La esgrima moderna by Enrique Bossini

Despite the geographical and linguistic proximities between Italy and Spain, there was relatively interaction between the fencing scenes of the two nations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Whilst retaining its own regional characteristics, Spanish fencing was, like most of Europe, much more influenced by its French neighbour. Nevertheless, there were several Italians who, with varying degrees of success, attempted to carve out a place for themselves in Spain during this time, such as Garibaldi Geraci and Luigi Merlini. Arguably the most successful of all, however, was in the four-decade long career of Enrico Bossini, whose treatise La esgrima moderna (bearing the Spanish version of his first name, 'Enrique'), I have provided below.

*** Scans ***

Born in Brescia on 26 June 1884 to parents Giovanni Battista Bossini and Clementina Zavaglio,¹ Enrico Bossini first emerged onto the Italian scene as a teenager in 1903 when he took part in a national amateur tournament in Castiglione delle Stiviere. Bossini was part of the four-person team representing the Forza e Costanza Society in Brescia, whose fencing hall was directed by the military master Giulio Cesare Guerrini. The Brescia team placed first among the six that competed, and Bossini himself received gold medals in both sabre and foil as well as a special prize for his performance in the grand exhibition.² Buoyed by this early success, by October the following year he had enrolled in the 18th cavalry regiment, then stationed in nearby Verona, and was training diligently with the regimental fencing master, Giuseppe Pirrò, apparently with the intention of being selected as a candidate for the Military Fencing Master's School in Rome.³ The young up-and-comer did not go unnoticed by Italy's foremost sporting newspaper, the Gazzetta dello Sport, which noted that Bossini was becoming 'ever more sly, he does beautiful and clean fencing, energetic in his actions'.⁴

Participants of a fencing exhibition in Verona in November 1904. Bossini is in the back row, second from the right, labelled no. 3; his master at the time, Giuseppe Pirrò, is labelled no. 6 in the centre of the front row.
(Source: byterfly.eu)

He appears to have been unsuccessful in his attempt to enter the Master's School for whatever reason, as by 1907 he was no longer in the military. He nevertheless continued to receive praise for his laudable performance in exhibitions and regional tournaments, spending a short time in Genoa training at Ruggero Tiberini's club and winning the regional foil championship of Liguria. Alfredo Grosso of the Gazzetta dello Sport observed that aside from his demonstrated skill in foil, Bossini was also 'a good sabreur and excellent épéeist, this latter weapon which he really prefers and studies.'⁵ In 1908 he was back in his native Brescia, where he continued his training with the military masters Fernando Sormani, Lorenzo Barbieri, and his old master Guerrini, winning the local foil and sabre championships in 1908 and the local épée championship in 1909.⁶

Bossini in 1907.
(Source: byterfly.eu)

From mid-1909 I have found no further mention of Bossini's activity in Italy, but at some point in the following years he left Italy altogether and ended up in Spain by the year 1912. He soon settled in Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa, where he took up the post of fencing master at the local Military Casino in 1913. Whether or not he had achieved master status in Italy prior to leaving the country is unknown, but there was clearly some attempt on his part to inflate his own pedigree within the Spanish scene, as articles from the time noted that he was a student of various internationally well-known masters such as Eugenio Pini, Athos di San Malato, and Carlo Pessina. Despite the questionable claims, public bouts with several prominent Spanish masters in 1915 quickly cemented his name and reputation in the country.

His skills as a master were also well appreciated in Melilla, generating great interest in fencing and soon making it the most popular sport among military officers of the local garrison where he also taught.⁷ Throughout his decades-long career Bossini commanded great respect among fencers in the European settlements of Morocco, and also throughout the greater Spanish scene. He died in October 1954 at the age of 70.⁸

Bossini (second from the left) with several of his students at the épée championships of Spanish Morocco in Melilla, 1926. Wrist straps are visible on two of the fencers.
(Source: gallica.bnf.fr)

Bossini's fencing treatise saw its first edition published in 1928.⁹ In a 1925 interview with Bossini, the journalist was positively glowing in his assessment of the manuscript copy he had read, calling it 'the best that has been written on fencing.'¹⁰ It was received well enough by the Spaniards that a second edition ('corrected and augmented') was published in 1946, which is the version I have provided above.

In his preface to the reader Bossini states that his method has been based 'on the main rules of the art of fencing written and taught by he who was the first director of the Military Master's School of Rome and my distinguished friend, Sir Masaniello Parise'. Despite this professed foundation, Bossini's foil method contains clear influence from both the French and Italian schools, as seen in his adherence to the French numbering system for the parries. The section on épée is only 28 pages long, but is more recognisably 'Italian' that the foil section due to his preference for the Greco model épée out of all existing Italian models and advocating for the extended-arm guard favoured by the the Greco brothers.

The sabre section is, in my opinion, the more interesting of the three, due to the interesting mix of Italian influences perceptible in the material. It is possible that these features trace back to Bossini's diverse pedagogical influences throughout his time as a young amateur fencer. Bossini's first master, Guerrini, began his professional career as a Radaellian, but remained an instructor in the military after undergoing the conversion course to Parise's method 1885.¹¹ Pirrò, Sormani, and Barbieri were all products of Parise's school, graduating in 1890, 1898, and 1901 respectively. Finally, Ruggero Tiberini boasted a broad experience of studying under around half a dozen masters, most prominent among them being Eugenio Pini, his student Giuseppe 'Beppe' Nadi, and then later the fiery Radaellian master Vittorio Sartori.¹² The methods which Bossini was exposed to therefore broadly encapsulated the diversity of fencing methods in existence in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century.

When it comes to gripping the sabre, Bossini is explicitly opposed to resting the pommel in the palm of the hand, preferring to grip closer to the guard (à la the Radaellians) in order to provide sufficient resistance in parries and blade actions. Students first learn the guard of 3rd, with the weapon arm semi-extended at breast height, and once all the parries have been taught they are then introduced to the 'guard of 2nd in line', again familiar to all Radaellians. The parries are done with a retracted arm in a similar vein as Parise, and Bossini also follows this master's numbering for the parry of 'yielding 6th' rather than the Radaellian name of 7th.

No exercise molinelli are to be found in Bossini's curriculum, and cuts are performed more in line with Parise's mechanics by simply extending the arm directly from the guard position, although Bossini omits and recovery swing after completion of the cut. For Bossini, the term molinete specifically refers to a double feint to the chest and head, rotating the sabre through wrist motion, and finishing the strike to the chest. Following the technical material on the three weapons is a historical overview of fencing, an appendix containing the full regulations for international tournaments, and finally a bibliography of fencing works from the 15th century up to 1944.

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1 Archivio di Stato di Brescia, https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/detail-nominative/?s_id=32945047^↩
2 'Il grande torneo nazionale dilettanti a Castiglione delle Stiviere,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 10 July 1903, 3.^↩
3 'Convegno a Verona,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 28 October 1904, 1; 'A zonzo per le sale,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 20 March 1905, 2.^↩
4 'Risveglio veronese,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 14 November 1904, 2.^↩
5 'Il Torneo Regionale Ligure,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 7 June 1907, 5.^↩
6 'Campionato bresciano alla Forza e Costanza,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 18 December 1908, 4; 'Campionato Bresciano di spada da terreno,' La Gazzetta dello Sport, 12 May 1909, 4.^↩
7 José M. Sagnier, 'La esgrima en Melilla,' Stadium, 10 April 1915, 229–231; 'Del torneo de esgrima: Enrique Bossini,' La Patria (Madrid), 29 May 1915, 1; A. de L., 'Fiesta de esgrima,' El Liberal (Madrid), 1 June 1915, 4.^↩
8 Diario de África, 7 October 1954.^↩
9 Enrique Bossini, La esgrima moderna: tratado teórico-prático de la esgrima de florete, espada y sable ([Melilla]: Regimiento de Infantería Africa 68, 1928).^↩
10 Julián Candon, 'El maestro Enrique Bossini,' Armas y Deportes, 15 August 1925, 10–11.^↩
11 Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881 (Naples: Tipi Ferrante, 1881), 128; Cesare Ricotti-Magnani. “N. 2. — Corsi eventuali presso la scuola magistrale militare di scherma. — (Segretariato generale) 2 gennaio.” Giornale Militare 1885: parte seconda, no. 1 (7 January 1885): 2–3.^↩
12 'M.° Ruggero Tiberini,' Bollettino di Informazioni della Federazione Italiana di Scherma, 26 March 1942, 4; 'Scherma Italiana: Ruggero Tiberini,' La Stampa Sportiva, 20 April 1902, 6.^↩

Codice Cavalleresco by Luigi Barbasetti

Just one year before publishing the sabre treatise that would solidify his legacy in the German-speaking world, Luigi Barbasetti made his authorial debut not with treatise on fencing, but a duelling code. His code appeared in the German language in early 1898 bearing the title Ehren-Codex, having been translated from Italian and 'adapted for Austro-Hungarian use' by military officer and fencing instructor Gustav Ristow.¹ Only a few months later an Italian-language version appeared, published under the similarly generic title Codice Cavalleresco.² Scans of my own Italian copy can be viewed in the link below.

*** Click here to view ***

While the fact that the German publication was a translation would suggest that this book was simply the publication of Barbasetti's original Italian manuscript, he himself explicitly states in the introduction that this text was actually translated back to Italian from the German edition of the book, although by whom exactly we are never told. The Italian text has however been 'slightly revised', and also features a preface by the Italian jurist Costantino Castori. Due to the complicated legal status of duelling in Italy, this was clearly an effort on the publisher's part to put a legitimising stamp on what was in essence the regulation of extra-judicial violence.³

Barbasetti's ever-growing reputation as a fencing master would certainly have been helpful in providing him some authority in matters of honour, yet this by no means made his duelling code immune from criticism. Some Austrian commentators noted that Barbasetti's code was an attempt to impose Italian duelling customs on the more Germanic-oriented customs of Austria and Hungary.⁴ One such foreign custom was Barbasetti's explicit refusal to allow the thrust to be excluded in the duel as a safety measure. Another was that while Barbasetti forbade duels to death, his allowance for duels to be carried out ad oltranza, or 'to the extreme', was viewed as being both morally and legally no different, as it required combat to end 'only when one [of the combatants] falls to the ground, or is unable to continue due to receiving a very serious wound.'⁵

Barbasetti's code reflected a common view in Italy at the time that although the act of duelling was deplorable and that society should seek to irradicate it altogether, for the meantime duelling was unfortunately still necessary due to the lack of legal recourse available to those who had their honour besmirched by another. In line with this view, Barbasetti opposed duels to first blood as well as any other provisions to reduce the severity of a duel (such as excluding use of the point with sabres), believing that the best way to reduce the prevalence of duels was to ensure that they were not conducted over petty matters with little risk. In Germanic cultures, by contrast, it was common to exclude the thrust in sabre either by tacit agreement between the duellists or by blunting the points entirely.⁶ Many Italian duelling commentators like Barbasetti ridiculed this practice, as in their eyes reducing the potential lethality of a duel, thereby lowering the stakes for the duellists, only encouraged men to behave more provocatively and deploy insults more freely.⁷

One notable writer to criticise Barbasetti on this point was Gusztáv Arlow, whose 1902 sabre treatise is one of the foundational texts of the Italo-Hungarian school. In a short section at the end of his treatise discussing how to conduct sabre duels, Arlow makes a point to criticise Barbasetti (as well as his translator Ristow) in a footnote almost half a page long. Barbasetti's measures to reduce the severity of duels, even those which result from minor offences, were apparently antiquated and reckless, exasperatedly remarking: 'Human frivolity knows no bounds.'⁸ He was also critical of the fact that the code was supposedly adapted to 'Austro-Hungarian' customs, as this to him demonstrates a lack of a understanding of how different Austrian and Hungarian duelling customs could be.

Both the German and Italian versions were received positively by the sporting press, and in fact the Italian Gazzetta dello Sport reported that the first printing of the German text had completely sold out by July 1898.⁹ It remained popular enough in both languages to warrant a second Italian edition in 1905, with second and third editions of the German text appearing in 1901 and 1908 respectively.¹⁰ Despite the warm reception in Italy, Barbasetti was never able to unseat the very popular code by Jacopo Gelli, which was then already in its 8th edition and continued to be republished up until the eve of the Second World War.¹¹

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1 Luigi Barbasetti, Ehren-Codex, trans. Gustav Ristow (Vienna: Verlag der Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 1898).^↩
2 Luigi Barbasetti, Codice Cavalleresco (Milan: Alessandro Gattinoni, 1898).^↩
3 For an excellent deep-dive on Italian duelling culture at this time, see Stephen Hughes, Politics of the Sword: Dueling, Honor, and Masculinity in Modern Italy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007).^↩
4 S. Leo, "Pacemacher des Todes," Feuilleton, Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung, 12 June 1898, 2–3; Hermann Bahr, "Barbasetti," Feuilleton, Neues Wiener Tagblatt, 21 January 1900, 1–2.^↩
5 Barbasetti, Codice Cavalleresco, 110.^↩
6 Hans Kufahl and Josef Schmied-Kowarzik, Duellbuch: Geschichte des Zweikampfes nebst einem Anhang enthaltend Duellregeln und Paukcomment (Leipzig: J. J. Weber, 1896), 221.^↩
7 Hughes, Politics of the Sword, 181–2.^↩
8 Gusztáv Arlow, Sir Gusztáv Arlow's Sabre Fencing, trans. Annamária Kovács, ed. Russ Mitchell (Irving, TX: Happycrow Publishing, 2022), 234.^↩
9 "Fra le pubblicazioni," Scherma, La Gazzetta dello Sport, 4 July 1898, 1. For some full reviews, see Camillo Müller, "Über den neuen Ehrencodex," Duellwesen, Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 13 February 1898, 156–7; J. H. Aubry, "Un nouveau code," Journal des Sports, 23 March 1898, 1; Roderico Rizzotti, "Codice cavalleresco di Luigi Barbasetti," Scherma, La Gazzetta dello Sport, 1 August 1898, 2; "Codice cavalleresco Barbasetti," L'Indipendente (Trieste), 17 September 1898, 2.^↩
10 Luigi Barbasetti, Codice Cavalleresco (Turin: R. Streglio, 1905); Ehren-Kodex, trans. Gustav Ristow (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1901); Ehren-Kodex, trans. Bernhard Dimand (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1908).^↩
11 Jacopo Gelli, Codice Cavalleresco Italiano, 8th ed. (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1896). This duelling code had a tremendously long life, seeing an 18th edition in 1938.^↩

Comparing editions: Pecoraro & Pessina 1910 vs. 1912

The year 1910 is a pivotal one in the history of Radaellian fencing. For starters, less than a month into the year came the untimely death of arch-rival of the Radaellians, Masaniello Parise, aged only 59, which no doubt many Radaellians were hoping would provide an opportunity for the Rome Fencing Master's School to take on a new, non-Neapolitan direction. Four months later the vice-directors of the school, Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, announced their intention to publish a sabre treatise of their own, one which supposedly took into account the 'diversity of methods and views' followed in Italy at the time.¹ The book hit the shelves by August, a very respectable turn-around for a 255-page book.

Click *here* to view the 1910 edition and *here* for the 1912 edition.

The methodological foundation of Pecoraro and Pessina's work is undoubtedly Radaellian, even with their own additions and modifications which make them stand out from their contemporaries, which I have summarised previously. Nevertheless, their publication was subject to quite severe criticism from some of their Radaellian colleagues, in particular the formidable Ferdinando Masiello, who only a few months later published a 160-page book lambasting the treatise almost page-by-page.² The criticism clearly had an effect on the authors, as two years later they saw fit to publish a revised version (without ever labelling it as such). This must have been a sufficient enough improvement in the eyes of Masiello, as a decade later his judgement had noticeably tempered, deeming the second edition 'coherent and worthy of consideration'.³ I have compiled the following document which highlights the extent of the changes between the 1910 and 1912 editions of Pecoraro and Pessina's work.

*** Two-edition comparison ***

The vast majority of these changes will likely seem of little significance to modern readers, and indeed many are on an individual level. The single most profound and obvious difference between the editions lies in the preface, which was completely rewritten for the 1912 edition. To give a full appreciation of this, I have translated both of these prefaces below, starting with the original 1910 preface:

If Italian fencing, over a considerable period of time, and with heavy sacrifices, has finally been able to seat itself, a magnificent victor, on the glowing chariot of victory, this is in large part owed to sabre fencing.
However, as unfortunately happens in all human affairs, rather than raising a hymn to the shining steel which has managed to reap laurel branches in the most important tournaments and sought the perfection of the noble art in the unification of views and artistic principles, its importance has instead diminished, whether through the daily unveiling of new and always different systems, or with the acclamation, as almost everyone does, of foil and épée, to the detriment of the primacy which the sabre has been able to conquer for us.

It is very true that the foil and the épée offer considerable difficulties, both in the target area and in the execution of restricted movements, but one should not overlook the difference between the old and the modern method of fencing with the sabre.

One used to be forced to use protection for the legs, chest, thighs, and so on in order to not emerge from a bout in a battered state, while today, through the carriage and gradual balancing of the blade, the movements are performed almost with the lightness of embroidery, and with the same ease with which one performs wide movements, one performs those actions with the point which are characteristic of foil and épée.

One may therefore declare that the perfection of sabre fencing would implicitly mean the perfection of foil and épée, just as, by axiomatic truth, the whole comprises its parts.

Then why call the foil and the épée chivalric weapons par excellence, when the sabre belongs to the soldier, to whom the spirit of the knight, more than others, is suited?

What use would it serve if it were not used properly?

Fencing in general, and sabre fencing in particular, from the beginning of the century until to today has experienced the beneficial effects of a certain improvement, brought about on the basis of the different mechanical theories of the various pre-existing methods, but it is the task of those who harbour a lively and sincere affection for the noble art to perfect sabre fencing, considering that, in our opinion, it presents greater difficulties than foil and épée.

And since we have the full and profound conviction that, with respect to fencing, there are no absolutes, we have based ourselves on the relativity of execution of the various movements which make up the necessary whole of fencing.

We aim, therefore, for the unification of the various principles of different systems which, if on the one hand has practical importance for the perfection of our art, on the other will have the effect that, without distinction of regions or views, it may be fully called Italian fencing.

And here is the 1912 version:

In the first edition of this treatise we did not mention clearly enough the fundamental principles of our sabre method, believing that they would emerge by reading the first chapters, and perhaps this was the reason why the criticism was essentially limited to emphasising issues of pure form, in part acceptable and which we do not disdain to take to heart in this edition.

Here we offer, also for the suitable guidance of the reader, to express in a clear manner the principles our text is founded on and the aim which we have set ourselves in its publication.

Until now sabre fencing has been taught with different methods. There were those who based their system exclusively on wrist movements, thus creating an artificial, unnatural method; others, also keeping the system based on wrist movements, managed to improve its mechanics.

Redaelli was the one who understood the error of the aforementioned systems, and with a method based on forearm movements he came closer to the natural system of fencing with that weapon and had, in fact, results of an undoubtable superiority over the others.

Experience, however, has proven that all the fencers coming from the above-mentioned schools in practice carry out sabre fencing in a singular manner which is the most natural of all, and essentially consists of the Redaelli method combined with wrist movements rationally performed and always accompanied by the forearm.

But every fencer could not help but feel the effects of the received school and therefore frequently fall into the same errors: the Redaellians tended towards exaggeratedly wide and violent movements, those of the Parise school instead used movements that were tight in the wrist but wide with the point, with cuts not appropriately extended; meanwhile, most ended up adopting, with experience, a single system of fencing which is commonly called mixed.

Our treatise has the aim of ordering this mixed system and bringing it to its maximum perfection, making actions with the point as easily as those with the edge, adding actions never yet considered, however natural they are in sabre fencing, basing the system of execution on the naturalness and spontaneity of the movements.

Then with a series of preliminary exercises never before dictated, in those terms and in those lines, by any author, one will be able to achieve greater finesse and confidence in the mechanical execution of the various actions, a blade carriage which is not otherwise possible to obtain.

Thus our treatise, while for body carriage it is closer to what was masterfully dictated by Masaniello Parise, for blade carriage and the parries it is closer to Redaelli, in that the movements are performed essentially with the forearm but are based on a greater spontaneity and naturalness of execution.

This method of fencing—already generally known, as was said, in its broad outlines and with the improvements we have introduced—we hope will lead to the unification of the various systems, which will contribute to the development of this noble art.

The most immediately obvious difference in the 1912 version should be the repeated mention of Radaelli's method. While the original preface only refers vaguely to the aim of their method being 'the unification of the various principles of different systems', the updated edition makes it clear where their inspirations derive from, that being primarily Radaelli's foundation along with Parise's body carriage. The apologetic tone of the 1912 preface shows that they understood why a critical eye may have perceived the lack of credit to their masters in the original version as an attempt to pass off their method as something new and original. In the new preface they make it clear that their observations of Italian fencing at the time were that most people were already following a 'mixed' method similar to their own, and that the treatise was mainly an attempt at systematising this practical reality. The reference to their preliminary exercises as being 'never before dictated' in the same exact terms is likely a direct response to one of the many criticisms levelled by Masiello, who accused the two authors of copying Nicolò Bruno's 1891 work, which includes several elementary blade movement exercises that bear some resemblance to Pecoraro and Pessina's.⁴

Another obvious contrast between the two prefaces is the bemoaning in the 1910 version of the waning popularity of sabre fencing in favour of foil and épée, which was a common view among the older generation of Italian fencers at the time, particularly with regard to épée.⁵ The 1912 preface instead makes no allusions to a perceived decline of sabre fencing compared to the other disciplines. Along with the other changes mentioned, the overall result is that the latter edition takes on a much more positive, forward-looking attitude that does a much better job at setting readers' expectations of the rest of the material.

Looking beyond the preface, we find significantly expanded and revised explanations given to the section on the balance of the sabre, the explanation of how to grip the sabre, the introduction to the preliminary exercises (which goes from 135 words in the 1910 edition to 785 words in the 1912), and advice for bouting. Some material from the 1910 edition is simply rearranged within the book, such as the sections on invitations and the counter parries, while some were removed entirely. The blade transport in 1st is nowhere to be found in the updated edition, and the separate descriptions for the beat from each individual engagement is reduced to a single paragraph of general advice. Two completely new sections were added to the 1912 edition: a short section on beats followed by feints, and a full page of advice for actions to prefer in a duel.

On a much more general level, it is very easy to see an improvement in the general grammatical clarity of the writing in the 1912 edition. The first edition suffered greatly from poor copy editing, the authors being guilty of a serious overuse of commas and run-on sentences. Due to the sheer volume of these occurrences it was impractical to show this in my two-edition comparison, but is a single example taken from the section on the 'line of offence', translated literally to demonstrate the improvement in clarity made throughout the second edition:

1910 edition	1912 edition
It is called the line of offence, whenever the point of the sabre is found in a straight line with the chest, or with the flank, of the opponent, preventing the attack, without moving the blade.	The line of offence refers to that in which the point of the sabre is found in the direction of the opponent's chest or flank, in the natural act of threatening.

Individually these improvements may not mean much to readers today, but the awkward phrasing found throughout the 1910 edition could very easily have affected the perception of the authors at the time of publication. If the fencing masters were unable to convey their ideas well through text, it would be easy to accuse them of also being unable to teach these concepts to their students, whom the Ministry of War wished to portray as the best and brightest in all of Italy. It is unsurprising then that for the updated edition they shunned the publisher of the original edition, Giuseppe Romagna of Rome, instead employing G. Agnesotti of Viterbo in 1912. It is in this revised and greatly improved form that Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina's treatise would be most widely read. Although the Master's School was closed in 1914 as part of the Italian government's war preparations, when it was finally re-opened in 1926 Pecoraro and Pessina's works on both sabre and épée were again used as the official textbooks, which were republished for the sole use of the school's students (although this time both books were only credited to Pessina).⁶

In the next few posts we will take a closer look at some of the initial reactions to the publication of Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise, which will, among other things, provide more context around why the authors felt pressured to revise their work so soon after publication, as well as help to identify the specific critiques behind individual changes.

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1 The announcement is reproduced in Ferdinando Masiello, La Scherma di Sciabola: osservazioni sul Trattato dei Maestri Pecoraro e Pessina Vice-Direttori della Scuola Magistrale militare di Scherma (Florence: G. Ramella, 1910), 17–8.^↩
2 Ibid.^↩
3 Ferdinando Masiello, "L'insegnamento della Scherma in Italia," La Scherma Italiana: Giornale degli schermidori, 2 September 1923. Translation available here.^↩
4 Masiello, La Scherma di Sciabola: osservazioni sul Trattato dei Maestri Pecoraro e Pessina, 45. For Bruno's blade exercises, see Scherma di sciabola: risorgiento della vera scherma di sciabola italiana basata sull'oscillazione del Pendolo (Novara: Tipografia Novarese, 1891), 63–5.^↩
5 . To give just a few examples: Agostino Arista, "Coltiviamo la sciabola," La Gazzetta dello Sport, 2 February 1907, 3; Vittorio Sartori, "Decadenza dell'arte delle armi," La Gazzetta dello Sport, 11 October 1907, 4; Giovanni Franceschinis, "Schermisti italiani, ritornate alla sciabola!!," La Scherma Italiana, 28 February 1914, 25–6.^↩
6 Carlo Pessina, Scherma di Sciabola: trattato teorico pratico (per uso esclusivo della Scuola e fuori commercio) (Civitavecchia: Prem. Stab. Tip. Moderno, 1927); Scherma di Spada (Civitavecchia: Prem. Stab. Tip. Moderno, 1927).^↩

Teoría de la esgrima by Horacio Levene

Although it has been well over two years since I had an opportunity to talk about Italian fencing in Argentina, my silence on the fascinating history of fencing in South America has primarily been caused by the difficulty in obtaining copies of the relevant works from the early 20th century. To address this drought I present today Horacio Levene's Teoría de la esgrima, a foil treatise published in 1929 in Buenos Aires.

*** Click here to view ***

As Levene states in the preface, this book was adopted as the official text of the Argentinian military's fencing and gymnastics school, of which he was the director at the time of publication. Born in 1883, Levene was himself a graduate of the school, first entering its halls in 1901, after which he was posted to several different regiments, military schools, and at one point even a navy frigate, all of which he lists at the beginning of the book along with the civilian clubs he had taught at.¹ His diligent work was rewarded in 1923 when he was appointed as the army's inspector of gymnastics and fencing, and three years later he became director of the fencing and gymnastics school itself. In addition to his work on fencing, Levene made notable contributions to the field of gymnastics in Argentina and also wrote a duelling code that saw several republications during his lifetime.² He died in 1960.

As would be expected, Levene's method inherits much from the father of Italian fencing in Argentina, Eugenio Pini, and it retains a distinctly Italian character.³ Levene mostly repeats much of Pini's particular terminology, such as the term reccoglimento for the envelopment and the distinction between counter and half-counter parries, but includes some of his own modifications, such as the additional parries of 6th (a supinated 2nd) and 5th (equivalent to that used in Italian sabre).

The most unique feature of this treatise is in the second half, which was written almost entirely by Levene's 3rd-year students at the Argentinian military master's school. The first technique is described by Levene, who provides the structure that is then repeated by his students. Each one outlines the tactical applications of a specific technique (or combination thereof) and give notes for the instructor to take into account when teaching it.

The final page of the book refers to synoptic tables of actions that were supposed to follow, but these are missing in my copy. I presume that they were either removed at some point in this book's life, or, alternatively, they were perhaps never present at all. As the title page of the book states, this particular printing was the 'provisional edition', thus there may have been later printings that included the tables, but this is of course mere conjecture. If readers are aware of any other exemplars of this seemingly rather rare book, I would be very interested to know if they differ at all.

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1 Alejo Levoratti and Diego Roldán, "Los batallones escolares de la patria. Estudio comparado de las representaciones sobre el cuerpo y el entrenamiento de los maestros de esgrima del centenario en la República Argentina," Revista História da Educação 23 (2019): 23–4, https://doi.org/10.1590/2236-3459/88977.^↩
2 Some of Levene's other publications: La esgrima y el duelo: espada de combate (Buenos Aires: n. p., 1914); Duelo: manual de procedimiento (Buenos Aires: Fueyo, 1917); Gimnasia metodizada (Orientación integral humana, 1939).^↩
3 See Eugenio Pini, La esgrima de espada (Buenos Aires: Félix Lajouane, 1902). The treatise was subsequently republished in 1905 by Maucci in both Barcelona and Buenos Aires. The Italian version edition is Trattato pratico e teorico sulla scherma di spada (Livorno: Raffaello Giusti, 1904).^↩

Das Säbelfechten mit dem leichten Säbel auf Hieb und Stich by Walther Meienreis

Due to a steady influx of Italian fencing masters in the first half of the 20th century, Germany was particularly fertile ground for the spreading of Radaellian sabre. The text I am sharing today is one of many products of this expansion, this being a short German-language sabre treatise written by one Walther Meienreis titled Das Säbelfechten mit dem leichten Säbel auf Hieb und Stich ('Cut and thrust sabre fencing with the light sabre'), published in Leipzig in 1914.

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Meienreis' sabre book was published alongside a separate foil volume of similar length, which I have yet to obtain an original copy of, but the sabre material alone is interesting enough on its own thanks to its strong close adherence to Radaellian theory. Meienreis was likely familiar with Barbasetti's work, as he makes use of the term pattinando (advance lunge) which was not used by other Italian authors, and the photos showing the various sabre positions are more characteristic of Barbasetti's posture than, say, Masiello, whose work was also well known in Germany by this time thanks to the work of Luigi Sestini.

As per the title page of this book, Walther Meienreis was a university-trained engineer. Almost nothing else is known about him aside from the fact that he was born in 1877 (see portrait above) and that by the time he published his works he was a lieutenant in the German reserve army, having previously served in the Landwehr, and likely lived in Berlin. He was active in the local fencing scene, particularly military tournaments, and even took part in the épée and sabre events (both individual and team) at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.¹ I have found no mentions of him after 1914 aside from advertisements for his books, so it is possible that he was one of the many many casualties of the Great War.

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1 Sport im Bild, 17 December 1909, 1387; Les escrimeurs à la V^ème olympiade a Stockholm 1912 (Stockholm: W. Tullberg, 1913), 21; "Das II. Armee-Fecht-Turnier," Sport im Bild, 2 January 1914, 20–1.^↩

Comparing editions: Masiello 1887 vs. 1893 vs. 1902

Two years ago on this blog we took an in-depth look at the 1902 editions of Masiello's treatises for foil and sabre and compared what changes were made from the first edition, published in 1887. While I remain satisfied with the thoroughness of that comparison, at the time of writing I had unfortunately not yet gained access to a copy of the 2nd edition of Masiello's sabre treatise, published in 1893. Now, thanks to the Museo delle Arti Marziali in Brescia, I am pleased to say that this gap can at last be filled. Below are scans of this 1893 edition as well as a document comparing all the changes between the various foil and sabre editions (noting again that, in contrast with sabre, there were only two editions of the foil treatise, published in 1887 and 1902).

2nd edition scans

3-edition comparison

In Masiello's preface to the 1893 edition, instead of justifying the publication of his treatise as being a response to Masaniello Parise's government-approved 1884 treatise (which he did in the 1887 edition), here he has removed all mention of Parise and the events of the previous decade, as well as throughout the rest of the treatise. He instead maintains that in this new edition, in response to the criticism he received from readers of the 1st edition, he wanted to make more explicit the foundational concepts shared by both sabre and foil, as well as provide more expansive discussions of key concepts throughout the book. Thus a significant amount of the added material in the 1893 was originally located in the foil section of the 1887 edition, which has been rearranged in a way that better suits the sabre-only nature of this publication.

The structure and order of material is the same that would be seen later in the 1902 edition, with no long historical summary and the section of mechanical discussion being broken up and distributed throughout the rest of the treatise. In two cases in the introductory discussion there are parts of the 1887 edition which disappear in the 1893, but then reappear in the 1902. In general, however, most of the large additions, such as the discussion on the guard, the lunge, and cutting mechanics were first introduced in this 1893 edition, as I had postulated in my original comparison of the 1st and 3rd editions.

Perhaps the most glaring omission in the 1893 edition is the illustrations of the various fencing positions. In his preface, Masiello states that readers are advised to consult those from the 1st edition. Yet two new illustrations are still included, these being the labelled illustration of the fencing sabre (now the newer 2nd model Masiello sabre with a perforated sheet steel guard) as well as the separate illustration of the gripping method; both of these illustrations appear in the 3rd edition a decade later, along with the new illustrations of the sabre-wielding Adonis. Thus while the 2nd and 3rd editions are very similar, the latter edition was intended for a wider audience of new and younger readers, while the former was for those already familiar with the first edition of his work. It is also worth noting that the first place that these 3rd edition illustrations appeared in print was in fact in the British Army's 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise, which is essentially a condensed version of Masiello's sabre method.

The presence of all the major changes to Masiello's method in the 2nd edition, such as the more exaggerated leaning in the molinelli and the prohibition of wrist flexion in the cuts, demonstrate that it was relatively soon after the publication of the 1st edition that Masiello began re-evaluating his views and teachings. Masiello's willingness to modify and update his method in response to his own reflections and the critique of his readership serve as a good reminder that the fencing methods we find preserved in the treatises are indeed merely a snapshot of a moment in fencing culture. The three editions of Masiello's work also reflect the active engagement of the author with the Italian fencing community, indicative of his significance within the cultural debates of the time. 

Das Fechten mit der Stoss- und Hiebwaffe in sportlicher und moderner Auffassung by Leopold Targler

Like many of the books I have presented on the blog, this latest addition to my library is a book which has been largely neglected by history. The 180-page Das Fechten mit der Stoss- und Hiebwaffe in sportlicher und moderner Auffassung ('Fencing with the thrusting and cutting weapon in a sportive and modern conception') was written by Leopold Targler, and various external sources date it to 1913 (as well as a previous owner of this particular copy, who wrote this year on the inner title page). Curiously it was published in the relatively small town of Arco in Trentino, which was then part of Austria-Hungary.

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The book's author was well respected in his local Viennese scene at the time of publication, serving as for several years as the president of the Akademie der Fechtkunst, an Austrian organisation which certified civilian fencing masters founded by Luigi Barbasetti in 1904, as well as teaching at the Fechtklub Friesen and the Wiener Sportklub.

An excellent article on his career written by Maciej Łuczak and Michael Wenusch was published in the December 2018 issue of the American Historical Review, so I invite readers to consult this for full details. In summary, Targler was born in Gattendorf, Austria in 1865, and graduated from the Wiener Neustadt school in 1890. He later studied under Luigi Barbasetti, and after many years in Austria he began teaching at the military fencing school in Poznań (Poland) in 1922. Although he only stayed here until 1925, his impact on the local scene was significant and long-lasting, particularly for his role in introducing the Italian method to this region. He returned to Vienna in 1925, and in the year following Austria's annexation by Germany in 1938 he became a member of the Nazi Party. He died in February 1945.

Leopold's daughter Elisabeth or 'Elsa' Targler followed in her father's footsteps and became a fencing master in 1910. At the time of this book's publication, she taught alongside her father at the Wiener Sportklub as well as assisting Luigi Della Santa at the Wiener Fechtklub. A photo of her in the lunge is used as figure 3 in this book, between pages 8 and 9. Like her father, Elsa was a continuous supporter of the Nazi Party throughout the 1930s and 40s.

The influence of Barbasetti is clear throughout Targler's book, with the sabre material in particular being structured in a very similar manner, with the molinelli preceding the invitations and engagements, followed by the blows and parries. From here there is some evidence of Hungarian influence in Targler's 'cut-parry-cut' exercises, first seen in Károly Leszák's 1906 treatise Kardvívás. Just seven photos are placed throughout Targler's book, but an interesting novelty can be found at the very end in a single fold-out plate approximately 70cm in length, containing motion-capture images of Targler performing a lunge and recovery with the foil, a head cut with a lunge in sabre and a recovery from the same. It is interesting to note how Targler withdraws his arm all the way back behind the head prior to giving the cut, in a manner very similar to the coupé described in Del Frate's texts.

Although Targler's method shows many unsurprising similarities to Barbasetti's, a clear deviation is his preference for a somewhat low and semi-retracted guard of 3rd as opposed to the standard Radaellian 2nd. This is even more pronounced in the foil section, which shows a guard position more similar to the French school than the Italian. On the final page Targler mentions the texts he used as references for his own work, which are the foil book by Rudolf Brosch, Barbasetti's sabre treatise, and Josef Bartunek's Ratgeber für den Offizier zur Sicherung des Erfolges im Zweikampf mit dem Säbel.

La Scherma di Spada by Luigi Barbasetti

It has been a long time coming for this treatise to finally become freely available for all, but at long last here is the Italian version of Barbasetti's foil treatise, La Scherma di Spada, published in 1902 by Alessandro Gattinoni of Milan.

Scans

I will omit a summary of its contents today, as it is relatively well-known book in Anglophone fencing circles due to its many republications throughout the years throughout the years. The German from 1900 is also freely available here through KU Leuven.

My cursory comparison of the German and Italian texts showed no significant differences between them aside from the front matter. The German edition contains a dedication to Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria and a preface by Bernhard Dimand, one of the two translators of the book; the Italian version instead contains an introduction from Roderico Rizzotti, who explains that, after having read Barbasetti's original manuscript prior to its translation into German, he felt that work presented a unique simplicity and practicality in its explanations that even the Italian public, who had no shortage of comprehensive foil treatises, would welcome its publication, and thus Rizzotti encouraged Barbasetti to publish his work in Italy. Rizzotti's introduction is followed by the preface from Barbasetti's 1899 sabre treatise Das Säbelfechten, which the Italian editors felt was still relevant and worth providing for the new audience. This preface was not included in the English translations of either of Barbasetti's books.

One minor difference between the two versions is some very small variations in the dimensions of the foil (several parts changing by half a centimetre or so); another difference can be see in the given Italian terms for the advance-lunge. In the German version the term is given in both German and Italian, the latter being pattinando; the Italian version of the text uses both pattinando as well as the noun version of the word pattinaggio, which did not seem to catch on in Italian terminology (although neither did pattinando).

My sincere gratitude to Roberto Gotti and the Martial Arts Museum in Brescia for allowing me to view their impressive collection and share this treatise with readers.

Scherma di sciabola: metodo d'insegnamento adottato presso la scuola militare di cavalleria

It has been a while since we have taken a look at a non-Radaellian sabre text, and that has largely been due to such texts gradually becoming available elsewhere (I am obliged to mention KU Leuven and their ongoing high-quality digitisation of the Corble Fencing Collection). As a rare book, the subject of this article is one which has flown under the radar seemingly for its entire existence, although it has great relevance to our usual Italian context. The book's full title is Scherma di sciabola: metodo d'insegnamento adottato presso la scuola militare di cavalleria ('Sabre fencing: teaching method adopted at the cavalry military school'), published in 1861 by Giuseppe Chiantore of Pinerolo.

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The Pinerolo cavalry school was at the time of this book's publication the only dedicated cavalry school for the Italian army, giving two-year long courses for NCOs and low-ranking officers. Although no author is named in the book, through military records we can make an educated guess as to who may have had a hand in writing it or contributing to the method it contains.

The 1858 and 1860 editions of Calendario generale del regno list the cavalry school's head fencing master as Lieutenant Clemente Doux.¹ Although there is no 1861 edition of this yearbook, it is likely that Doux relinquished this role that same year after being promoted to captain in March and then adjutant major in July.² The roll was filled in March 1862 by Carlo Marella, who stayed there for 3 years. In late 1862 the school began a brief experiment of being split into two separate institutions under unified command, one called the Cavalry Military School and the other the Cavalry Normal School, with only the latter aimed at creating instructors for the cavalry. No specific individual is named as fencing master for the Military School, merely 'a non-commissioned officer of the Cavalry Normal School', while Marella assumed direction of fencing at the Normal School.³

If Doux was not actually directly involved in the writing of this book, it is nevertheless likely that he taught the method described, given that it was supposedly a summarised account of the school's fencing curriculum:

The soldiers who take part in a training course at this Cavalry Military School are generally, when they return to their unit, entrusted with directing the teaching of fencing to the lowest ranks of their respective squadron.
This instruction has been compiled in order to facilitate their task, and in it one finds the lessons which they received here laid out progressively, and briefly reminded of the indispensable notes for the regular execution of the same.

Nothing is known of Clemente Doux's pedigree as a fencer, but he would later be known for his public criticism of Radaelli's method, submitting several articles to the military journal L'Esercito.⁴ Attempts to obtain these articles have so far been unsuccessful, but at the very least this short treatise provides the best guess as to what kind of sabre method Doux preferred.

Although the book describes what was being taught at a cavalry school, the method resembles a typical on-foot sabre fencing system of the time, and in fact it contains no specific exercises or technical advice for applying the method on horseback. Like most 'military fencing' books of the time, it is clear that fencing is the end for which the method is intended, as further reflected in its description of bouting and the recommended lesson structure: the material in part one of the book—describing the guard position, footwork, parries, exercise molinelli, and the lunge—is to be taught as a group, while parts two and three are done as individual lessons, with the master wearing a mask and plastron.

It is expected that 15 to 20 lessons are sufficient to teach the material in the book's first part, 35 to 40 lessons for part two, and part three taking even longer. The only note in the entire book about a cavalry application of the method is that such an application means that only the material in sections one and two are sufficient 'to make a soldier of even mediocre aptitude capable of fighting advantageously', requiring 50 to 60 lessons in total.

The techniques described are fairly standard for the time and, in part, recognisably Italian, namely the high extended guard of 3rd as well as the familiar parry positions and numbering: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th (the latter also taking the name 'yielding 2nd'). The exercise molinelli are wrist-centric done with an extended arm; only descending and rising molinelli are included, but separate cuts to the head and face are described later on. It is interesting to note that while the cutting mechanics in this book focus on wrist motion, unlike Parise the molinello is performed before contact is made with the opponent's body, instead of afterwards while recovering from the lunge.

The book contains one large fold-out plate of illustrations, depicting first position, the guards of 3rd and 4th, the seven parries, and a drawing of the master's plastron. The book is only 67 pages long, but is a valuable point of comparison with the other Piedmontese works of the period, such as the 1853 cavalry sabre instruction, Blengino, and Ferrero.⁵ Given that Giuseppe Radaelli was interacting with various cavalry officers such as Gerolamo Avogadro while teaching in Turin in the 1850s, his hall would have been visited by those who had previously learnt this very method, some at the Pinerolo school itself.

Special thanks to the kind staff of the Biblioteca Sportiva Nazionale for helping me see this book and the rest of their wonderful collection.

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1 Ministero dell'Interno, Calendario generale del regno pel 1858 con appendice di notizie storico-statistiche (Turin: Stamperia dell'Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1858), 538; Ministero dell'Interno, Calendario generale del regno pel 1860 con appendice di notizie storiche sull'ultimo decennio (Turin: Stamperia dell'Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1860), 914.^↩
2 See the March and July 1861 issues of Giornale militare 1861: Bollettino delle nomine, promozioni ed altre variazioni occorse negli uffiziali dell'armata di terra e di mare non che delle amministrazioni militare e marittima.^↩
3 Ministero della Guerra, Annuario ufficiale dell'esercito italiano 1863 (Turin: C. Cotte e F. Capellino, 1863), 779–804.^↩
4 Cited in: Achille Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli (Florence: Tipi dell'Arte della Stampa, 1877), 3; Ferdinando Masiello, L'Italia Militare, 19 January 1878, 3.^↩
5 Istruzione pel maneggio della sciabola approvata dal Ministero di Guerra (Turin: Officina Tipografica di Giuseppe Fodratti, 1853); Cristoforo Blengino, Teoria di scherma sulla sciabola (Ivrea: Tipografia Violetta, 1851); Giovanni Battista Ferrero, Breve trattato sul maneggio della sciabola (Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1868).^↩

La Scherma di Sciabola by Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina

The death of Masaniello Parise, technical director of the Military Fencing Master's School, in 1910 marked the end of not only the life of one of the most revered figures of Italian fencing, but also the end of the official suppression of the Radaelli sabre method. Only four months after Parise's death the two masters who had taught at school not long after its founding in 1884, Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina, announced to their colleagues that they would soon be publishing a sabre treatise of their own, in which they intended to 'unify the various pre-existing systems and methods.'¹ Shortly after, this treatise entitled La Scherma di Sciabola was released to the public. Here I am pleased to share scans of my own original copy of it.

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This copy is in fact the 1912 edition, rather than that originally published in 1910. The earlier edition was released to some controversy among the old Radaellian guard, such as Masiello and Pagliuca,² who believed that it provided no notable innovations to the Radaelli method, as well as the fact that it was a complete reversal of the method that the two authors had spent the better part of three decades supporting, that of Masaniello Parise. Masiello even dedicated an entire 160-page book to criticising Pecoraro and Pessina's treatise which was widely circulated. Despite this reception, after a period of experiments among the fencing masters of the army their method was soon adopted by the military, and the book was revised and republished in 1912, which became the most widely-distributed version. The Master's School would soon close after the outbreak of the First World War, but when it was reopened in 1926 Pecoraro and Pessina's text was again chosen as the sabre textbook. The book was republished in 1927 in order to provide students with their own copies, but curiously Pecoraro was no longer listed as an author, and the introduction was removed.³

Although the 1912 edition did not address every issue Masiello had with it, he appears to have warmed to it slightly over time, calling it in a 1923 article 'a sabre treatise which, especially in the second edition, I will not hesitate to declare in many respects to be coherent and worthy of consideration.'⁴ Perhaps the highest praise that could be hoped for from such a man! The mostly minor differences between the 1910 and 1912 editions will be the topic of a future article, but the most important change to the later edition was a complete re-write of the introduction, making it explicit that the method was an attempt by the authors to reflect the reality of how sabre fencing was then being done, using a combination of Radaelli's elbow-focused blade carriage and Parise's body carriage.

Despite this compromise, the treatise is as Radaellian in character as any of the others, keeping the exercise molinelli as the foundation of instruction and even adding in six 'preliminary exercises' to ease students into the exercise molinelli with simpler, more relaxed movements. The text is complemented with 32 photographs; I am able to recognise the hairier of the two models as Francesco Innorta, and the bald one may perhaps be Salvatore Angelillo.

Those who wish to read the book in English should check out the excellent translation by Chris Holzman.

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1 Ferdinando Masiello, La Scherma di Sciabola: Osservazioni sul Trattato dei Maestri Pecoraro e Pessina, Vice-Direttori della Scuola Magistrale militare di Scherma (Florence: G. Ramella, 1910), 17.^↩
2 For Pagliuca's criticism, see Giovanni Pagliuca, "La scherma di sciabola di Pecoraro e Pessina," La Nazione, 7 October 1910, 2.^↩
3 Carlo Pessina, Scherma di Sciabola: trattato teorico pratico (per uso esclusivo della Scuola e fuori commercio) (Civitavecchia: Prem. Stab. Tip. Moderno, 1927).^↩
4 Ferdinando Masiello, "L'insegnamento della Scherma in Italia," La Scherma Italiana, 2 September 1923, 2.^↩

1889 Italian Cavalry Regulations

Having already made available the 1873 and 1885 editions of the Italian cavalry regulations, today I am pleased to present the first volume of the 1889 edition, with its slightly shortened title Regolamento di esercizi per la cavalleria.

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As it states on the title page and the notes on the following two pages, this version was explicitly 'experimental' due to the number and nature of the changes made to the previous 1885 version, the primary goal being to simplify the material and put it in a more logical order. While the first volume of the 1889 edition, containing the fencing material, is actually longer than the first volume of the 1885, the fencing material itself is indeed shortened slightly, reduced from 52 pages down to 48.

Like the previous edition, the fencing instruction of the 1889 regulations is heavily based on the Radaellian method, with Masaniello Parise's proposed cavalry sabre method having been rejected by a ministerial commission earlier the same year. In the years following, however, Parise's method would finally be approved for use in the cavalry with the help of Salvatore Pecoraro. Thus the 1889 cavalry regulations mark the last edition to feature Radaelli's method prior to the introduction of the Parise-Pecoraro method in 1891, which would remain in force until a more Radaellian-aligned method was reintroduced in 1912.

Compared to the previous version, the fencing instruction of the 1889 regulations gives less emphasis to the on-foot instruction and prioritises techniques that can be done as part of the come a cavallo or 'as if on horseback' part of training. Cut and thrust drills against a stuffed dummy are added to this section as well as paired drills between soldiers wearing masks and gloves. Slight changes to the positions can be seen for example in the guard position, which becomes a more retracted but still high 3rd, more resembling the first position for the thrust on horseback. A curious change is also found in the 'Principles and general rules', where instead of being told that the sabre should be wielded with a firm wrist, 'through movement of the forearm and never the hand' as in the 1885 edition, the 1889 regulations say to wield the sabre 'through movement of the forearm with the assistance of the hand.'

Due to the sheer number of pages in all three volumes of the regulations and the reduced relevance of the other material in relation to this blog, I have only provided scans of the first volume here. Nevertheless, if any researchers wish to read the second and third volumes (containing unit manoeuvres and accessory instructions, respectively), I would be more than happy to oblige.

Sportfechten by E. von Ciriacy-Wantrup

With 2022 drawing to a close, I thought I would end the year by sharing one last text from my collection. This curious 78-page book entitled Sportfechten ('Sport fencing') was published in Leipzig and Zürich, likely during the 1920s.

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Very little is known about the author of this book, E. von Ciriacy-Wantrup, and so far I have been unable to even determine his first name. What is known, however, is that he was an Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) serving in the 99th infantry regiment of the German army in 1909 and that he taught fencing at the Dresdner Fecht-Club and the Officer's Fencing Club.

Ciriacy-Wantrup (left) posing for the camera at the 1909 officer's tournament in Dresden.

Ciriacy-Wantrup's system is clearly Italian-derived, as exemplified by terminology such as 'Kavation ins Tempo'. The book is less a treatise and more a collection of general fencing advice about the various techniques. The advice is generally weapon-agnostic, although he dedicates about 10 pages to specific advice on the épée, which he says is 'undoubtedly the most difficult [kind of] fencing' and should only be taken up after mastering foil and sabre. Two of the six photos in the book feature the famous amateur champion and Olympian Erwin Casmir, with the captions stating that he was a student of Ciriacy-Wantrup at the time.

Throughout the text, the author emphasises that he values precision of execution over speed, especially in the early stages, which is reflected in his recommendation that students should have 'complete confidence' in their footwork before they are allowed to grip a weapon. These somewhat rigid views appear to be in response to what he observes as a general decline in interest for fencing in Germany at the time of publication.

Ciriacy-Wantrup (seated), 1914

Gustav Casmir's foil and sabre fencing

An advantage of studying the Radaellian lineage that I often emphasise is the number of treatises published by the graduates of Radaelli's fencing master's school and their students. In contrast, the comparatively few treatises penned by those who graduated from Parise's school (speaking here only of those who had not previously attended the Radaelli's Milan school) has resulted in some confusion and mystery surrounding the fencing those graduates would go on to teach during their careers. Choosing to deal with this broader topic at a later date, today I will instead share a 'mini-treatise' written not by one such graduate, but by his star pupil Gustav Casmir. The work in question is a well-illustrated 55-page article of his, simply entitled 'Fechten', which formed one chapter of the German sporting encyclopedia Das grosse illustrierte Sportbuch, likely published in 1908 or the latter half of 1907.¹

Scans  |  Transcription

Due to Casmir's association with a graduate of the Rome master's school, in this case Ettore Schiavoni, his short treatise is a critical data point in understanding what fencing methods the Italian military masters were propagating once they left the army and thus how closely they adhered to the officially-sanctioned method they had been taught.

The Work

As insinuated earlier, although I have called this work an article, its structure is much more similar to an average treatise of the time, despite its short length. Casmir begins with a historical summary of German fencing and a discussion of the health benefits of fencing, particularly for German youths. He then starts the technical material with foil, which appears to be largely based on Masaniello Parise's method.²

Some notable deviations from Parise's method, however, are first evident in the body carriage. Parise's slight rear-weightedness is not present here (perhaps even being slightly forward-weighted), and Casmir advocates full torso lean when lunging instead of Parise's fully upright body.

Casmir describes the same four traditional parries as Parise, but calls the half-circle parry Quint (5th), which was another common name for it among northern Italians,³ and although he prescribes parry of 3rd to be performed with the nails down like Parise, for the thrust by glide in 3rd he advises to supinate the hand during the arm extension. Further northern Italian influence is also apparent in his inclusion of the coupé and the counteraction, actions typically excluded in Neapolitan fencing. He finishes this section with 10 conventional exercises, which he recommends even advanced fencers to do every lesson.

Although the influence of Parise's method is clearly apparent in the foil section, Casmir's sabre section is instead predominantly Radaellian. He starts by describing the typical Radaellian grip (albeit with the photo showing the hand slightly further down than usual) and then immediately moves on to the six exercise molinelli, which are to be done standing upright and with the blade moved 'not from the wrist, but mainly from the elbow'. When speaking about the cuts a few pages later, he states that in order to ‘master the weapon completely’, the wrist must not be used at all, as the muscles used in wrist actions are weaker than those which move the forearm.

The two guards he describes as the most common are 2nd and 3rd, with the former being the usual Radaellian 2nd and the latter being a lower and more retracted 3rd, closer to Parise's. As a result of this retracted 3rd (and also retracted 4th), Casmir does not include separate low 3rd and low 4th parries/invitations, but still includes the other usual parries of 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th.

An interesting deviation from the other Radaellian authors can be seen in Casmir's section on cuts, where for the cut by molinello to the head he advises to add a slicing motion to the cut, either by drawing the arm slightly after making impact or doing the cut with a slightly bent arm and then extending it. Similarly, the cut to the abdomen is done with a drawing motion across the body before returning to guard.

Like for foil, Casmir also gives 10 example conventional exercises for sabre, which should be done with students divided into groups according to their skill level. After describing all the other actions such as glides, beats, counterattacks etc., the work is concluded with advice on bouting and rules for assigning blame in double touches.

Gustav Casmir

Born in Mikołajki, Poland, on 5 November 1872, Gustav Casmir began his adult life as a primary school teacher, first teaching in north-eastern Poland before later moving to Berlin. It was here in 1898, at the Berliner Fechtclub, that Casmir had his first exposure to fencing, learning under the recently immigrated Italian master Ettore Schiavoni. His late start to fencing appeared to matter little for his skill development, with his first competitive success taking place at a large international épée tournament in Ostend in 1904, finishing in 2nd place. Later that year he would be the only European to compete in the fencing event at the Olympic Games in St. Louis. Although he did not win any medals there, two years later he would take home two gold and two silver medals at the 1906 Athens Olympics.⁴

After his triumphant return to Germany Casmir became a fencing master, first acting as Schiavoni's assistant at the Berliner Fecht-Club then moving to Dresden the following year to teach at the Dresdner Fechtclub. Despite all this promise, however, Casmir tragically died of a 'serious brain disease' in late 1910 at the age of 38.

Ettore Schiavoni

With so many notable figures throughout the history of Italian fencing, it can often be tempting to make light of their physical appearances. Whether it be their immaculately moustache or their distinctive dress, for us these features can help to not just differentiate the many faces, but also humanise them. To his contemporaries, Ettore Schiavoni's most striking feature was without doubt his height. Standing at 190 cm tall, as he began gaining the attention of the Italian sporting press he would earn himself the affectionate nickname Sua Lunghezza (literally 'His Length' or 'His Longness'), a play on the typical royal honorific Sua Altezza ('His Highness').⁵ With the average male height in Italy at the time being less than 165 cm, it is easy to see how Schiavoni would have stood out from the crowd even before he started fencing.

But it was not just his physical appearance that made him worthy of note; at a tournament in city of Bergamo in 1897, Schiavoni's display of skill and courtesy made a great impression on journalist Roderico Rizzotti, who in his report on the tournament gave the following light-hearted and rather endearing praise for Schiavoni:

Exceptionally tall in person, a young man with handsome eyes and black moustache, affable and always courteous, Schiavoni immediately wins the sympathies of the spectators when he steps onto the piste. But what really endears him, aside from his indisputable merits as a fencer, are some of his brilliant and inimitable exclamations of apology which he bursts into when he thinks the thrust did not hit the target well. In these exclamations, in his 'low, sorry, or rather, passé, outside' or in his 'no no no no, not at all', said with dizzying speed and following all the tones of the musical scale, one senses such an instinct of generosity and chivalry and such an air of childishness to make one want to climb onto a chair to...shake his hand.

The amateur Francesco Galli, who is not only talented, but also a very witty young man, said that Schiavoni seemed to him like an elongated child. And indeed he is, in the flattering sense of the phrase.

Schiavoni is one of the few masters who does not make the jurors sweat blood when a pool is in progress; he is one of the few who can submit himself serenely and philosophically to the jury's verdicts, whatever they may be.

Although it may not seem like it, this is great praise we give to Schiavoni, and with it the hope that other masters will have to imitate his example.⁶

Born in the southern Italian city of Taranto, Schiavoni's towering height and build made him an obvious top choice for the grenadiers. Having achieved the rank of sergeant, he was accepted into the Military Fencing Master's School in September 1888, where he was a student of the great master-of-masters Carlo Pessina. After graduating in 1890, he served as the fencing master of the 1st grenadiers regiment for several years before being called back to the Master's School, this time as an instructor.⁷

Schiavoni with his young students, 1910

It would not be long, however, before he followed in the footsteps of many of his colleagues to find fame and fortune abroad. In late 1897 he left for Vienna, then a popular crossroads for Italian fencing masters thanks largely to the pioneering work of Luigi Barbasetti, before eventually making his way further north and settling in Berlin, finding employment at the Berliner Fechtclub from September 1898. Here Schiavoni would spend the rest of his career, taking under his wing many of the top German fencers of the time, including a young Erwin Casmir, future Olympic medallist and nephew of Gustav Casmir. Schiavoni died of a heart attack in Berlin on 30 July 1930, aged 62.⁸

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1 Das grosse illustrierte Sportbuch (Leipzig: J. J. Arnd, [1908?]). The proposed publication date is based on the fact that throughout several of the articles containing various sporting statistics and results, the last year to be included is 1907.^↩
2 Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884).^↩
3 cf. Settimo Del Frate, Istruzione per la scherma di punta (Milan: Gaetano Baroffio, 1872); Giordano Rossi, Manuale Teorico-Pratico per la Scherma di Spada e Sciabola (Milan: Fratelli Dumolard, 1885); Luigi Barbasetti, Das Stossfechten (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1900).^↩
4 Manlio, 'Il Torneo d'Ostenda', Gazzetta dello Sport, 12 August 1904; 'Casimir', Nemzeti Sport, 12 November 1910, 13; 'Allerlei', Sport im Bild, 18 November 1910, 1289-90.^↩
5 Some early examples of this nickname being used: La Gazzetta dello Sport, 9 December 1898, 2; Gaetano, 'Da Napoli: Accademia Nazionale', La Gazzetta dello Sport, 18 April 1900, 2. Regarding his height, see 'Sport: Santelli vivóakadémiája', Magyar Ujság, 25 December 1897, 8.^↩
6 Roderico Rizzotti, 'Ancora del Torneo di Bergamo', La Gazzetta dello Sport, 6 September 1897.^↩
7 Giovanni Corvetto, "Circolare N. 124. - Corso normale d'istruzione presso la scuola magistrale militare di scherma. - (Segretariato generale). - 16 agosto," Giornale Militare 1888: parte seconda, no. 38 (18 August 1888): 461; 'Tre Campioni della Scherma italiana', La Stampa Sportiva, 2 November 1902, 11; 'La scherma a Berlino', Il Littoriale, 13 October 1928, 3; 'La morte di un celebre schermitore della nostra Provincia', Voce del Popolo, 9 August 1930, 5.^↩
8 'Nécrologie', L'Escrime et le Tir, August 1930, 21.^↩