Refining the molinelli

The large blade-swinging exercise of the Radaellian tradition known as the molinello (plural molinelli) has been commonly misunderstood by fencing commentators from the 1870s right up to the present day. The prescribed motion has been variously described by critics as slow, overly exaggerated, and easy to exploit—and indeed many of these comments are not necessarily false. What the comments ignore, however, are the practical applications of the wide motions and how they can be refined into tighter movements as the situation requires, with the elbow still remaining the primary pivot point.

Although this separation between exercise molinelli and practical or 'regular' molinelli may at times be understated in the Radaellian treatises, it is a distinction the authors make. In the first book on Radaelli's system by Settimo Del Frate, he defines the molinello in the following manner:

The molinello is the movement of rotation that the sabre does when striking. The exercise molinello is therefore nothing other than a somewhat exaggerated rotational movement of that which is done with the sabre in performing an ordinary blow, and they are exaggerated because they make the later blows with a regular molinello easier.… Once the student is confident and performs these three types of molinelli with precision, he will perform all sabre blows with the utmost ease, because they are all merely molinelli with a wider or smaller motion.¹

Thus the molinello is simply a rotational movement pattern for a cut, and the exercise molinelli are a means to practise this movement pattern in an exaggerated manner in order to facilitate later learning. A good example of this is that the exercise molinelli contain within them positions which resemble certain parries, meaning that students are learning how to perform basic parry-riposte actions before being formally introduced to the concept.

Through the wide exercise molinelli, students learn not only how to move the sabre to and from every position, but also stop it wherever they want, which was a key attribute of the 'secure carriage' that the elbow-focused system was said to provide. Emphasis is also placed on giving the blow maximum reach and power, ending the action with correct edge alignment. As Giordano Rossi puts it, 'the more perfectly the circles are performed from the beginning of instruction, the lighter the sabre will seem, and the faster the blows with a regular molinello will be while staying well-directed, without imbalance in the hand, being ready for any other offensive or defensive action even after striking.'² To help readers visualise how the molinelli can be reduced in size, Rossi provides some illustrations depicting three different paths that the hand can follow in the molinelli, providing examples for three out of the six molinelli.

Top left: molinello to the head from the left
Top right: molinello to the face from the left
Bottom: Rising molinello from the left

This does not mean, however, that only the smaller movements are useful in fencing. In the parry-riposte, for example, a wide rotation is often necessary to free your blade from the opponent's and hit the most convenient target, as Rossi states:

The molinelli with wide rotation are very useful because, in addition to the aforementioned benefits, with them one obtains the actions that are performed in the bout; for example: if we from guard of second parry third and riposte to the opponent's inside flank, we perform the traversone with the exercise molinello. So too if we, from guard of second, parry first and riposte, we have thus performed the molinello with wide rotation.³

While the exaggerated weight-shifting and leaning in the exercise molinelli either disappear or decrease in amplitude in most Radaellian sources after Del Frate, this is less a repudiation of elbow molinelli than it is evidence of the system's refinement and the specialisation in an on-foot fencing context. This is in contrast to the system's origin as a cavalry system, where body movement must compensate for the inability to adjust the distance from an opponent through footwork. While Radaellian fencing treatises from the 1880s onward tended to de-emphasise weight shifting in the molinelli, it continued to be taught in the Italian cavalry until the early 1890s and was eventually reintroduced in 1912.⁴

The author who provides the clearest description of how the molinelli can be refined is Nicolò Bruno. In his framework, the motion of the molinello can be categorised as one of three 'circles', these being maximum, regular, and minimum. Maximum circles utilise full rotation of the forearm with accompanying movement of the upper arm, which is what the typical exercise molinelli entail. In minimum circles there is no raising or lowering of the upper arm, and the forearm 'turns on itself'. A 'regular' circle lies in between these extremes, with the elbow remaining stationary as the forearm rotates. This is the most common motion employed in the bout and in lessons.⁵

The description provided for fig. 27 on the right is: 'Molinello to the head from the left, starting from the guard or parry of 2nd or 1st in line, and demonstration of the maximum, regular, and minimum circle the sabre must describe. The same principles must serve as a basis for all other molinelli: that is, rising and to the face from the left, and rising and to the face from the right.'

Bruno includes in his treatise a helpful illustration of the molinello to the head which is almost identical to the type we saw in Rossi's treatise; as a slight improvement on Rossi's, however, is the fact that in the description for the illustration we are told that each of the three circles, i.e. maximum, regular, and minimum, are being depicted.⁶

In each of these variations the elbow is always the most dominant joint utilised in the arm, but this should not come at the exclusion of sensible use of the wrist where appropriate. The most obviously useful movement of the wrist joint is ulnar deviation to bring the sabre in line with the forearm and radial deviation in the more angled parries.

An illustration of wrist flexion (left) and extension (right).

The hand undergoing ulnar deviation. The opposite direction would be radial deviation.

Wrist movement was limited by the Radaellians so far as to ensure that the edge always travelled in the direction of the cut, as Salvatore Arista explains:

In the Radaelli sabre method, the pivot of rotation is indeed brought normally to the elbow, but it is not true that articulation of the wrist is totally abolished. In fact the wrist is well articulated starting with the blow to the head for the purpose of better finding the line and the target. The only inhibited movements are all the ineffectual or harmful movements of the wrist which cause the point to oscillate.⁷

These 'oscillations' are experienced when the blade flexes perpendicular to the direction of the sabre's path through the air, often as a result of wrist flexion or extension. Oscillations can serve as a feedback mechanism for the fencer, as they highlight when the edge is misaligned as it travels or if a force is being applied to the sabre that deviates it from the initial plane of motion. For Poggio Vannucchi, an otherwise very conservative Radaellian, this still allowed for wrist motion beyond the typical ulnar and radial deviation, saying that the sabre 'is wielded mainly through movement of the forearm and arm, with harmonious lateral and adduction movements of the hand, but never flexion.'⁸

With the end goal of the molinelli being to eliminate oscillations and ensure complete domination of the sabre, the precise size of the movement reduces to being only as wide as necessary to move from one place to another while avoiding obstacles such as the opponent's blade. Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina seemingly take this to its logical conclusion when they state that as soon as the student has achieved the necessary blade control through the exercise molinelli, the rotations should 'be gradually reduced to the lowest limits, i.e. performing them with the simple turn of the hand accompanied by a slight bend and successive abrupt extension of the elbow.'⁹

Not all Radaellians agreed with this level of reduction, however, and Pecoraro and Pessina were criticised by their fellow Radaellian Ferdinando Masiello over this particular point. Although Masiello occasionally described cuts by molinello with terms like ristrettissimo, meaning 'very restricted' or 'very tight', at least by 1910 he was of the firm opinion that a molinello should only be a circular motion with a radius that corresponds to the length of the forearm plus sabre. In the first edition of his sabre treatise, Masiello allowed some use of wrist extension in executing the molinelli as well as ulnar and radial deviation, but from the 2nd edition onward this was changed to allow only deviation.¹⁰ Unhelpfully for our purposes, Luigi Barbasetti gives no clear indication of how or even if the molinello motion can be reduced, so he may or may not be in a similar camp as later Masiello.¹¹

Molinello to the head from the left, from Sestini (1903).

None of this is to say that some Radaellian authors allowed smaller cutting motions while others did not; these differences mainly come down to how they all defined the molinello specifically. Both Masiello and Barbasetti make extensive use of direct cuts in their methods, consisting of just a small bending of the forearm prior to extension along a linear path, and they also have the coupé. Rossi, Bruno, and Vannucchi, on the other hand, do not explicitly define their own version of a direct cut (although, as discussed previously, that does not mean they never used them), thus their interpretations of how a molinello can be performed may have been intended to help fill this terminological gap, which would also explain why the first two authors also give a broader definition of the coupé to allow cuts to other targets aside from just the head.

Even after explaining all this, a common refrain from critics of Radaellian fencing is that no matter how tight one performs an elbow molinello, it always exposes the forearm to a stop cut. While this is true in a technical sense, it is very much overstated. This danger posed to an attacker using a molinello was not lost on the Radaellians; after all, how else would they have achieved the competitive success they did without knowing how to effectively compensate? The most important factor in avoiding stop hits, as in most techniques, is ensuring that one is not beginning the action too close to the opponent. One method the Radaellians used to ensure that their students were not advancing the body too early, thereby exposing the arm, was to give stop cuts to their arm or body as they lunged.¹² If the molinello is correctly timed, the blow to the arm should simply land on the student's hilt. Giordano Rossi expanded on this and also advocates attempting a sforzo on the student's blade to prompt the molinello; if the sforzo lands, then it shows the student that the beginning of their molinello was too slow.¹³

Correct decision-making is also something that the master must develop in their students. In a pure fencing sense, the molinelli are merely one way to move the blade from one position to another while avoiding all obstacles. They make the most tactical sense when beginning from an extended position with the blades engaged or with the arm in any position after completing a parry. The molinello allows a fencer to free their blade from or avoid entirely the opponent's blade and, in the same continuous motion, touch an exposed target. If nothing is in the way between one's blade and the desired target, then a direct cut or thrust will most often be the correct response.

The cult of Radaellianism has distinct principles that sets it apart from other sabre systems, but these principles should not be confused with religious dogma. Advocates of wrist-focused sabre systems can be quick to dismiss these principles, but doing so is a rather uncharitable way to engage with a tradition which saw widespread success at home and abroad for many decades.

* * *

1 Settimo Del Frate, Istruzione per maneggio e scherma della sciabola (Florence: Tipografia, lit. e calc. la Venezia, 1868), 8.^↩
2 Giordano Rossi, Manuale teorico-pratico per la scherma di spada e sciabola con cenni storici sulle armi e sulla scherma e principali norme pel duello (Milan: Fratelli Dumolard Editori, 1885), 157.^↩
3 Giordano Rossi, Considerazioni e proposte per l'unificazione dei vari sistemi di scherma in Italia (Milan: Tipografia degli Operai, 1890), 12.^↩
4 For an exploration of this process, see my series The Parise-Pecoraro Method. The Radaellian cavalry method reintroduced in 1912 is found in Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento di esercizi per la cavalleria, vol. 1 (Rome: Voghera Enrico, 1912).^↩
5 Nicolò Bruno, Risorgimento della vera scherma di sciabola italiana basata sull'oscillazione del pendolo (Novara: Tipografia Novarese, 1891), 59–60.^↩
6 Bruno, 294.^↩
7 Salvatore Arista, Del progresso della scherma in Italian; considerazioni sull'impianto della nuova Scuola Magistrale per l'esercito fondata in Roma nel 1884 (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1884), 22.^↩
8 Poggio Vannucchi, I fondamenti della scherma italiana (Bologna: Coop. Tipografica Azzoguidi, 1915), 44.^↩
9 Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, La Scherma di Sciabola: Trattato Teorico-Pratico (Viterbo: Tipografia G. Agnesotti, 1912), 53.^↩
10 Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: Stabilimento Tipografico G. Civelli, 1887). Note, however, that there is a curious contradiction in these latter editions. While in the section 'method of wielding the sabre' both flexion and extension are excluded, later on when defining the molinelli extension is instead permitted. It seems likely that the latter inclusion was an oversight in the editing process. Cf. Masiello La scherma di sciabola (Florence: R. Bemporad, 1902), 25, 55–6.^↩
11 Luigi Barbasetti, Das Säbelfechten (Vienna: Verlag der Allgemeinen Sport-Zeitung, 1899).^↩
12 Stated in the handwritten notes of the personal textbooks of Luigi Barbasetti and Giovanni Lombardi under the heading 'Molinelli con spaccata'. The first manuscript is found in the KU Leuven Libraries Special Collections, R4A552b, and the latter is in Museo Silvio Longhi at the Agorà della Scherma in Busto Arsizio, Italy. See here for transcriptions of both.^↩
13 Rossi, Manuale teorico-pratico, 176; Rossi, Considerazioni e proposte, 12–3.^↩

Parries of 1st and 7th - "A little forward"

In his 1876 manual Del Frate describes the parries of 1st and 7th as being the same as the second movements of the molinelli to the head from the left and right, respectively, except with an additional note saying:

“In both of these parries, however, the sabre is held a little forward of the prescribed position for the 2nd movement of the molinello.”

What exactly is “a little forward”? First let us look at how Del Frate describes the second movements of the molinelli to the head.

To the head from the left:

Two — bending the arm the blade is lowered with the point towards the ground, and the sabre is brought alongside the left flank, the edge turned to the left, the grip to the left and at the height of the head, about 20 centimetres ahead; the arm at the height and in the direction of the forehead; the body balanced as in the guard position (fig. 16).

To the head from the right:

Two — raising and bending the arm the blade is lowered with the point towards the ground, and the sabre is brought alongside the right flank with the edge turned to the right, the grip about a palm away from the right temple, such that one's gaze passes between the forearm and the blade, the weight of the body equally distributed on the legs (fig. 19).

And here are the plates showing both parries and their respective second movements of the molinelli:

Although it is unfortunate that the plates for the parries of 1st and 7th show a different perspective to that of their respective second movements of the molinelli, there does not seem to be much of an obvious difference between the two. In the plate showing the parry of 1st it almost appears that the sabre is slightly shorter than in the other plates. This could either be an error on the part of the illustrator, or that the tip of the sabre is pointing slightly more forward (or back), which would not entirely disagree with what Del Frate says.

These plates indicate that Del Frate’s idea of “a little forward” is perhaps no more than a couple of centimetres. Similarly we see the same depiction of parry of 1st in his 1868 manual:

"Position of Parry of 1st"

"Position of the second movement for the molinello to the head from the left"

Despite the fact that the plates are virtually identical in their depictions (albeit with Fig. 19 incorrectly showing the fencer to be forward-weighted), the description in the 1868 text is slightly different:

“The hand a little higher than the head and about one palm [20 - 25 cm] away, the tip pointing to the ground ahead one palm from the hand, and the edge to the left.”

This brings the point ahead of the grip such that the sabre does not point directly down as it may appear on the plates. Regardless of the reason as to why this was not mentioned in the 1876 text, Del Frate makes no mention in this text to the parry being any further forward than is previously suggested, as the description of the parry does not refer to the second movement of the molinello to the head in this case.

The same can be found in both the 1873 and 1885 editions of the Ministry of War’s cavalry manual Regolamento di esercizi e di evoluzioni per la cavalleria, which contains a distilled version of Radaelli’s system for use in the cavalry. Here we see that the illustration is nearly identical to that seen in Del Frate’s 1868 text, and the description is not far off either:

“To execute parry of first the cavalryman is placed in the position of second or point in line, and then at the command:
FIRST:
Raising the arm and bringing the hand to the left at the height of the forehead, one takes the following position:
The hand a little higher than the head and about one palm away, the point of the sabre turned towards the ground, one palm ahead of the hand, edge to the left (fig. 22).”

As for parry of 7th, in the 1868 text Del Frate does still relate it to the second movement of the molinello to the head from the right:

“... raising the right hand one will take the position very similar to the second movement of the molinello to the head from the right, with the difference that the grip stops about four fingers in front of the head, with the blade nearly parallel to the flank."

Compared to his description of the second movement of the molinello to the head from the right in the same text:

“The point of the sabre is dropped perpendicularly towards the ground raising the hand, bringing it a little higher than the head, and four fingers from the right temple so that the sabre comes to be behind the right shoulder with the edge turned to the right, and the point distant as little as possible from the body, at the same time looking between the forearm and the sabre.”

Parry of 7th as described in this text only ends up being 4 fingers in front of the head as opposed to 4 fingers from the temple in the second movement of the molinello, amounting to merely a few centimetres of difference between the two. Nowhere else in his 1868 text does Del Frate state that a parry is held any further forward than one would assume by reading the text, and even in the cases previously mentioned.

Giordano Rossi (a Radaellian) shows the parries in the same manner as in Del Frate’s 1876 text, except he also shows the distance between the head and the hand in parry of 1st from the side:

Left: "Fig. 38. Parry of 1st."
Right: "Fig. 39. Parry of 7th."

Rossi also states that for the parries of 1st and 7th the grip and the sabre are “a little forward” of the prescribed position for the 2nd movement of the molinelli, yet just like Del Frate, this is not referring to the above illustrations of the parries.

In his 1915 treatise Poggio Vannucchi (another Radaellian) gives two forms of parry of first:

"Parry of angled 1st: blade perpendicular to the ground and to the left of the body, looking under the forearm with the hand in 1st above the head and about 20 centimetres in front of the forehead, forearm bent to form a right angle with the sabre, edge to the left.
Parry of 1st in line: arm extended at the height of the shoulder, edge obliquely to the left, the point a little lower than the hand."

His hand positions are unique to his system, as he gives one for each of the 9 parries, including also separate versions for "angled 1st" and "1st in line":

"The position of 1st in line, back of the hand to the left, edge diagonally up to the left. Position of angled 1st, back of the hand turned to the rear, the point of the sabre perpendicular to the ground, edge to the left."

Thus we see that while his parry of "1st in line" seems closer to Masiello's parry of 1st, his "angled 1st" seems identical to what is described by Del Frate in 1876 and Rossi in 1885.

So what is "a little forward" then? Due to the consistency shown in all the images, particularly those for parry of 1st, it seems one can only conclude that the parries are no more than a few centimetres forward from the 2nd movements of the molinelli to the head. The likeliest explanation in my view is that Del Frate wanted to make sure that fencers were not placing the sabre too close to their bodies when performing the parries, such that they place themselves at risk of having their parry collapse on the opponent's blow and getting hit in the process. When performing the molinelli it is easier for this mistake to occur as the sabre is drawn further back after the 2nd movement, thus a fencer may end up with their sabre closer than is ideal for a parry when performing the 2nd movement of either molinello.

Pasteggio and Radaelli's Sabre Grip

In Jacopo Gelli's 1888 publication Resurrectio, he quotes one of Radaelli's supposedly famous phrases:

"Pasteggiare la sciabola."

To try and translate this phrase, we should first consult the dictionary definition of the verb pasteggiare, which is "to eat/drink something slowly and savouring". Simplifying this as "to savour", would thus give us a literal translation of "Savour the sabre".

The related word pasteggio is also mentioned in two other Radaellian texts (to my knowledge) as being a concept that describes Radaelli's particular manner of gripping the sabre. The most notable mention of this word being in Luigi Barbasetti's sabre treatise, in the English version (1932) giving a possible translation of pasteggio as "fingering".

This certainly does not make the task of interpreting Radaelli's phrase much easier, but it does seem to imply a sense of control and moderation, not "devouring" the grip in the entire hand with too much force. Perhaps this terminology was used as a response to a misconception of Radaelli's system, exemplified in Achille Angelini's 1877 and 1888 essays criticising Radaelli’s system where he states that Radaelli supposedly taught to grip the sabre with "great and incessant force".

As there does not seem to be any existent in-depth explanation of Radaelli's pasteggio, our only option is to look at how Radaelli said to grip the sabre to perhaps inform our interpretation of this concept. In Del Frate's 1876 text we get the following explanation of how to grip the sabre:

"The sabre must be held such that the grip is embedded in the palm of the hand, the first four fingers enclosed around it, with the thumb along the back of the grip, the end of the grip somewhat protruding from the hand, finding there a point of support when one strikes a blow with the edge."

This seems to be describing a fairly standard sabre grip for the time, and does not really give much to go on in deciphering pasteggio. If we refer to his earlier 1868 manual however, we get a slightly wording:

"The sabre is always gripped such that the grip is embedded in the palm of the hand, always shut firmly by the first four fingers, with the thumb stretched to its full length along the back of the grip, and with the end of backstrap somewhat protruding from the grassello of the little finger, serving as a point of secondary support when striking a blow."

What is meant by "the grassello of the little finger" ("dal grassello del mignolo") is uncertain. The word grassello translates literally as "a small piece of meat", but it seems clear that it is referring to a fleshy or soft part of the little finger. This same word is used in Rossi's 1885 description of how to grip the sabre (which is extremely similar to Del Frate's 1868 description):

"The sabre must be gripped in a way such that the grip lies encased in the palm of the hand, always enclosed by the first four fingers, with the thumb extended along the spine of the grip, the lower end of which protruding from the hand, in order to find there a point of resistant support against the grassello of the little finger when one strikes a blow with the edge."

We also see it used in the 1873 Cavalry Regulations, which taught a distilled version of Radaelli's sabre system for cavalry troopers:

"The sabre will be gripped such that the grip is embedded in the palm of the hand, always enclosed by the first four fingers, with the thumb extended along the spine of the grip and with the end of the thumb against the shell of the guard (and for the new sabre model, with the end of the thumb inside the shell’s chamber) so that the hand is brought as close as possible to the sabre’s centre of gravity. The end of the grip will protrude somewhat under the left grassello of the hand for important support when one strikes a blow."

Perhaps what the grassello del mignolo is referring to is actually the hypothenar eminence, the muscle group of the palm below the little finger. In fact in 1888 Salvatore Arista wrote an article in the magazine Don Giovanni where he describes Radaelli's sabre grip, referring to this very muscle group:

"[Radaelli] taught to grip the sabre not like a stick, but rather keeping the thumb and the index finger as close possible to the guard, the other fingers and the hand acting in such a way that the end of the grip rests permanently against the lower — hypothenar — eminence of the hand, with that one is able to stop the blow at the desired point on the target."

** EDIT: Since acquiring Poggio Vannucchi's 1915 treatise, detailing a Radaellian sabre method, I have noticed that Vannucchi himself equates the grassello del mignolo with the hypothenar eminence in the section where he describes how to grip the sabre. This seems to confirm my hypothesis. **

This description is much more specific than those previously mentioned, yet it is also consistent with how Radaelli's other students prescribed to grip the sabre.

Masiello (1887):

"The last four fingers are inserted together between the guard and the handle and they are adapted under the grip, such that the upper part of the last phalanx of the index finger lies against the shell. The thumb is placed on top of the backstrap and in contact with the shell. The backstrap must lean against the hypothenar eminence of the hand, such that the upper of which protrudes somewhat out of the hand, similar to having there a secure point of support in the act of cutting. The hand must grip the handle with force."

Barbasetti (1936 translation):

"Place the second phalanx of the four fingers opposing the thumb, directly against the interior of the grip, your index finger close to the guard; let the lower part of the back of the grip rest against the palm of your hand and apply the thumb against the flat part of the back of the grip near the guard."

Pecoraro & Pessina (1912):

"The sabre must be gripped in a way that the thumb extends along the spine of the grip and lightly contacts the guard, making a contrast with the other finger bending around the grip, placing the last phalanx of the index finger in contact with the guard and the extreme end of the grip rests against the hypothenar eminence of the hand and protrudes a little past the hand. This method allows gripping the sabre with the force and elasticity necessary, either for making effective and precise blows, or for opposing resistant parries to the opposing blade."

Nor does this seem to have been the standard sabre grip outside the Radaelli school. In both Arista's 1888 Don Giovanni article and his 1884 publication Del progresso della scherma in Italia he states that this gripping method was unique to the Radaelli school, and he laments over the fact that the new school run by Parise goes back to the old way of gripping the sabre "like a stick".

In saying all this though, there is still the large possibility that Radaelli introduced this gripping method after the publication of Del Frate's 1876 manual, which would explain the somewhat less precise description of gripping the sabre contained in his manuals, describing perhaps just the standard sabre grip. Nevertheless due to Arista's comments and the grip's prevalence in the manuals of Radaelli's students, it seems certain that Radaelli was advocating his own unique method of gripping the sabre by the time he died, and that this unique method somehow helped the fencer to grip the sabre with pasteggio, giving them "the possibility of giving the sabre at each moment the desired position, with full control and mastery of the blade", as Barbasetti put it.

Radaelli's Low Parries

*** EDIT: New information has caused me to tweak my interpretation of the parry of low 3rd. Please refer to my amendment for this updated interpretation. ***

Whilst my previous post contained a discussion of an interpretation based almost entirely off its illustration in the plates, in this post I shall go in the opposite direction and even contradict the plates somewhat. Here I will outline my interpretations of Radaelli's parries of low 3rd and 4th and attempt to demonstrate some instances where I feel the illustrations fail to accurately portray the techniques as described in the text.

The two parries in question are illustrated in Del Frate's 1876 manual like so (images from Holzman's translation):

The plates in the '68 manual are also very similar:

Position of the Parry of Low 3rd

Position of the Parry of Low 4th

The only real noticeable difference between these plates is the seemingly more retracted arm in the parry of 4th low in the 1868 plate as opposed to the corresponding 1876 plate. Apart from that, the consistency that these plates show would normally be indicator to me that the depictions show are accurate. However, this does not seem to be the case when they are compared to Del Frate's textual descriptions of the parries. Here's the excerpt from Holzman's translation of the 1876 text:

Parry of Low 4th

From the parry of 5th - Low Forth!
Carry the right foot backward one good pace to the rear of the left with the heel raised from the ground, bending the knee. Incline the body over the left leg, and at the same time, move the sabre nearly across the body with the grip at the height and direction of the right hip, about eight inches [20 cm] away from it. The blade tip should be shoulder high and in line with the left shoulder, with the edge turned toward the ground.

Parry of Low 3rd

From the parry of 6th - Low Third!
Assume the body position described in the parry of low 4th, and without changing the position of the sabre, lower the arm so that it is nearly in front of the body diagonally, with the point shoulder high and to the right of the right shoulder, with the edge turned toward the ground. The grip should be hip high and in the direction of the flank approximately eight inches [20 cm] ahead of it. The arm should be bent and supported by the flank, with the elbow somewhat behind the body.

And here's the descriptions of the parries from the 1868 text (my translation):

For the execution of the parries of low 3rd and 4th and 2nd, the student is placed in parry of 6th, since that is the position from which one passes more naturally and easily to these different parries, and then at the command:
Low-third - The right foot is brought a good pace behind the left with the heel lifted off the ground, both knees bent, the weight of the body on the left leg, the sabre with the grip at the height of the left flank about one palm away, the point turned outside, the edge turned towards the ground, the elbow supported by the flank, the sabre, in other words, is almost across the body.

For the parry of low 4th, the student will resume the position of parry of 6th, then at the command:
Low-fourth - After having brought the right foot behind the left as described for the parry of low 3rd, the sabre is carried almost across in front of the body so that the grip is in the direction and at the height of the right flank about a palm away, the point of the blade at the height of the head, slightly to the left, the edge towards the ground.

Apart from the slightly cleaner sentence structure in the 1876 version, the two texts describe these parries very similarly. If one is to perform these parries as described, the differences between the text and the illustrations start to become quite obvious.

The illustration of the parry of low 4th in the 1868 manual appears to be the only one that abides by its respective description. In the others, we can observe that:

• The point is too high
• The grip is too far forward
• The grip is sometimes held too high

If we are to then attempt to perform these parries as the text describes, as opposed to what the plates show, we perhaps end up in positions similar to these:

 Parry of Low 3rd

Parry of Low 4th

As our handsome model shows, the hilt is much closer to the body than what the plates show, providing better coverage to the whole body. You may also notice that with the hilt being on the opposite side of the body as the direction in which the strike is coming, the body and arm are protected if the strike ends comes in vertically upwards as opposed to at an oblique angle. An interesting note about this parry of low 3rd is that it is the only parry in the Radaellian system that involves extension of the wrist (also observed by Jacopo Gelli in Resurrectio).

An analysis of Radaelli's engagement and invitation

When I was recently looking through the beautiful plates in Del Frate's 1876 manual (a common pastime of mine), I noticed something that doesn't seem to have been discussed before (at least on the internet) in regard to Radaelli's system. While initially thinking it was merely an imperfection on the part of the illustrator, I soon realised that it cannot be a mistake due to its appearance in multiple instances, including Del Frate's '68 manual. What I am referring to here is the slight forward lean of the fencer on the left in the image below:

Engagement in 2nd (1876 version)

Although not obvious at first, the fencer's rear leg appears to be somewhat extended, and the front leg is bent past where it would normally be when on guard.

To remove the doubt that it was not just a mistake of the illustrator, the same phenomenon can be observed in Del Frate's earlier manual:

Engagement in 2nd (1868 version)

Nor is it a matter of the image's perspective, as the '68 plates also show it on the opposite side:

Engagement in 4th (1868 version)

Perhaps, then, Radaelli advocated for the fencer engaging the blade to shift their weight forward slightly. This could serve to increase the pressure on the opponent's blade (making the blade easier to deviate off line), but perhaps to also act as a "pre-lunge"; that is, committing some of your weight forward to make the proceeding lunge faster, but not committing so much as to make it too hard to react should the opponent act first.

What I find even more interesting than this is that this lean can also be seen in the one doing the invitation in both manuals:

Invitation in 2nd (1876 version)

Invitation in 2nd (1868 version)

This slight forward inclination of the body is supported by the description of the invitation in the '76 manual (translation Holzman):

"An invitation is made with the sword and body without blade contact and seeks to cause your adversary to commit to an action so that you can be ready with a riposte."

With this description and the measure at which the two fencers in the plates are placed, I am inclined to believe that Radaelli intended the invitation to be a discrete action similar to the engagement, as opposed to a state that you lie in to provoke the opponent to approach and attack you. Instead of opening a line with the sabre and waiting for the opponent to come in and attack, perhaps Radaelli intended the invitation to be a somewhat aggressive action, quickly coming into lunge distance while leaving a line open. The lean here would probably serve to imitate the body position taken for the engagement, thereby increasing the threat felt by the opponent and their likelihood of attacking. However, this is evidently not meant to be as aggressive as the engagement, as Del Frate goes on to say:

"The invitation also differs from the engagement in that the movement is executed with less speed and energy."

That is, enough speed to pressure the opponent into acting, but still retaining the ability to give a timely and appropriate response to their action.

Whether or not this subtle aspect of the engagement and the invitation will give any advantage to the one who utilises it, I am in no position to say. Now that I have begun changing how I perform these actions to match my interpretation, perhaps I may be able to present my findings some time in the future.

There may be much of this that is not new to other aficionados of the Radaellian method, but I thought it would at least be good to get my ideas out in public so that they have the opportunity to be scrutinised.

Radaelli's Guard of 2nd

Today we shall be looking at Radaelli's Guard of 2nd, and some pieces of information that might provoke some thoughts on how we interpret it.

The illustration of the guard of 2nd provided in Del Frate's 1876 text Istruzione per la scherma di sciabola e di spada del professore Giuseppe Radaelli is the following:

Del Frate does not provide a written description of the guard in this text, but the illustration is quite clear in showing the hand at about shoulder height, with the point around chest height (which may be lower towards the opponent's flank depending on the curve of the sabre).

Del Frate's 1868 text Istruzione per maneggio e scherma della sciabola also shows a similar position for this guard, albeit with the point at the height of the flank:

However, Del Frate does actually provide a description of the guard in this text:

In this guard the hand should be placed at the height and in the direction of the chin, the point at the height of the flank, with the blade across the body so that the point extends about one palm beyond the left flank, and the edge slanted to the right.

This description would bring the hand higher than what is shown in both these plates, and perhaps further to the left than what one would assume. Thus the recurring question of whether the description or the illustrations are more accurate in describing the position arises.

There are other examples of differences between description and illustration in Del Frate's works, but the other example that will be shown here is that of his guard position in the sword section of the 1876 text:

Compared to his description of this position:

… right arm semi-extended forward, the sword forming a straight line with the forearm; the point at around head height; the hand at the height of the chin; point, hand, and shoulder in the same direction.

Note that he again states that the hand should be at chin height, yet the illustration shows it at what appears to be shoulder height. The detailed nature of this description leads me to believe that he did not simply mean 'shoulder' when he said 'chin', as the hand would no longer follow the straight line he describes with the point and shoulder, which also cannot be seen in the illustration.

As for Radaelli's students, it seems that some opted to hold the sabre lower for their 2nd guards, like Giordano Rossi (1885):

The right arm is extended, at the same time turning the edge of the sabre diagonally up and to the right, with the grip at the height and in the direction of the right breast; point at the height of the knees, the arm naturally outstretched.

Ferdinando Masiello (1887):

In the assault, however, the guard of second is more useful, which entails holding the hand at the height of the breast and the point directed at the opponent’s flank.

Whereas Luigi Barbasetti (1936) held the guard at shoulder height, albeit with a slight forward lean:

For the guard of Seconde, direct the point toward your opponent's hip, the sabre in line as an extension of the arm, the cutting edge of the blade in a diagonal line to the right.

With Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina (1912) we see a similar case to that of Del Frate, with the photo showing the hand at around shoulder height, but the description instead stating for it to be at the height of the breast:

The guard of second differs from that of third in the position of the hand, which is held at the height of the breast with the point of the sabre directed at the opponent's flank, the edge diagonally up and to the right.

The fact that this is an actual photo instead of an illustration most likely removes the possibility that the depiction doesn't match up due to the fault of an illustrator. Therefore it may be that the images are more accurate than the descriptions in this case.

If we look at an example of a contemporary system outside of Italy, for example John Musgrave Waite (1880), his depiction seems to match Del Frate's, and the description he gives matches his own image well:

Move the sword-arm to the front until the hand is directly opposite the hollow of the right shoulder, bend the elbow slightly and raise it, sink the wrist, and turn up the middle knuckles and edge of the sword. Advance, and lower the point until it is nearly opposite and level with the left hip. [...] When this guard is properly formed, the upper knuckles and elbow are level and in line with the shoulder.

Assuming the fencer has a good, upright posture when on guard, Waite's description of the right hand being 'opposite the hollow of the right shoulder' seems analogous to Del Frate's 1868 description of being in the direction of the chin. I will leave it up to the reader to decide how they believe Radaelli intended the guard to be held, but from comparing all these examples, my personal conclusion is that Radaelli's guard of 2nd most likely had the hand around the height of the shoulder and opposite or slightly to the left of it, with the point opposite or just outside of the opponent's flank.

Bibliography

Barbasetti, Luigi. The Art of the Sabre and the Épée. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1936.

Del Frate, Settimo. Istruzione per maneggio e scherma della sciabola. Florence: Tip. lit. e calcografia La Venezia, 1868.

Del Frate, Settimo. Istruzione per la scherma di sciabola e di spada del professore Giuseppe Radaelli scritta d’ordine del Ministero della Guerra. Milan: Litografia Gaetano Baroffio, 1876.

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

Pecoraro, Salvatore, and Carlo Pessina. La Scherma di Sciabola. Viterbo: G. Agnesotti, 1912.

Rossi, Giordano. Manuale Teorico-Pratico per la Scherma di Spada e Sciabola. Milan: Fratelli Dumolard Editori, 1885.

Waite, John Musgrave. Lessons in Sabre, Singlestick, Sabre & Bayonet, and Sword Feats. London: Weldon, 1880.