well as his perceptions on the development of Italian fencing up to that point.

In the document below I have provided a selection of sixteen articles from the magazines La Rivista Sportiva and Scherma Italiana, ten of which were authored by Luigi Barbasetti himself, signed either with his full name or more commonly merely his initials 'L. B.', and in one instance simply 'B.' The remaining six articles provide the context for those Barbasetti references and responded to.

*** Supplementary articles ***

Other articles of Barbasetti's appeared in these two magazines during this period, but those presented in the provided document are the most pertinent in understanding the frustrations and disillusionment which undoubtedly gave Barbasetti the motive to leave Italy for greener pastures abroad. What follows in the rest of this article is my own attempt to provide a biographical background for Barbasetti's writings and highlight how they were influenced by his prior experiences.

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Giuseppe Luigi Barbasetti was born on 21 February 1859 in the city of Udine.¹ As a teenager he joined the military, receiving training as a non-commissioned officer at the 3rd Training Battalion in Verona, where he quickly distinguished himself in fencing under the tutelage of Carlo Guasti. Due to his fencing talents, Barbasetti was selected to become a fencing master, for which he spent an additional year at the Training Battalion with Maestro Guasti and then in 1880 he entered the great Fencing Master's School in Milan, whose acting director at the time was Giovanni Monti, in place of the ailing Giuseppe Radaelli. Barbasetti's personal copy of the fencing textbook used at the school, along with all the meticulous notes he wrote alongside it, is still preserved today at KU Leuven in Belgium.²

Barbasetti's first master, Carlo Guasti.

After graduating in 1881, Barbasetti became the regimental fencing instructor of the 36th infantry.³ Soon after his assignment to this regiment it transferred to Palermo, which proved to be a fruitful experience for Barbasetti. While stationed here he had the opportunity to train with the highly regarded amateur fencer Antonino Palizzolo, who ran a popular fencing club in Palermo. Although Barbasetti's regiment was stationed in Palermo for less than two years, under the guidance of Palizzolo Barbasetti greatly improved his foil fencing and developed an appreciation for the Sicilian fencers, whom he described as being particularly adherent to their traditional methods and equipment.⁴

By the start of 1885 the 36th infantry regiment had moved, as had the Military Fencing Master's School, which had its new seat in the Italian capital under the direction of the young Neapolitan master Masaniello Parise, a significant controversy in the Italian fencing world. Before the Rome school could resume the task of training fencing masters, the new, non-Radaellian, fencing method that formed the curriculum at Parise's school had to be taught to the military's existing masters. In April 1885 Luigi Barbasetti began his 3-month conversion course in Rome, where he made enough of an impression on the new director that he, along with several other Radaellians, was asked to remain at the school as an assistant instructor. This role had the benefit of providing a slight pay increase as well as being a more fulfilling role, as instructors here would be teaching students who were much more interested in learning fencing than the average officer in a regimental fencing hall would be.⁵

Barbasetti first came to the attention of the fencing public in 1887 at the 'international' tournament in Florence, his first such appearance [*Correction 2026/05/30: His first competition appearance was in fact at the 1884 international tournament in Turin*]. Although overshadowed by others in the foil elimination competition (he did not compete in sabre), his classification bouts resulted in him receiving the second highest score among 42 fencing masters in foil and fourth out of 61 masters in sabre. In addition to the two gold medals he received for these rankings, Barbasetti was also awarded a yataghan, one of 28 special prizes donated by various clubs, politicians, and nobles.⁶

Barbasetti's reputation continued to rise over the following years, repeating similarly noteworthy performances at no fewer than seven tournaments by 1892 in addition to his first Florentine outing. By 1891 Barbasetti was one of the longest-serving instructors at the Master's School, alongside his old master Carlo Guasti and Carlo Pessina. Despite this apparent loyalty, however, Barbasetti's later writings show that at this point he was growing increasingly frustrated and resentful of the institution he served. Rather than being loyal to Parise and his method, Barbasetti was in fact adamantly opposed to the sabre method he was being forced to teach, and had never abandoned his Radaellian principles. By mid-1891 Barbasetti had been transferred to the Modena Military School. It is unclear why this happened—one journalist later wrote that Barbasetti left voluntarily 'in order to not share moral responsibility deriving from fallacious teaching'—but it is likely that by this point he was greatly disillusioned with his role at the Master's School.⁷ At the Modena Military School Barbasetti found a brief reprieve from this feeling, being able to teach alongside a large cohort of like-minded Radaellians free from the watchful eye of Parise.

What separated him from his colleagues at the military school, however, was the fact that his efforts at the school had not yet been rewarded with a promotion to civil master. 'Civil master' was the designation the Ministry of War gave to fencing masters under their direct employ as civilians, distinct from regular military instructors like Barbasetti, who were first and foremost soldiers and who were for the most part attached to a specific regiment or, in rare cases such as Barbasetti's, temporarily assigned to a military school or college to act as an assistant instructor. The relevance of this particular promotion here is the effect it had on a given fencing instructor's willingness to remain in military service.

Long-term retention of military fencing masters was dismal in the late 19th century. Several commentators, including Barbasetti, asserted that most masters left the military at the end of their five-year mandatory service period. This service period included the time spent training at the Master's School, so given that the course lasted two years until 1890, and thereafter three years, most masters would only be required to serve for a couple of years after graduating.⁸ If the instructor achieved a civil master promotion, however, it is almost certain that they would keep that position for many years, often decades. The position of civil master was greatly coveted as with it came: the benefit of a much higher starting salary which increased further with seniority; a generally more enthusiastic group of students; the consistency of being attached to an institution rather than a regiment which was constantly redeployed; freedom from the menial day-to-day tasks foisted on military instructors (such as delivering mail and acquiring firewood); the ability to also give private fencing lessons outside of regular work hours, among several other factors.

From a purely practical standpoint, military instructors found themselves in a contradictory position in their role as an instructor: every day they had to act as teachers to officers as well as NCOs, but they were unable to discipline students on their own, having to rely on the hall supervisor, who was not always present. While civil masters had no rank, given that they were civilian employees, they were nevertheless free of the military hierarchy and had the ability to engage with officers in more informal social contexts outside of their work. This put them on a much more equal social level than they would be had they remained soldiers, one much more in keeping with the respect they themselves felt they deserved.

To reach the rank of civil master, military instructors had to undergo an examination similar to those the masters would have undergone to graduate from the Master's School, which consisted of giving example lessons, answering questions about the regulation fencing text, and bouting. However, since all the competing candidates had several years of experience by the time they applied for the position, the level of competency required to rise above the crowd was understandably very high. The sum of the scores candidates received for each exam element would create an overall ranking for all candidates, and soon after the highest ranking candidates would be given any civil master positions vacant at the time. Any other positions that became vacant in the following two years would be awarded to the next highest-ranking candidate, provided they were still serving in the military. If a candidate did not end up receiving a promotion at the end of this period, they were considered unsuccessful, and would have to go through the exams again if they still wished to earn a promotion. However, individuals were only permitted to apply for the civil master promotion twice; if they did not receive a promotion after two attempts, they could not apply again and had to either be content as a lowly military instructor or, as most eventually did, leave the military altogether.⁹

This was the position our Barbasetti found himself in when, in October 1892, he returned to the Master's School one last time, this time not as an instructor, but as a candidate for civil master. Given that Barbasetti had been a military instructor for over a decade now, this was probably his second (and final) chance to get the promotion. At the end of the civil master exams, Barbasetti ranked a respectable 5th out of likely several dozen candidates. Unfortunately for Barbasetti though, this ranking was not high enough to secure him one of the two already vacant civil master positions, which instead went to two younger masters, Agesilao Greco and Vincenzo Drosi.¹⁰ To add insult to injury, not only did all the other masters who ranked higher than Barbasetti have less experience than he, as per the regular rules governing who could apply to the civil master role Greco would not have had the requisite seniority, so he would have had to receive special permission from Parise to take part in the exams.¹¹

Despite spending six respectable years as an instructor at the Military Master's School, Parise and the army had implicitly deemed Barbasetti's teaching skills to be lacking in comparison to several of his less experienced peers. This proved to be the last straw for Barbasetti, and a few months later he left the army entirely. Curiously, if Barbasetti had remained in the army for another year, he indeed would have received his promotion. From when the exams took place in October 1892 and until the possible advancement period ended in September 1894, a total of 8 civil master vacancies were filled, a high but not unprecedented number. Since he had already been discharged from the army, however, he was no longer eligible to receive the promotion, and it instead went to one of his Radaellian colleagues.¹² Barbasetti was likely aware of this possibility when he received his discharge papers, thus it cannot be said for certain that the results of the civil master exam were the deciding factor for Barbasetti.

Despite these no doubt demoralising circumstances, it was as a free agent that Barbasetti would finally receive the recognition and remuneration he felt was owed to him, in all likelihood surpassing anything he might have achieved by staying in the military. The opportunity to employ this highly experienced and reputable young master was quickly seized by the the popular and well-funded Trieste Fencing Society, and in December that same year Barbasetti arrived in Trieste to a rapturous welcome. Although still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at this time, Trieste had a significant and growing Italian minority who was well up-to-date on the latest fencing trends in Italy. Even before Barbasetti's arrival, the fencers of Trieste were by no means ignorant of Radaellian fencing, indeed the city was somewhat of a Radaellian outpost in the late 19th century. The famous master Salvatore Arista had spent a couple of years in Trieste in the same role a decade earlier, and by the time Barbasetti arrived in 1892 two other ex-military Radaellian masters, G. T. Angelini and Augusto Garagnani, were teaching in the city. Barbasetti's reputation naturally overshadowed the two incumbents; a banquet was held to celebrate his arrival, which was billed as the beginning of a revival of fencing activity in the city.¹³

As well as marking a new era in his teaching career, Barbasetti's move to Trieste resulted in the emergence of his public persona through the Italian sporting press. His first forays into writing appeared in mid-1893 in the pro-Radaellian fencing magazine Scherma Italiana, responding to comments made about a recent exhibition of his with Eugenio Pini and discussions on duelling codes and ongoing efforts at their standardisation in Italy.¹⁴ But it was at the end of the year when he truly came to the attention of the literate fencing public by becoming an editor of Trieste's La Rivista Sportiva. This magazine had been in circulation since the beginning of 1893, featuring only a modest and intermittent fencing column, but in December the Rivista began an ambitious shift and published a 6-page special edition fencing supplement to inaugurate the addition of Luigi Barbasetti to the magazine's editorial staff.¹⁵

For the last five months of La Rivista Sportiva's existence, fencing became the largest single section of the magazine, often comprising half of an individual issue's total material. The magazine boasted of having received commitments for the collaboration of many other prominent Radaellians, but very few of them (at least in name) would actually contribute an article in the magazine's short lifetime. While the magazine did not manage to serve as the collaborative and enduring platform that some Radaellians had hoped for, it did at least provide an effective soapbox for its newest editor, Barbasetti, who immediately took to expounding his views on the current state of fencing in Italy, declaring that it is 'on the path of regression, perhaps primarily because of the teaching method introduced in the army, which we cannot declare to be in agreement with.'¹⁶

Barbasetti was highly critical of his old boss, Masaniello Parise, and the oppressive institution he ruled over. Although Barbasetti had spent 6 years teaching at the Master's School, this had not made him more amenable to Parise's teachings, at least not with respect to sabre fencing. He makes explicit his regret at having attempted to make change from within the system:

Parise's collaborators, or rather the executors, all pure Radaellians, wanted to repaint something…decayed and covered in patches, so as to make a ramshackle thing pass off as new. It was junkyard business and for my part I now deplore having lent a hand.¹⁷

Barbasetti depicts Parise and the school as oppressive and detrimental to the development of fencing in Italy; adherence to the defective official method stifles the artistic freedom of fencing masters in the army, whom Barbasetti asserts are all of a lower quality than those who emerged from the schools of Radaelli and Enrichetti. His first example of this oppression was the fact that the famed Ferdinando Masiello had in late 1893 resigned from his respected teaching position at the Florence military college. This followed only a few months after another master, Barbasetti's dear master Carlo Guasti, left the halls of the Rome Master's School and was transferred to a military academy in Turin.¹⁸ Barbasetti believes both events to be proof that more and more masters were becoming disillusioned with the curriculum and being subordinate to Parise.

Today it is Masiello who renounces government teaching. Tomorrow, who knows? But if we go on at this trot we can hope for at least one thing: which is that soon nobody will receive a master's licence from the state without proving that they have hung Masaniello Parise's treatise at the foot of their bed and that every morning they recite this prayer: 'I believe in the impeccable, infallible official fencing treatise and I renounce all other authors and common sense if by chance I find it.'¹⁹

Barbasetti asserted that in the past eight years 'not one truly strong sabre fencer has emerged from the Master's School', which immediately caught the ire of at least one of Parise's disciples, Antonio Conte, whose response to Barbasetti's diatribes appeared on the front page of Scherma Italiana.²⁰ Conte points to the recent competitive successes of himself and his fellow graduates as proof of the school's accomplishments, a point which the Radaellians themselves made in defence of the Milan school in previous years. In his response, Barbasetti shows himself to be fiercely protective of his reputation as a competitor, downplaying Conte's victories by asserting that most of his victories took place when he did not have to face someone like Barbasetti. When he is willing to concede that a graduate of Parise's school is worthy of praise, it is mostly because their instructor at the school deviated from the regulation method (as was supposedly the case with Carlo Guasti) or because of their own extraordinary physical attributes (e.g. Agesilao Greco).²¹

Regular readers of this blog may also appreciate the additional details Barbasetti provides on the Parise-Pecoraro reforms from a few years prior. While the actual substance of Parise's reformed sabre method is well known to us through later sources, Barbasetti directly credits General Giovanni Corvetto, then Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of War, for initiating this process. Barbasetti claims that Corvetto was 'a bitter enemy of the Parise system' and attempted to replace Parise with Pecoraro as head of the Master's School, but he was overruled by others in the government. As a compromise, Pecoraro was permitted to make changes to the cavalry's sabre instruction, the result of which was the Parise-Pecoraro method that was taught to the cavalry and students at the Master's School from 1891 onwards.²² Yet these changes were evidently insufficient for Barbasetti, as they did not address the underlying problems with how the Italian military trained its fencing masters.

In expounding on how to improve what Barbasetti perceives to be a decline in the quality of sabre fencing and fencing masters in Italy, he draws inspiration partly from his personal experience of over 12 years of military service. He has positive memories of the 'training unit' model that he experienced in his youth, where the Master's School acted more as a finishing school rather than one which takes up the burden of providing a comprehensive training programme.²³ Yet there is one new perspective that Barbasetti has recently gained greater access to with his move to Trieste, and that is the fencing programme of the Austro-Hungarian army's school in Wiener Neustadt.

Several articles in the Rivista Sportiva strongly suggest that Barbasetti was interacting with Austro-Hungarian military personnel and those who had close knowledge of the kind of fencing carried out in both military and civilian circles.²⁴ These contacts gave him the strong impression that life for a fencing master in the Austro-Hungarian military was far better than in Italy, for several reasons. The first was due to the fact that Austrian military fencing masters are officers, and they can continue receiving promotions while acting as fencing masters. The second factor was that the fencing course at Wiener Neustadt lasted only a year, which meant the empire was able to produce fencing masters quickly, albeit with less training than an Italian master. Barbasetti's imagined emulation of the Wiener Neustadt system would have seen the Modena Military School turned into a training unit of 'fencing specialists', with this location most likely being selected as a result of his personal experience there two years earlier.²⁵

The most fruitful aspect of Barbasetti's interaction with Austrian military personnel, however, turned out not to be the importing of new ideas into Italy, but rather the beginning of the exporting of Italian fencing to the rest of Europe. In the penultimate issue of La Rivista Sportiva in April 1894 Barbasetti mentions a visit from Eugen Bothmer and Amon Gregurich, both fencing masters in the Austrian army. These masters had given Barbasetti an invitation to hold a course on Italian fencing at the cavalry school at Mährisch Weißkirchen (Hranice na Moravě, today part of Czechia), where they had already begun teaching in accordance with the Italian method, likely learnt through their contact with Gustav Ristow and Pietro Arnoldo.²⁶ He was then taken to the Wiener Neustadt school where he gave another demonstration of the Radaellian method, which was so well received that already in August 1894 some were claiming that Barbasetti's method was to be adopted by all military schools in Austria-Hungary.²⁷

By the end of the year, Barbasetti had packed his bags and moved to Vienna, and thus began a new and remarkable period in European fencing which saw the Radaellian spread rapidly across the continent. The last issue of the Rivista Sportiva was published on 10 May 1894, but this was by no means the end of Barbasetti's writing career. Aside from his books—namely his duelling code (1898), sabre treatise (1899), and foil treatise (1900)—Barbasetti continued to contribute the occasional article to various newspapers and magazines both in Austria and Italy, but he never again assumed such a direct role in affecting the public discourse like he did with the Rivista.

Much has been said about Barbasetti's fascinating career over the past 130 years, and surely much more remains to be said, particularly regarding the years following his departure from Vienna at the outbreak of the Great War. What I hope to have provided here at least is a deeper insight into the events which shaped Barbasetti's decisions in the early 1890s, events which eventually led to him becoming one of the most recognised names in the history of both Italian and Austrian fencing.

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1 Unless stated otherwise, biographical details regarding Barbasetti are drawn from the following sources: Fleuret, "Luigi Barbasetti," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 5 January 1896, 19; Roderico Rizzotti, "Luigi Barbasetti," Scherma Italiana, 1 October 1896, 47–9; Camillo Müller, "Barbasetti," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 1 March 1903, 220–1.^↩
2 KU Leuven Libraries Special Collections, R4A552b.^↩
3 Cesare Francesco Ricotti-Magnani, "CIRCOLARE N. 47. — Corsi eventuali presso la scuola magistrale militare di scherma. — (Segretariato generale). — 11 aprile," Giornale Militare 1885: Parte Seconda, no. 17 (15 April 1885): 196–7.^↩
4 Luigi Barbasetti, "La miglior parata è la botta," Gazzetta dello Sport, 20 August 1897; Barbasetti, La Scherma di Spada (Milan: Tipografia Alessandro Gattinoni, 1902), 24.^↩
5 On the salary of military instructors at the Master's School, see Jacopo Gelli, Brevi note sulla scherma di sciabola per la cavalleria (Florence: Tipografia di Luigi Niccolai, 1889), 9^↩
6 Daily reports on the tournament can be found in the Florentine newspaper La Nazione between 5 and 18 May 1887.^↩
7 "Accademie, tornei e notizie," Scherma Italiana, 17 December 1894, 91–2.^↩
8 For some examples of contemporary discussion regarding the poor morale of military fencing masters, see Giuseppe Perez, "I Maestri di Scherma nell'Esercito," Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile, 16 May 1891, 4; D'Artagnan, "I Maestri di Scherma nell'Esercito," Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile, 1 June 1891, 4; Ricasso, "Il grado ai maestri di scherma militari," Lo Sport Illustrato, 20 August 1891, 406; Luigi Barbasetti, "La Scuola Magistrale Militare di Scherma in Italia," La Rivista Sportiva, 25 March 1894, 63. On the mandatory service period of military fencing instructors, see Raccolta ufficiale delle leggi e dei decreti del regno d'Italia, vol. 97 (Rome: Stamperia Reale, 1890), 2366.^↩
9 Giovanni Corvetto, "CIRCOLARE 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): 496–8; Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento per la scuola magistrale militare di scherma (Rome: Voghera Enrico, 1897), 23–4.^↩
10 Results on these exams are mentioned in "Accademie, tornei e notizie," Scherma Italiana, 27 October 1892, 70. The promotions of Greco and Drosi are announced in Ministero della Guerra, Bollettino ufficiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli uffiziali dell'esercito italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare, no. 48 (24 December 1892): 612.^↩
11 Candidates had to have a seniority dating prior to 1 January 1882. See Luigi Pelloux, "CIRCOLARE N. 96. — Concorso per la nomina a maestro aggiunto di 1a classe nel personale dei maestri civili di scherma. — (Segretariato generale). — 19 agosto," Giornale Militare 1892: Parte Seconda, no. 28 (20 August 1892): 250–1.^↩
12 The civil master promotions that were awarded between 1892 and 1894 are announced in the Bollettino ufficiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli uffiziali dell'esercito italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare.^↩
13 "Luigi Barbasetti," Il Piccolo, 1 December 1892, 1.^↩
14 "Sfida Barbasetti-Pini," Scherma Italiana, 8 May 1893, 31; "Il codice unico," Scherma Italiana 20 July 1893, 50–1; "Ancora sul codice unico," Scherma Italiana, 1 November 1893, 78.^↩
15 The copy of this first fencing supplement for the Rivista Sportiva I consulted bears no date, but given that it cites letters from the end of November 1893, a publication date in December seems likely.^↩
16 Luigi Barbasetti, "Ai miei lettori!," La Rivista Sportiva, [December 1893], 1.^↩
17 Luigi Barbasetti, "Commenti e.... Commenti," Scherma, La Rivista Sportiva, 10 January 1894, 3–4.^↩
18 Fieravespa, "E due!....," Scherma Italiana, 19 June 1893, 41.^↩
19 Luigi Barbasetti, "Ancora uno che se ne và," La Rivista Sportiva, [December 1893], 1–2.^↩
20 Luigi Barbasetti, "La decadenza della sciabola," La Rivista Sportiva, [December 1893], 4–5; Antonio Conte, Scherma Italiana, 15 February 1894, 17.^↩
21 Luigi Barbasetti, Scherma Italiana, 15 March 1894, 21–2.^↩
22 "Comunicati," Scherma Italiana, 5 August 1894, 65–6.^↩
23 Luigi Barbasetti, "La Scuola Magistrale Militare di Scherma in Italia," Scherma, La Rivista Sportiva, 25 March 1894, 63.^↩
24 In addition to the above-cited article, see Cap. Otto, "La scherma di sciabola in Austria," La Rivista Sportiva, [December 1893], 4; Cornelio Agrippa, "I maestri di scherma nell'esercito austro-ungarico," Scherma, La Rivista Sportiva, 25 January 1894, 13; Burlone, "La Scherma in Austria," Scherma, La Rivista Sportiva, 10 February 1894, 33–4.^↩
25 Luigi Barbasetti, "La Scuola Magistrale Militare di Scherma in Italia," Scherma, La Rivista Sportiva, 25 March 1894, 63.^↩
26 Luigi Barbasetti, "La Scherma Italiana in Austria," La Rivista Sportiva, 25 April 1894, 87–8. On Pietro Arnoldo's work in Austria, see this article.^↩
27 "Comunicati," Scherma Italiana, 5 August 1894, 65–6.^↩

Glimpses inside the Master's School: Giovanni Franceschinis

Continuing on from last week's article from Ottorino Scognamiglio, today is part two of our glimpse into the Mecca of pre-war Italian fencing, the Military Fencing Master's School in Rome.

This second account comes from Giovanni Franceschinis, who after graduating from the school had a long and successful career teaching in Vienna, following in the footsteps of Luigi Barbasetti, whom he spent some time training under during his time at the Master's School. This article was originally published in the July 1956 issue of the Italian Fencing Fedaration's magazine Scherma. It is the first of three articles by Franceschinis that the magazine published, with the other two dedicated to his career in Austria. While these are also interesting in their own right, only the first article will be translated here due to its relevance to the Rome Fencing Master's School.

Contrary to what Franceschinis claims, his course at the school took place from 1890 to 1893, so any of the dates he gives regarding his time there should be shifted a year earlier. Compared to Scognamiglio's account, Franceschinis pays a little more attention to the individuals involved in the training as well as their and his own achievements during the early stages of his career. These details partly set the stage for Franceschinis' subsequent articles in which he describes the glories and successes of Italian fencing throughout Europe at the turn of the 20th century, in addition to simply allowing Franceschinis to associate himself with the more famous figures at the centre of these events.

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Biographies of great masters: Maestro Giovanni Franceschinis

On the occasion of the dispute at the Gaudini Cup in Milan last March, we had the pleasure of meeting Maestro Giovanni Franceschinis in person (we already knew him by reputation), and since we knew that he had had a rather interesting life, we asked him to dictate something for the readers of Scherma, a request which he immediately granted with pleasure.

Perhaps few fencers, even among the masters, will remember him; most do not know who he is. This is not very surprising, since, aside from belonging to that privileged and, unfortunately, now quite...rarefied category of fencers and masters who are well into their 80s, Franceschinis lived abroad for many years; and as we know, 'out of sight, out of mind'. But not so for us, having imposed on ourselves the dutiful task (not always easy, to tell the truth, and least of all supported by the interested parties themselves) of pulling from oblivion those who have given to our sport their best energies and—whether as amateurs or as professionals—brought prestige and honour to Italian fencing. As Franceschinis occupies a very worthy place among these people, we are glad to take advantage of the occasion which put us in contact with him in order to introduce him to readers.

We intended to make this introduction immediately after the interview; unfortunately we were forced to postpone month after month because the competitive activity was such that it completely absorbed the available space. However, as we are not dealing with topical matters, the postponement does not harm either the story or its presentation.

Franceschinis, for those who do not know, is a vigorous and venerable old man who wears his 86 years of age with ease, and his upright body still maintains some of that proud bearing acquired in the Nizza Cavalry, which he was a part of in his distant youth. He now lives, almost in solitude, in Milanino, living on nostalgic memories and a very poor pension, something which these days happens often to many survivors of the previous century. But even if life for him now is somewhat sad and difficult, he has not lost the spiritual serenity that was his faithful companion and solid support in the fight for existence, carefree and beautiful while the years were carefree and beautiful, but tough and sad when it should have been easy and peaceful.

May he be comforted by the thought that those who knew him remember him with affection and respect, and we at the columns of Scherma wish him all the best. Having made this introduction, here is what the good Franceschinis told us:

How I became a fencing master

I was born in Udine on 15 August 1869, and I am the son of an Italian patriot, one of the brave defenders of Osoppo Fortress (1848) who was deported in 1861 to Olmutz, in Moravia, for having participated in the revolutionary revolts for Italian independence in that year, then he was a captain commissioner in the Italian army. Like most old fencing masters, I too come from the famous Military Master's School, which was founded in Rome in 1884 and in which I attended the 4th course (1891–1894), under the direction of the great Maestro Masaniello Parise.¹

To tell the truth, my career was not supposed to be that of a fencing master. My father wanted to make me a brilliant officer, and to that aim he made sure to send me through the strict classrooms of the Milan Military College, where I lived for four years, from 1884 to 1888. In 4th year, however, while I was getting by quite well in other subjects, I stumbled in mathematics, and since I would have to repeat the year, no longer with half-board (until then I had been able, as the son of an officer, to enjoy this benefit), but full board, and my father was unable to support me, I thus volunteered in the army, enlisting as a student sergeant in the 1st Nizza Cavalry regiment in Milan. Two years after promotion to sergeant, I applied and was accepted into the Fencing Master's School.

When I entered the school I was not ignorant of fencing, because both at the college—under the guidance of the civil masters Guarisco and Cavallo—as well as in the Nizza Regiment, I was successfully frequenting the fencing hall, falling in love with this most noble art.² At the Master's School I passionately applied myself under the guidance of Maestro Guasti.

The school was then, as is known, at the Santa Caterina barracks (Salita Magnanapoli), with modest facilities, but a now rich tradition of seriousness and intention: a true school of character and art. The school was subordinate to the Ministry of War. Militarily it was commanded by an army captain, and—for its technical aspect—it was under the direction of Maestro Masaniello Parise, winner of the competition for a unified text on sabre and foil fencing, announced by the Ministry. The courses at the school, to achieve the Military Master diploma with an army or navy regiment, lasted two years, later increased to three years in 1892.

The school had a first-rate teaching body, selected from among the best and most capable masters in all of Italy. Aside from the director Parise, there were two vice-directors (civil masters Pecoraro and Pessina); the teaching masters: Guasti and Laudati (civil), Drosi, Nappi, and others.

There were six hours of lessons per day: three in the morning, two in the afternoon, plus one for theory. An hour of gymnastics early in the morning. In addition to the lessons with one's master, there were set exercises in pairs—always, however, under the supervision of the master. Even the vice-directors gave lessons, occasionally, taking turns. For the first year of the course there was no sabre, only foil. There were competitions, to touch with a lunge, by direct thrust or parry-riposte, but never in close measure. Exercises which developed the fencer greatly.

In the second year Maestro Agesilao Greco joined the school, employed as a bouting master, without a student group.³ He was already a very strong fencer, with exceptional physical strength and endurance, more enamoured with and passionate about his art than any other. To give an idea of this passion of his, I will tell you an anecdote. We were both in the guardhouse in the barracks, he for eight days and I for fifteen, through common military shortcomings. One day I see him arrive at the guardhouse with foils, masks, and Indian clubs. For us the days of confinement in the guardhouse were...days of rest. Anything but rest! Agesilao made me work like a dog.⁴

During the year various military masters, already in the service and blessed with special talents, were called to the school for supplementary courses of two or three months, such as Santelli, Tagliapietra, Conte, Tagliaferri, and Schiavoni. These masters were, for us students, of great benefit in every respect. During the 2nd year of the course (1892) the director, on behalf of the Ministry of War and at the invitation of the English ministry, went on a mission to London with a group of the best masters and fencers for a demonstration of Italian fencing. Taking part were the masters: A. Greco, I. Santelli, E. Torricelli, and Schiavoni.⁵ Their exhibitions enraptured the cold and formal English public.

The school's students often participated in national and even international tournaments. For example, at the Grand Palermo Tournament during the 1893 National Exposition the school—by order of the Ministry—sent seven students from the 3rd year as amateurs (registration was free for masters), in particular: Alesiano, Berti, Gazzera, Miserocchi, Morellini, Olimpico, and this author. All were among the best classified with a gold medal. In addition to my two medals in foil and sabre, I received an English Colt carbine, which was a special gift from the Commanding General of the Army Corps. There were around 300 participants, and the unforgettable tournament lasted 14 days. Agesilao Greco was first among the masters, in foil and sabre. They were the best and strongest blades in Italy.

During my last year at the school the director Parise often entrusted me with special assignments, and on one such occasion I had the fortune of witnessing the civil master exams (students at the school were excluded). The committee was composed of General Manacorda, president, and masters Parise, Pecoraro, Pagliuca, Masiello, Pessina, and others. In such circumstances, performances were made. It was in one of them that I saw the most thrilling bout of my life. The protagonists were masters A. Greco and Vittorio Sartori (the dynamite Bersaglieri, as he was called). It was a masterpiece of fencing and art. The bout lasted 35 minutes. Greco won 4 hits to 1.

In July 1894 I was appointed master, with 24 other colleagues, one of whom from the navy. 63 people were admitted to my course.⁶ As you can see, it was a real sifting. I was assigned to the 7th Milan Cavalry, stationed at Nola.

Partly due to the uninviting headquarters, largely due to the fascination that young masters had for the international fame that surrounded our fencing masters—who at that time were in demand everywhere—the fact was that I too was looking for an escape and an adventure beyond the borders of the fatherland, and for this purpose I turned to Maestro Barbasetti, who was then teaching in Vienna and whom I, for a few months, had had as a teacher at the Rome Master's School.

Having left the army not long before in order to fill the more remunerative instructor position at the Trieste Fencing Society, whose president was the great fencer Count Sordina (a position subsequently occupied by Maestro Tagliapietra, who held it until his death in 1948), Barbasetti moved to Vienna for a few months at the military school in Wiener Neustadt and the Union Fechtclub. While waiting for the anticipated call, I put my attention to perfecting myself, going to the National Academy in Naples, where I worked with the masters Russomando, Macrì, and others.

But Barbasetti did not get in touch, and then, without thinking about it too much, I requested and obtained overseas leave—I had relatives in Trieste and it was not difficult for me to get; I left, bag over my shoulder, first for Triste, then for Vienna, where I was welcomed with justified astonishment but also delight by Barbasetti, who immediately put me to the test. It was August 1895.⁷ The lasting impression on the Viennese fencing scene was excellent. Three months later, I was called by telegraph to be professor of fencing at the Wiener Athletiksport Club, in the process of being founded. I obtained my discharge in advance. I hurried to my family in Udine, then, with two scraps of civilian clothing, my trusty bag over my shoulder, I arrived in Vienna with a metre and a half of snow, but with my heart boiling over, happy.

I began by helping Barbasetti with private lessons, waiting for my club to settle in, as I will discuss later. Incidentally, I will mention that, almost at the same time as Barbasetti, our great Italo Santelli was called to Budapest, being already very famous, and who immediately gave a remarkable boost and a very personal imprint on fencing in Hungary, the results of which we can see!

At that time, fencing was at its height everywhere. Imagine that at the time I was in Vienna, in Budapest alone there were no less than 1,000 fencing connoisseurs, among whom distinguished personalities in politics, science, and the arts. I had the honour of having as my student in Vienna the then captain Gömbös, who was later Prime Minister of Hungary and whose manuscripts I hold dear.

Giovanni Franceschinis

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1 Many of the dates Franceschinis gives, particularly those early in his career, are off by a year, as in this instance. He in fact attended the school from 1890 to 1893, and his was the 5th full-length course at the Rome school.^↩
2 If Antonio Guarisco was teaching at the Milan Military College during this time, he would have been a regular military master, not a civil master. The fencing master of the Nizza cavalry at this time was most likely Ercole Baldi.^↩
3 As the name suggests, bouting masters were employed by the school purely to serve as bouting partners for the students.^↩
4 Here Franceschinis uses the racial slur negro.^↩
5 Almost correct. The masters who went were Agesilao Greco, Italo Santelli, Angelo Torricelli, and Vincenzo Drosi.^↩
6 Franceschinis graduated in July 1893. Sources differ on how many students were initially admitted to the course, but the actual figure is probably closer to 44. The number he states as graduating after third year, however, is likely correct.^↩
7 These events in fact took place in 1896, not 1895.^↩

Glimpses inside the Master's School: Ottorino Scognamiglio

Much time has been spent on this blog over the years discussing the various controversies surrounding the Military Fencing Master's School in Rome as well as the technical details of its curriculum, but very rarely do the sources provide much insight into how those who trained at the school themselves experienced it. Decades after the closure of the school, its graduates were still among the most revered figures in Italian fencing, and thankfully a very small number of these graduates did eventually share some memories from their time at the school.

Over two posts we will be reading two first-hand accounts from graduates of the Master's School, who give their rose-tinted retrospectives on one of the most exciting and formative periods of their lives. Naturally, the fact that these were both written more than half a century after the events they recount, they should not be considered fully reliable from a factual perspective; their greatest value lies in the humanising effect of their genuine emotional insights. Nevertheless, many of the details they share can be corroborated by contemporary sources.

Both articles were published in the official magazine of the Italian Fencing Federation, then bearing the title Scherma: bollettino della F.I.S.¹ This first account, appearing in the December 1955 issue, comes from Ottorino Scognamiglio, who trained at the Master's School from 1901 to 1904. Scognamiglio's account is certainly the most sentimental of the two we will be reading, perfectly capturing the youthful exuberance of the students as well as the sense of prestige that accompanied all those who successfully emerged from the school's halls.

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Memories of an old master

With his 'recollections', Maestro Ottorino Scognamiglio brings us back to a distant and glorious past which cannot help but arouse deep emotion in those who saw it. How many survivors are there of those bygone courses? Of those whom Scognamiglio recalls, it seems, only two in Italy: Scognamiglio himself and Cesare De Leonibus, the founder and technical director of the most glorious Circolo della Spada in Venice, which was located in the halls of La Fenice, and from whose training emerged champions of great fame.
Both are now close to eighty years old, they are...watching the new generations, perhaps shaking their heads and thinking wistfully of the old days.
Dear old masters, it is with true pleasure that we publish your recollections, hoping that others follow you, glad to help you emerge from oblivion and remind us of you so that—and this is consolation for your venerable grey hair—we, young and not so young, despite the transience of time, remember you with sincere affection and commemorate your deeds and your work with admiration. And may God long preserve you in our affection.

Nine o' clock on the 15th of September 1901. The barracks at Santa Caterina a Magnanapoli, Rome. In the interior corridor of the Military Fencing Master's School, lined up in full dress, the 25 candidates for the master's course (and I among them) were introduced to the commanding captain of the student company. The famous Captain Sinopoli, the terror of the school. A 50-year-old Calabrian, moustached and stocky, with the typical complexion of his native region, his penetrating gaze and thundering voice which, after a single intense 'inspection!', began with a lyrical greeting. Changing tone, he then took great care to point out to us that we had not given him a good impression. Some of us—in his opinion—did not keep the perfect position of attention. He continued by saying that he would expect from us the utmost irreproachability—on penalty of going back to our original regiment—and finally that, where necessary—as was his system—he would be liberal in giving out punishments. The comments on this reception were rather spicy. Someone whispered: 'We get the point. How will we be able to survive three years with this Cerberus?'

The medical examination which we were subjected to later was long and meticulous. I remember that the first phalanx of my right little finger—naturally bent to the inside—caused a lively discussion between the medical officer and the school's technical director. The first considered this 'anomaly' in conflict with the perfect physical harmony required. The other maintained that that hand, with that finger, was ideal for holding the sword firmly. The director's argument prevailed and I, like all the others, were declared fit. And then appeared F. M. Berardi, our paymaster, always fatherly and sympathetic, who promptly provided each of us with the fencing equipment issued to the school's students.

The hour we had anxiously awaited finally arrived. The bell rang in the distance. Here we were in the Great Hall of the University of Fencing. The spacious fencing hall appeared festive and welcoming to our eyes. That hall where, for three long years and for a good six hours a day, we gave our entire being with almost insane enthusiasm. Our deities appeared. Here were the two vice-directors, civil masters Pecoraro and Pessina, both of average stature, stocky and moustached, open countenances, eyes gleaming. Nothing at all suggested that these two fencers were unbeatable. They were the champions of the age. Then the masters Laudati, Drosi, and Nappi with their modest and friendly appearance. Next was the group of military masters: the Mephistophelian goatee of mean Maestro Ori stood out, as well as the hairy mole of Maestro Cavalli; we noted the austere demeanour of Maestro Zane and the friendly smile of Maestro Gaudini.

The great star, the autocrat of fencing, the technical director of the school appeared. He is the honorary fencing master of the King, the author of the army's official fencing treatise, the great Masaniello Parise. He was the typical figure of an old-fashioned aristocrat. A long face with fine features and a well-groomed blond beard. Very elegant. D'Annunzio called him the King of the Sword.

The course began. The exhausting and meticulous lessons follow each other day after day. Enduring that exertion, tolerating those continual corrections, the fastidiousness of the teachers, and the rigorous observance of the rules inherent to the school's environment seriously put our nervous systems to the test. Our youthful exuberance was stifled. Humiliation, bitterness, and disappointment was our daily bread. Endure was our motto. The students of the course above urged us to not give up. The suffocating strictness of the school finally ended. The dread captain retired. Called to replace him—for a short time—was a great man, a Sardinian, Captain Alagna, who then in turn was replaced by the late Captain Alessandrini, who was able to win the affection and respect of everyone.

The 2nd year of the course began with new teachers. Civil master De Simone replaced Drosi and military masters Prampolini, Selmi, Genovesi, and Angelillo took over from masters Cavalli, Ori, Zane, and Gaudini. The fruits of the work accomplished in the previous school year were truly admirable. Compared to us, D'Artagnan, a fond delusion for us all, was a total dud.

We experienced the full glamour of Rome. The sympathy that the Romans felt towards the students of the Master's School was clear. We were welcome everywhere. In military inspections our school always aroused a special sense of admiration. To tell you the truth, the choreographic spectacle it presented was exceptional. It was a mixture of uniforms, colours, weapons, plumes, glittering helms, black bearskins, kepis, and most of all a sample of bold and daring youth that paraded impeccably. The parades in honour of the shah of Persia, the emperor of Germany, the king of England, the president of the French Republic at the time followed one another, and the ever-applauded Master's School continuously excited the public's lively curiosity. There were frequent visits by military attachés of foreign ambassadors, high-ranking personages, and foreign and Italian missions. The usual noisy spectacle of a dozen pairs of fencers fighting always aroused a sense of amazement, and then our director offered plenty of information and explanations to the attentive listeners.

We are now in the 3rd year, the finishing course, with another change of masters. The group of soldiers was substituted by the masters Abita, Bonioli, and Gandini, all three coming from the previous intake at the Master's School and previously our companions in the course above. We began to breathe more air. By now we were wiser, and in the art of coping we were peerless. Our group, unfortunately, had thinned. There were fourteen of us left.

A visit from our King was memorable. At 10 o' clock in the evening a telegram from the Quirinale announced that His Majesty would come to visit at 9 o' clock the following day. Good heavens! We all had long hair... Without delay the two barbers at the school were mobilised and...'point blank' we were shaved like prisoners. Our protests were to no avail. Someone earned themselves a few days in the guardroom for trying to escape that affront. Looking like this, and perhaps also because we were excited, His Majesty noticed that our faces were emaciated—owing, in his view, to excessive work. The following day, a medical commission captained by His Excellency Inspector General of the Army Medical Corps came to visit us. We were presented almost in birthday suits and examined individually. Conclusion: the fencing schedule was changed but not reduced, and the food was improved slightly...

What made our school exceptionally fun and pleasant on the whole was the psychological diversity that one noticed among the students of the three courses. There was no lack of amusing characters, as well as dangerous hotheads. There was a considerable number of lady-killers and also players of various instruments, renowned singers, circus gymnasts, ballet dancers, painters, impromptu poets, photographers, conjurors, jokers, and even a seller of wine by the glass. A regionalistic spirit often peeped out, but always within the appropriate limits. A gentlemanly humour predominated, and making merry was the agreement. Excursions and clandestine nocturnal outings were the order of the day, but all with happy endings. Unforgettable times!...

Mak P 100 was now approaching.² Perfect fencing technique had been acquired. The most perfect aesthetics—not separated from powerful efficacy—were in our possession. The long-awaited and long-desired day was approaching: the day of our final exams. The day of our ordination as fencing masters. On 7 July 1904 in the fencing hall, in full regalia, the director wished to personally give us our master's diploma. Deeply moved, we listened to the customary exhortation, closed with a powerful handshake. We knew to suppress our cry of farewell, but deep in our hearts that cry was beating strong.

Dear unforgettable companions in arms, I remember you all. I still see you like I did then. I will always love you greatly, more than fraternally, like 50 years ago. Zanni, Schiavo, Galli, Canzano, Giovannelli, Coltro, Anzillotti, Altea, Tattoli—well known names in fencing—why did you leave us so soon? Voltolini, Rossi, Macrì—where are you? Dearest De Leonibus, it is to you that I dedicate these recollections of mine. You who, for 54 years, I have been bound to in sincere mutual affection. I have finished.

I put down my pen with a mindful and thankful thought for my dear late master. For Salvatore Angelillo, who in heart, science, and knowledge was 'second to none'.

Ottorino Scognamiglio

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1 Past issues of this magazine can be viewed for free here on the FIS's website.^↩
2 Translator's Note: 'Mak P 100' is the term, deriving from the Piedmontese dialect, given to the celebrations that take place at Italian military schools 100 days before graduation.^↩

A new doctrine for the Rome Fencing Master's School

The official establishment of the single, national Military Fencing Master's School for the Italian army in December 1874 was the culmination of six years of trials initiated by the Ministry of War. What started as three individual schools all in northern Italy quickly became consolidated into two, and beginning in 1873 it became evident that one school, or perhaps just its technical director, had risen to the top of the Ministry's favour when it declared that Giuseppe Radaelli would take on the role of inspector general of all military fencing halls.¹

Marking the official establishment of the unified school was the War Minister Cesare Ricotti-Magnani's short circular summarising the nature of the school, which opens:

1. At the Milan military recruiting office a fencing master's school has been instituted to train NCO fencing instructors and sub-instructors for the army.
2. The direction of this school will be entrusted to a brigade commander of the Milan garrison, and instruction will be imparted by the professor of fencing Mr. Giuseppe Radaelli.²

Although far from a list of governing regulations, we see that the stated primary goal of this institution was simply to train fencing instructors for the army. Consulting the other circulars and acts published around this time, the only other purpose given to the school was to conduct the necessary assessments to award promotions to the newly-created civil master role.³ The method taught at the Master's School is stated as that created by Giuseppe Radaelli, and it is clear that all active military masters would have to receive training in it; however, there are no comments on the method's qualitative superiority or any of its ideological associations. The authority of the school, its aims, and its means are assumed, not explained or justified. The duties of military fencing masters are clearly laid out, but very little structure is given to the Fencing Master's School itself, suggesting that the school enjoyed considerable independence in its day-to-day operation.⁴

So if the Milan school is notable for its apparent lack of framework and ministerial oversight, the complete opposite can be said for its Rome counterpart when it was instituted in 1884. In addition to the functions which the school served in Milan, it now takes on a larger responsibility for the Italianisation of fencing in the army. This is made clear at the very beginning of the Ministry's official announcement for the school's institution (emphasis added):

To the end of spreading within the army, with uniformity of method, the instruction of sword and sabre fencing according to the Italian school, this Ministry has come to the decision to institute in Rome a military fencing master's school.⁵

This new fencing school was national not only because its graduates would be dispersed throughout the whole army or because of its location in the Italian capital (only incorporated into the Italian state after the Milan school first became operational), but also because its curriculum would be proudly Italian—based on the 'Italian school', which until then had been a theoretical ideal, a tradition preserved in a select number of fencing halls throughout the peninsula, but now becoming a physical, official institution.

This nationalist language echoes that seen in the original announcement for the Ministry's fencing treatise competition in 1882, which stated that submitted works must be 'informed by the sound and glorious traditions of the Italian school'.⁶ What the Italian school consists of exactly was never defined, and Radaellian critics saw this as merely a dog whistle for Southern or Neapolitan fencing. The treatise commission's interpretation of this passage the following year only strengthened this suspicion when it concluded early on in its deliberation: 'Neapolitan sword, therefore Neapolitan school.'⁷ The Neapolitan school, the report argued, preserved the old tradition of Italian fencing during the Napoleonic era when Northern Italy came under the influence of French culture and adopted defective French fencing customs. Adopting the Neapolitan method was therefore not only patriotic, but logical.

In the weeks after the Master's School began operations the Ministry of War published the 'Internal service regulations for the military fencing master's school', which contained 75 articles outlining the school's purpose, course structure, and the roles and responsibilities of the people employed by the school.⁸ The regulations opened by repeating the previously quoted mission statement of teaching in accordance with the 'Italian school', but adding that this would be 'in compliance with the treatise approved by the Ministry of War', subsequently explained as that written by Masaniello Parise, which had been 'examined and selected by a special commission'. The treatise is referred to seven times throughout the regulations, repeatedly emphasising that all instruction is beholden to this text. Even the technical director is obliged to conform to it, removing the possibility for another master to take Parise's place and make sweeping changes to the curriculum. Any threat to the sanctity of the approved method is a threat to the school, thus there must be no alterations to it 'so that the necessary and perfect unity of direction is maintained at the school.'

Within just the first few items we can see a marked contrast with the language used around the school's previous iteration in Milan. The primary purpose of the school is no longer to train fencing masters for the army, but to propagate Italian fencing, as detailed in its authoritatively selected treatise. As it later stated even more explicitly (again, emphasis added):

All discussions of the various fencing methods which have existed in Italy until now are absolutely prohibited, as are all comparisons. Everyone must therefore keep in mind that the school was instituted with the sole aim of propagating throughout the army knowledge of the method chosen by the Ministry.

Graduates of the school were now to be cultural agents of the Italian state within the army, or as it wished to be seen, 'the school of the nation'.⁹ This made it necessary to insist on the essential Italianness of the school's fencing method, because Italian had to become synonymous with the typical Risorgimento ideals of cultural superiority and progress. The years of campaigning by partisans of Neapolitan fencing ensured that it was their method that became synonymous not just with 'Italian fencing', but also 'scientific fencing'. This was achieved partly by insisting on the continuity of the modern Neapolitan school, as professed at the National Academy of Fencing in Naples, with the Neapolitan school depicted in the seminal Italian fencing treatise of the early 19th century, Giuseppe Rosaroll and Pietro Grisetti's The Science of Fencing.¹⁰

The old Radaellian regime could claim no such traditional foundation, indeed it was decidedly empirical. As the famous Radaellian Salvatore Arista later put it: '... in its own favour the Neapolitan school cites traditions, while the Radaellians are instead supported by experience; something which could theoretically resemble the conservatives and the progressives in politics.'¹¹ When it came to the foil, Radaelli's self-proclaimed 'half-Italian school' stood little chance of surviving under the Ministry of War's new direction, especially after the string of critical publications against Radaelli's method that had been released by 1884.¹²

A near endless amount of discussion can be had about nationalism and political discourse with Italy's modern fencing scene, beyond the more blatant expressions seen in the later fascist period of the 20th century. There is likely much to be uncovered in the archives of the Ministry of War about the government's involvement in these controversies, but I hope that this short article was able to present the existing information in a new light, keeping a yet more hopeful eye towards deeper analysis in the future.

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1 Giuseppe Radaelli was known by the Italian press as having this role from as early as February 1873. See "Banchetto Sociale," Cronaca, Il Secolo, 6 February 1873, 2.^↩
2 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, "N. 251. — SCUOLE MILITARI (Nota N. 5). — Scuola magistrale di scherma — 6 dicembre," Giornale Militare 1874: Parte Seconda, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 492.^↩
3 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, "N. 249. — ORDINAMENTO DELL'ESERCITO (Nota N. 29). — Istruttori e maestri di scherma per l'Esercito — 4 dicembre," Giornale Militare 1874: Parte Seconda, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 489–92.^↩
4 A view also shared by Ferdinando Masiello, who prior to 1864 had attended the Master's School at Parma. Ferdinando Masiello, "L'insegnamento della Scherma in Italia," La scherma italiana, 2 September 1923, 2.^↩
5 Emilio Ferrero, "N. 107. — SCUOLE MILTARI. — Istituzione di una scuola magistrale militare di scherma in Roma. — 9 giugno," Giornale Militare 1884: Parte Prima, no. 25 (13 June 1884): 323–4.^↩
6 Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884).^↩
7 Paulo Fambri, "Relazione," in Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola: preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884), x.^↩
8 Emilio Ferrero, "Atto N. 123. — SCUOLE MILTARI. — Regolamento di servizio interno della scuola magistrale militare di scherma. — 27 giugno," Giornale Militare 1884: Parte Prima, no. 29 (4 July 1884): 453–61.^↩
9 Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento di disciplina militare (Rome: Carlo Voghera, 1872), 21.^↩
10 Giuseppe Rosaroll Scorza and Pietro Grisetti, La scienza della scherma (Milan: Stamperia del Giornale Italico, 1803).^↩
11 S. M. Arista, "Quattro parole sulla scherma," Don Giovanni, 23 February 1888, 60.^↩
12 See this series for my own translations of said works.^↩