Binding the Sword

If the average fencer of today knows anything at all about the Italian foil, they likely also have at least a vague awareness of the leather wrist strap that it was so commonly used with. This wrist strap is, in essence, one path in a long development of fencers seeking to improve their ability to grip the weapon, a development which also led to modern anatomic or 'pistol' grips. The wrist strap can be considered more generally as a type of ligature, known in Italian as the legatura or legaccia/legaccio, terms which in English simply mean 'binding' or 'tie'.

The ligature took many forms throughout its development, originally as a handkerchief used to conveniently bind and protect the hand in a duel or fencing bout in place of a glove in the early 19th century. By the middle of the century the ligature was an item separate from the glove, consisting of only a ribbon or strip of fabric, and was a characteristic feature of the Neapolitan school of fencing. At the dawn of the 20th century, the ligature was a popular aid throughout the whole Italian peninsula, and more and more took the form of the aforementioned leather wrist strap, which was the final development until the decline of the Italian foil in the second half of the century.

Throughout both the 19th and 20th centuries, Italian fencers were described as having a greater reliance on force, athleticism, and explosiveness than their French counterparts, and their use of ligatures formed a key part of this perception. As we will see, fencers of the French school were also not opposed to the use of gripping aids on their weapons, but it is in Italy alone that we find the ligature to be so closely woven with the development of both the weapons and the systems it was used in. Thus in order to gain a fuller understanding of the history of modern Italian fencing and its ideological debates in the 19th century, we must also understand the ligature and what it meant for those who did and did not use it.

A makeshift glove

Like with many topics surrounding 19th century Italian fencing, the history of the ligature starts with Rosaroll and Grisetti's seminal 1803 treatise The Science of Fencing.¹ The two authors dedicate more than eight pages to ligatures, prefaced by a discussion on the benefits of wearing a glove, which not only protects the hand against the opponent's sword, but also allows the fencer (or soldier) to grip their own sword more firmly. Rosaroll and Grisetti's binding method is able to effectively substitute the glove as they recommend using a regular handkerchief (It. fazzoletto), 'which every man carries in his pocket'.² The convenience of this everyday object is the main reason why they prefer handkerchiefs to bands or ribbons specifically designed to be sword ligatures. In addition to reducing fatigue and wear on the hand, particularly the middle and index fingers, they also appreciate the protection ligatures provide against disarmament, whether in battle, a duel or a fencing bout. In this respect the ligature is also a substitute for the sword knot, which was commonly used by soldiers but less likely to be found on duelling and fencing swords. The method they describe for binding the sword with a handkerchief is as follows:

Take the handkerchief by opposite corners, and keeping it almost outstretched, rotate it quickly by winding around its length so that when twisted it merely represents the diagonal of a square that it represented when unfolded. This done, let go of the corner you were holding in the left hand, holding the handkerchief in the right by the opposite corner with the ends of the thumb and middle finger. Then with the left hand wind it twice, to the outside of the fingers, around the index and middle fingers, specifically over the joints that are inserted into the ricasso of the sword. Then pass it between the middle and ring fingers, and through the inside of the latter and the little finger it shall be left hanging from the hand. Then grip the sword in the described manner (§ 40) and wind the handkerchief over the outside of the hand towards the top, so that it covers the joints of the fingers to the hand, except for the thumb, and on meeting the outside arch, pass it through there, and after tightening it strongly, cover the joint of the thumb and hand. Then wind it from inside to outside around the wrist twice, strongly tightening the grip and wrist together, always making sure to leave the pommel free. Finally, passing the handkerchief back over the hand, tie it securely to the part of the crossguard between the middle finger and the inside arch, winding it around there two or three times.³

The typical pocket handkerchiefs of today are nowhere near large enough to follow this method, and based on my own experimentation you need a handkerchief with a diagonal length of at least 100 cm (i.e. a square cloth with sides 70 cm long). For the purpose of demonstration, in the video below I give my own interpretation of Rosaroll and Grisetti's method using two 50 x 50 cm handkerchiefs tied together at the corners.

The most common feature of this and all subsequent ligatures is how they reduce the strain felt most strongly by the ring and little fingers, which for most people are too short to full enclose the straight handle on a traditional Italian foil. By securing the first two fingers and the pommel, the job of keeping the grip in line with the wrist no longer relies on the two weakest fingers of the hand. Importantly though, the firmness of the ligature should not overly hinder the movement of the sword, thus Rosaroll and Grisetti, as well as most subsequent authors, make sure to note that the handkerchief ligature should not cover or constrain the pommel of the sword. Aside from the detriments to the hand's mobility if the pommel is covered, doing so also reduces the efficacy of pommel strikes in close-measure grappling, which is something Rosaroll and Grisetti spend much time discussing but is generally forbidden in bouting by the mid-19th century (indeed if it ever was typically allowed).⁴

The two authors then go on to describe an additional type of ligature which they call a laccio, related to the English words 'lace' and 'lasso'; this is much less a way of fixing the hand to the sword as it is a way to make a simple sword knot using a silk lace around 8 palmi long (a bit over 200 cm). One end of the lace is fastened to the pommel, and the rest is formed into small rings, probably what is referred to in English as a sinnet knot, as Chris Holzman has suggested.⁵ After enough of the lace has been turned into links, a final noose is formed and tightened around the wrist, and the little finger is inserted into the last sinnet link to prevent the whole laccio from unravelling.⁶

Returning to the handkerchief methods, three decades later Sicilian master Blasco Florio gives his own modified version of Rosaroll and Grisetti's method in an effort to distribute the handkerchief more evenly across the hand and keep it tight for an extended period of time:

The fencer spreads the handkerchief out and holds it by one of its corners between the last two phalanges of the thumb and index finger; passing it from inside to outside over the last joint of the ring finger, leave it hanging there. Then winding it tightly from outside to inside around the middle and index fingers, at the same time separating the thumb so that only said index and middle fingers are in contact and covered, let it drop into the original position, but making sure to fold in the sides so that it ends up like a band. With this done, pass it along the inside of the middle and ring fingers, leaving it hanging all the same. In this manner, grip the sword as described in § 19, and by winding the handkerchief to the outside, pass it over the index and middle fingers, entering the outside arch and passing diagonally over the end of the middle finger, the third phalanx of the ring and little fingers, and bind them such that these parts should be covered and compressed with the handle. Continuing to turn the handkerchief, wind it around the wrist, still from outside to inside, but leaving the pommel free. Still tightening, pass it diagonally over the outside of the hand so that one side touches the outside quillon, so that the hand is fully covered and bound. If the handkerchief is long, then turn it once more around the thumb, index, and middle fingers, and then wind the end of it twice or thrice around the inside quillon, fastening it from outside to inside in such a way that it cannot become loose. Note that the corners of the handkerchief, which at the beginning of the binding were folded, should always remain this way.⁷

Two years after Florio's work, Niccolò Abbondati describes a method very similar to Rosaroll and Grisetti's, but now the handkerchief ligature is in addition to the glove:

This is achieved by means of a handkerchief which, held by opposite corners, is rotated along its length, so that it represents a band on the diagonal of the square that it made when unfolded. With this prepared, one of the ends is used to wrap and tighten the index and middle fingers of the right hand together, winding it twice from inside to outside; insert it between the middle and ring fingers; pass it between the latter and the little finger, and grip the sword as described in no. 1080. After this, the handkerchief is wound around the outside of the hand; insert it into the outside arch, and while freeing the thumb it is made to come diagonally over the end of the middle finger and the last phalanges of the ring and little fingers, which should end up covered and well compressed to the handle. From there it is brought to tighten the wrist, winding around this and the handle twice, leaving the pommel free; return to the back of the hand, which one should try to cover entirely, and wind the end of it around the thumb so that the ligature stays firm and is not subject to loosening.⁸

Despite the close association that ligatures would have with Italian fencing later on in the century, the custom of binding the hand with a handkerchief was also familiar to the French, as evidenced by the popular French duelling code by the Comte de Chatauvillard:

9. The handkerchief with which the combattant wraps their hand must not hang down; the opponent’s seconds, after making them aware, may enjoin them to remove it and make use of only a cord.

10. If it was agreed to wear fencing gloves, either one of the fencers can use it in the case the other refuses. But if only one was brought, neither should have this advantage.⁹

There is also something to be said for the martingale or leather loop that is attached between the guard and grip of a French foil. In essence a simplified ligature, it may have been used by some French fencers since at least the 18th century (see below). Alberto Marchionni was quite familiar with French fencing, having spent some time in France around the year 1830, and yet, according to his 1847 treatise, while '[i]n the Neapolitan school the way in which the foil is bound to the hand is considered essential', the French, on the other hand, 'do not make use of a band'. As a middle ground between Marchionni's perceptions of these two schools, he advocated for his own type of laccio, which he describes as follows:

To avoid both extremes, I thought it better to put into practice in my school a simple tape 80 cm long. The two ends sewn together represent the sword-knot. To put it into practice one only has to insert the middle finger into it, then pass it over the index finger—this is of course once one has gripped the sword or foil, whatever one wishes to call it—and then over the grip, leaving the thumb free, and then one continues to pass it always doubled between the middle and ring fingers, repeating the same turn around the aforementioned fingers and the grip, and finishing by fixing the other end to the middle finger that one started from. (See plate A, fig. 5).¹⁰

Marchionni's enlightening depiction of the laccio

The stated benefit of this type of ligature is that it provides some support to the wielder while still allowing them to easily play in close measure, something which the Neapolitan style of ligature makes very difficult.¹¹ This ideology behind Marchionni's ligature is perfectly in keeping with the fencing system he was advocating, the 'mixed school', which argued that the most effective fencing method can be found by appropriately adopting various aspects of both the French and traditional Italian methods.¹²

In the following few decades detailed descriptions of Italian sword ligatures are difficult to find, with little more than passing mentions. By the time ligatures are again being discussed in a fencing context, the handkerchief is almost never mentioned, having ceded its place to specialised ribbons and straps. The reasons why the traditional handkerchief ligature fell out of favour are yet unclear. The transition to other materials may have coincided with other developments in fencing equipment, such as specialised fencing gloves, which would render the protection provided by the handkerchief superfluous. The shift may also have simply coincided with a change in men's fashion, in that it became less common to carry around a large handkerchief. As this lies well outside my expertise and the scope of this article, I shall say only that more research on this area is needed.

Specialisation of the ligature

Although specialised ligatures were known to Rosaroll and Grisetti right at the beginning of the 19th century (see above), handkerchiefs were more easily able to protect the weapon hand in lieu of a glove. Handkerchiefs saw continued use in duels throughout the 19th century, and they were still mentioned in duelling codes well into the 20th century.¹³ The duelling codes of Alberto Marchionni and Cesare Enrichetti, published in 1863 and Luigi De Rosis, published 1868, allow duellists to make use of a fencing glove and to additionally bind the sword with a handkerchief, whether they are using swords or sabres.¹⁴ While the latter author mentions the ligature as an alternative to the handkerchief, Achille Angelini considered the former as an addition to a fencing glove or handkerchief wrapped around the wrist, and only permissible 'in exceptional circumstances' and when both parties agree.¹⁵

Within a pure fencing context, however, the protection afforded by a handkerchief was likely not as valuable when a proper fencing glove was easily at hand, resulting in a rise in the popularity of ligatures using ribbon, fabric tape or string. An early and unambiguous reference to a specialised ligature for use in fencing is given by the French amateur the Baron de Bazancourt. This author describes his experience fencing the Neapolitan master Luigi Parise, who when fencing would typically use a dagger in his left hand or the hand itself to parry his opponent's sword. As a response to French fencers who argued they should be able to parry with the left hand (as it was customary among fencers of 'the old Italian school' such as Parise), Bazancourt responds with the challenge that 'you should admit all the precepts of that school, and then you will at least be logical.' According to him, the typical Italian fencer equips themselves like so:

Your sword will have a long heavy blade, broad and perfectly rigid; the hilt will be surmounted by a little cross-bar of steel on which you will place your fingers, and to which you will attach them with a long ribbon; incidentally you will do away with the freedom of the hand, the supple action of the wrist and the niceties of finger play.¹⁶

Given that Luigi Parise was imprisoned following the revolutions of 1848, where he subsequently died, Bazancourt's account shows that specialised ligatures were considered typical (at least for Neapolitans) since at least the 1840s.¹⁷ It is not until the 1880s, however, that we find the only detailed descriptions of making the ligature with a ribbon or cloth band. By far the most useful descriptions coincidentally come from Luigi Parise's more famous nephew, Masaniello, who provides us with three variations:

They once used the silk handkerchief which was worn on the collar like a cravat. Later they introduced the use of narrow bands of fabric, a metre and a half long, folded at one end to make a ring, into which the one may insert the index finger, or as others do, the middle finger.
Having done this, and gripped the sword in the manner described in § 4, the ligature is passed between the ring and middle fingers, and continuing over the handle, one winds it in a spiral direction around the back of the hand and wraps it around the wrist once, passing under the pommel, and above for the other times; after this, one returns to the handle on the inside of the hand and inserts it into the right arch, going back into there a second time by passing between the middle and ring fingers, so as to render the sword secure in the hand.
What is left of the end of the ligature is wound around the little finger, passing to the outside of the four fingers.
Many fencers use the ligature in this manner in order to not waste a lot of time freeing the sword; but others prefer to do the inverse: that is, after inserting the index or middle finger into the ring of the ligature, they grip the sword and start binding it by passing it into the right arch twice, and then over the back of the hand, the wrist, etc.
There is a third method which is also good. The pommel of the sword is inserted into the ring of the ligature; this is then passed around the wrist several times to keep the pommel fixed; then it is passed twice into the right arch, and the rest is wound around the little finger.
Whichever of the three methods one binds the sword with, the result will be the same.¹⁸

Aside from protecting against disarmament, Parise states that the ligature reduces hand fatigue, allows for more strength to be employed in attacks and parries, gives more suppleness to the muscles of the hand and arm, and also provides slightly more protection to the hand and wrist. Just four years after Parise we find another description of a ligature, here from Sicilian master Antonino Guglielmo:

First of all, you must equip yourself with a [ribbon?] two metres long, wind it twice around the index finger, and turn it around the hand until the fingers are covered with seven parts of it, the rest is tied to the outside arch. Secondly, you should note that this ligature should leave all the muscles of the hand free such that, in tightening it, movement is not impeded, and the hand does not go numb. Thirdly, take care not to bind and cover the pommel of the sword, otherwise it will not be possible to articulate the feints.¹⁹

It appears that the intention behind Guglielmo's method is to more or less cover the hand with the ligature, thus a wider and thinner ribbon would likely achieve a better result than what my video demonstrates. Given that both Parise and Guglielmo only mention the required length of the ligature, the material, its thickness, and its width were likely a matter of personal preference and were dependent on what was easily available.

Armed with these and likely many other methods, Italian fencers soon began travelling the Western World, dazzling crowds from Chicago to St. Petersburg. The Italian foil and of course the ligature were common points of fascination for many, as seen in one New York Times article from 1886 describing a newly arrived Neapolitan fencer:

Signor Enrico Casella, a distinguished Italian swordsman, has arrived in New-York. He fences in very handsome style according to the fashion of Naples, of which city he is a native. The Neapolitan fencers have retained certain old methods, which have gone out in France and elsewhere in Italy, of binding the hand securely to the handle of the foil, using for that purpose a long tape or a handkerchief. Signor Casella uses a foil no longer in the blade than the French masters, differing in that from the old Neapolitan school, but his weapon has a bell-shaped guard and a transverse bar underneath it, upon which the first two fingers close. The foil and the arm become one piece, and it becomes impossible to perform on him the tricks of disarming which some fencers enjoy.²⁰

The clearest image of a ligature I have found so far is a photo on Gallica of Aurelio Greco in 1913, seen below, in which a dark, slightly glossy ribbon roughly 15 to 20 mm wide can be seen running from crossguard of the foil and over Aurelio's wrist. Mimiague on the right also has a martingale mounted on his French foil.

One other (less clear) photo from 1901 shows Athos di San Malato holding an early Italian épée with what looks to be a simple string binding his hand to the weapon. The ligature is less commonly seen on épées during the 20th century, partly because for this weapon in particular many Italians preferred the French grip over the Italian.

While ribbon and string ligatures continue to appear occasionally throughout the first half of the 20th century, the last somewhat useful description comes in 1929 from the Argentinian master Horacio Levene, who characterised it more as an outdated method belonging to previous generations of fencers:

Gradually, the custom of strongly tying the weapon to the hand has been lost, with long strips of cloth which, after gripping the crossguard, secured the fingers, passing over the hand and finished by being wound a few times around the wrist or going back to the hand, causing the rest to disappear between the fingers, etc.
With the ligature it is possible to grip the sword with more force, to better secure the weapon to the hand, and to consequently give greater control and resistance to the parries.
Among the usual ligatures, there was one which, taking the pommel with the long strip, was wrapped around the wrist, and passing over the hand and taking one side of the crossguard, the excess is lost by wrapping the index finger in the hollow of the hand.²¹

Levene then goes on to describe the type of ligature that had become more popular by that point and remained so for the rest of the Italian foil's reign on the international stage: the leather wrist strap. Before we examine this final development, however, it is worth taking a closer look at how ligatures were perceived in Italy and the divisive debates around when, if at all, they should be used.

An object of scorn

Even before the particularly heated ideological debates which characterise the last few decades of the 19th century, the question of to bind or not to bind was divisive. For some the ligature symbolised the preservation of pure Italian fencing in the face of foreign, predominantly French, influence; for others, binding the sword was at best unnecessary and at worst a pernicious vice.

The sword method of Genoese master Paolo De Scalzi, writing in the middle of the 19th century, shows much in common with the traditional southern Italian masters; his comments regarding the ligature, on the other hand, are more in line with the views of Alberto Marchionni and the mixed school, which we touched on earlier. De Scalzi explicitly calls out Rosaroll and Grisetti for their preoccupation with the ligature, remarking that 'even the most renowned men can sometimes stumble!'. In his view, students should not become accustomed to using a ligature in case they find themselves in a situation where using it is impracticable, such as in combat. He does however advocate the use of sword knots, as they allow the wielder to quickly release the weapon from the hand.²² Aside from what we have seen so far, most Italian authors outside the southern provinces are remarkably silent on the ligature until later in the century, which could be an indication of its rarity in day-to-day practice there.

Luigi Zangheri, a fencing master who taught in Bologna, also advocated using an Italian foil without a ligature. Mounted with a blade shorter than that advocated by the Neapolitans, this allowed him and his students to execute certain 'French' techniques that a ligature renders difficult or impossible, such as an angulated parry of 1st or the coupé in close measure. The fencing method he taught was otherwise relatively traditional, identifiable with what most Neapolitans were teaching, and yet his opposition to using ligatures would eventually, after his death, lead his pedagogical descendants to sympathise more at times with the mixed school, although never quite identifying themselves as members of it. Zangheri's most famous student, Cesare Enrichetti, ensured that this tradition continued to flourish for the rest of the century.²³ With these two traditions predominating in Northern Italy—Zangheri's school and the mixed school proper—the ligature retained its Neapolitan association and the scepticism of Northern Italians.

Following Italian unification, the government began a programme of training its own fencing masters for the army as part of a greater military reform process. One unintended consequence of this was that the ideological grievances between the various fencing systems that existed in Italy took on a more national importance, as the system that the Ministry of War selected to be propagated among the soldiers of Italy would earn the right to truly be called 'Italian'. From 1874 the sole method officially sanctioned by the Italian military was the method of Giuseppe Radaelli, who taught foil fencing according to the 'half-Italian' or mixed school.²⁴

Two mixed-school foils from the Agorà della Scherma in Busto Arsizio.

As the young military fencing masters graduating from Radaelli's school became more numerous and prominent in the national fencing scene, advocates of the Neapolitan school became increasingly vocal in their disapproval of Radaelli's system, which they characterised as neither French nor Italian.²⁵ With the death of Radaelli in 1882, the opportunity presented itself for the Ministry of War to look for a new, more 'Italian' method; as chance would have it, the fencing treatise that was eventually selected by the commission to be the new official textbook for Italian fencing was that of Neapolitan master Masaniello Parise.²⁶

When this treatise was published in 1884, a report on the commission's deliberations was included in the book, in which we read that there had been a particularly 'lively disagreement' around the topic of the ligature. Since the form of the weapon was by now, in the minds of many, inextricably linked to the fencing method itself, very early in the commission's deliberations (indeed before even looking at any of the treatises submitted to the competition) the members all came to the agreement that only the Neapolitan foil had the right to be considered a 'real sword', and thus since the Neapolitan foil had been selected, it was only logical that a Neapolitan method also be chosen.²⁷

In their fervent effort to maximise the apparent Italianness of the official fencing method, the members of the commission made the Neapolitan foil inviolable; thus when some of the other submissions provide possible modifications to the grip, such as that offered by Giordano Rossi's curved handle, they are all strongly rejected.²⁸ By removing the possibility of modifying the weapon, many in the commission then felt it was necessary that use of the ligature be made a foundational aspect to the instruction of foil fencing, with some even going so far as to claim that 'without the ligature, a Neapolitan fencer suffers to the point of no longer being themselves at all.'²⁹

A comparison of the traditional Italian grip (left) with Rossi's curved grip (right). Note the ability for the last two fingers to obtain a better purchase on the handle.

Although the commission eventually settled on a compromise of omitting ligatures in the early stages of training, leaving it to individual choice once students begin bouting, the association of the ligature with the Neapolitan-cum-Italian foil remained a contentious issue, particularly for the recently defeated Radaellian camp. The Radaellians were able to recognise that continued use of the mixed foil had become untenable in the nationalist fervour of 1880s fencing discourse, and thus its most prominent representatives also by-and-large switched to using the traditional Italian foil. What they would not concede, however, was that use of a ligature was at all necessary. Instead of focusing on the 'half-Italian' school of their master, Radaellians often chose to amplify the Zangheri tradition, which through Enrichetti's students had become interwoven with the development of Radaellian fencing.³⁰ The most famous representative of his Radaelli-Enrichetti merger was Ferdinando Masiello, who openly acknowledged the flaws of his colleagues in the early years, but maintained that it was they who bore the torch of progress in Italy, and not the traditionalist Neapolitans:

Please forgive us, classicists of the ligature and of weakness, enemies of the coupé and precision—our flaws are mere blemishes; and our system was already greatly superior technically and practically to [the Neapolitan].³¹

Radaellian master Salvatore Arista echoed Masiello's associating the ligature with weakness, and also tapped into this renovated Radaelli-Enrichetti brand. In 1888 he observed how the Neapolitans insisted on adhering to tradition for the sake of tradition, thereby 'sacrificing efficacy for custom and elegance' predominately through their use of the ligature, which he considered 'a convenient but also effeminate habit'.³² Despite continued Radaellian backlash and the desire of some in the community to ban ligatures altogether from tournaments, their use was spreading.³³ The influence of Neapolitan master Masaniello Parise at the Rome Fencing Master's School likely played a large part in increasing general acceptance for the ligature in Italy, and eventually the act of binding the sword ceased to be seen as a purely Neapolitan custom, becoming simply Italian.

By the start of the 20th century the ligature was no longer an object which prompted heated debate, even if the stance of the Radaelli-Enrichetti faction had not wavered. In 1907 one member of this camp was still repeating the line taken by his colleagues 20 years ago in calling the ligature 'a manifest effeminacy' which permanently inhibits a student's progression in fencing.³⁴ Nevertheless, this was now the minority position. Around the same time as these remarks, a Milanese author expressed their disappointment that Rossi's modified grip was not better appreciated by their fellow fencers, and was compelled to acknowledge that 'most fencers, even famous ones, secure the foil to the wrist with a leather strap or ligature'.³⁵

The shift to straps and gradual decline

Much as the handkerchief made way for the ligature with a ribbon or cord, this in turn diminished in popularity in favour of the leather wrist strap or 'belt' (It. cinturino or cinghietto). Again it is difficult to say when it appeared on the scene, as few sources make a clear distinction in terminology between it and the regular ribbon ligature. In the aforementioned commission report contained in Masaniello Parise's 1884 treatise, there is mention of a 'ring for threading to the wrist' as a less involved ligature method, which may be referring to an early type of wrist strap.³⁶ There are several more hints such as these from the 1890s, especially as foreign commentators begin taking more notice of Italian fencing.

In 1894 the public of New York had the rare opportunity to witness a masterclass of Italian fencing as represented by masters Carlo Pessina, Agesilao Greco, and Eugenio Pini. Among the many comparisons the reporter makes between these 'flamboyant' Italians and the classical French school, which Americans were more accustomed to, he makes a note of the peculiar way they used their foils and the various ways they were bound:

Observe the foils of the Italians. Although they have given up almost everywhere the very long foil, direct descendant of the old long rapier, they still cling to the bell-shaped guard and crossbar underneath. Over this bar they hook the index finger. Not content with the solidity of grasp thus gained, they still resort to the ribbon or strap to fasten the hilt to the hand. In Naples some fencers bandage the hand to the sword grasp before a bout with as much care and ceremony as a Hindoo binds his turban round his head. The roving masters did not always use the strap or ribbon in New York; but sometimes, if about to fence with a muscular man, they passed a strap round the wrist and the lower part of the handle.³⁷

Even if this 'strap' here is not the same as the specialised item that was so prevalent in subsequent decades, it is easy to see how the more elaborate binding methods could be simplified for the sake of expediency and be limited to only fastening the lower end of the grip to the wrist.³⁸ A clearer example is found in the treatise of Austrian master Gustav Ristow, who differentiates the traditional ligature methods and wrist straps and touches on the debates we saw in the previous section:

Binding the foil is an antiquated practice that is still prevalent in Southern Italy especially; it is done by means of a strap (Riemen) or band in various ways, more or less simple, but always with the aim of maintaining lightness in gripping the foil and preventing cramping like fatigue in the fingers.
Opinions with regard to binding the foil are divided; we declare ourselves opposed to it, since it causes considerable disadvantages as a mechanical aid in place of the spontaneous and natural gripping method, but we would recommend the use of a simple strap around the wrist and the upper end of the grip for the purpose of avoiding an excessive displacement of the point from the line in certain exchanges in the bout.³⁹

A reduced focus on the more involved ribbon ligatures may also be reflected in a German translation of Masaniello Parise's treatise, carried out by Jacob Erkrath-De Bary and Arturo Gazzera. The latter was a graduate of Parise's Military Fencing Master's School, but instead of accurately translating Parise's detailed methods of using a ligature, this section is condensed to barely more than a footnote, stating that there are 'a number of ways to bind the foil', and that while the method using a metre and a half of ribbon is common in Italy, 'more and more they are being replaced by a small strap (Riemchen), which is fastened around the wrist and over the pommel of the foil.'⁴⁰

Maestro Francesco Tagliabò assists Helene Mayer with her wrist strap. Observing on the right is Erwin Casmir.

As with the move from handkerchiefs to ribbons, it is difficult to pinpoint why the wrist strap gained more favour among Italian fencers when it did. Intuitively, the wrist strap is much less hassle to deal with in between bouts: the strap only needs to be put on at the start of training and removed at the end, whereas the ligature has to be tied and untied after each bout. A simple strap also requires little explanation for a beginner to use immediately, while the ribbon methods can look quite daunting to the uninitiated. Particularly for those who had only recently been introduced to the Italian foil, such as those outside Italy, the wrist strap may have helped reduce the barrier to entry for newcomers (not to mention children). A change in general training habits and the increasing frequency of competitions may have also played a part here; again, more research is needed.

Nevertheless, a focus on binding only at the wrist seems to have been enough for many, as the strap gradually emerged as the more popular option early in the 20th century. Although I consider the wrist strap as merely a subtype of the ligature, it must be noted that sources generally differentiate between the two, with 'ligature' referring only to a loose ribbon that is wrapped around the hand and/or pommel, while the wrist strap served to secure the pommel alone. So in contrast to the earliest handkerchief bindings (and even some later ligature methods which allow the pommel to remain free, to varying degrees), depending on its exact form the wrist strap can cover and restrict much of the pommel's movement. The uptake of straps can therefore be seen as the third evolution in the function Italian and Italianate fencers expected from their ligatures.

The famous Aldo Nadi demonstrates in his writings how reliance on the wrist strap could make it as much a part of how the Italian foil was wielded as its rings and crossguard were. In his 1948 treatise On Fencing he writes for an American audience who, if they had any knowledge about foil fencing, would have been far more familiar with the French school. Thus he not only provides the most detailed advice of any author so far on how to wear a wrist strap, but refers to the strap several times throughout the book in a way that makes it an almost integral part of his fencing method. He notes at various points how the wrist strap plays a prominent role in multiplying the strength of the hand, as utilised most often in beats and parries:

The handle is bound to the wrist by a leather strap about one inch wide which insures a strength and firmness of grip that simply cannot exist in the French foil. More important, it lightens the burden of the fingers, thus permitting most of their effort to be employed in directing the point (offense). Furthermore, the strap increases effectively the power of the parry (defense).⁴¹

Aldo Nadi (left) with his wrist strap poses with Philippe Cattiau (right)

Nadi provides the helpful suggestion that the wrist should be wrapped 'with a strip of thin linen about one yard long and three inches wide', tight enough to be snug but not cutting off blood circulation, which mitigates the abrasion caused by the pressure of the strap. For the same purpose Giorgio Rastelli recommends moistened gauze and William Gaugler an elastic bandage.⁴² Nadi continues to say that the strap should be tightened snugly over the glove, as close to the hand as possible, but without impeding any movement. Once the pommel is inserted through the strap, it should protrude by 'no less than three-quarters of an inch, and no more than one inch.' Despite the point of contact being localised to the pommel, Nadi considered the wrist strap method to be far superior to some ligature methods in terms of allowing pommel movement:

Some of our fencers prefer to bandage the wrist, the whole handle and pommel tightly together, outside the glove, as a substitute for the strap. Thus, they almost completely prevent the free movement of the pommel. As this freedom is essential in practically all fencing actions, I forbid this way of securing the weapon to the hand.⁴³

I must thank Christopher Holzman for his assistance in explaining how to use this strap in the intended manner. The style of strap used in the above video is still sold through Uhlmann Fencing, but photos and catalogues show simpler versions being used throughout the 20th century where the pommel is merely placed under the strap rather than through a loop. After the invention of velcro in the 50s, this material was also used by some manufacturers to make wrist straps.

From the 1975 Santelli Fencing Equipment catalogue. Velcro wrist straps of various colours are shown on the left page, in the photograph labelled 80V. (Source: Fencing Arms & Artifacts)

Despite the strong preference for straps voiced by some authors, the traditional ribbon ligature remained in use for most of the century, at least as long as the Italian foil was still used competitively. In the footage below, Olympic medalist Aldo Aureggi can be seen untying a ligature after his bout with Renzo Nostini (from the 5:00 timestamp). The latter was also known to use a cloth ligature in competitions, being described as being a metre long, 1.5 cm wide, and which he 'passed between index finger and the palm of the hand, tying it around the pommel'.⁴⁴

Nostini (left) with his foil ligature still attached after a bout with Edoardo Mangiarotti (centre).

Maestro Giancarlo Toràn of Busto Arsizio recalls the twilight period of the Italian foil as he experienced it in the 1970s:

As for me, I used the leather strap, as many did, during the period I was competing as an amateur, from 1969 to 1975, and after. Later (after about 10 years, more or less) it was banned. In the same period the Italian foil (with the crossguard) was dying out. But there were still fencers who utilised it: some with a strap, others with a long ribbon which they wound around the wrist in various ways.⁴⁵

Toràn believes that it is possible some high-level fencers were still using ligatures in the 80s, but by then it was certainly extremely rare. Over the several decades of overlap between the invention of anatomic grips and the use of wrist straps, it is even possible to spot instances where both an anatomic grip and a wrist strap are used. This seems to have been more common in épée than foil, simply because anatomic grips were more commonly accepted for the former weapon, at least in Italy, than for the latter.⁴⁶

Today the wrist strap lives on in some niches of classical fencing, but the ultimate aim of ligatures is largely fulfilled in the design of modern anatomic grips. While this marks the end of the Italian sword ligature, before concluding I will give an appendix of sorts for another aspect to sword bindings that is often overlooked, which is their application for French foils.

French ligatures

Given the various methods of sword binding we have seen used on the Italian peninsula, it should not be surprising that similar expedients were not confined by political boundaries. Although not typically referred to as ligatures, the use by French foilists of martingales and thongs should be considered in the same category. As we saw earlier, using a handkerchief to wrap the hand was likely customary among some French duellists in the first half of the 19th century. A 'cord' is given as the alternative to a handkerchief binding in the Comte de Chatauvillard's duelling code (see quote above), suggesting that other methods of securing the sword to the fencer's body were widely known.

The martingale is the most common type of ligature associated with French foils today. Fencing master Gomard in his 1845 foil treatise traces the origins of martingale use in fencing halls to the late 18th century, specifically due to the talents of one Comte de Bondy, a talented fencer who in the 1790s was considered in the same class as the famous Chevalier de Saint-Georges. De Bondy was able to parry with such force that his opponents had to begin using martingales when fencing him to prevent their foil colliding with spectators when disarmed. The martingale which Gomard describes, 'a small silk or cord strap' attached to the guard of the foil, would still be familiar to many fencers today, although leather is more commonly seen in the 20th century.⁴⁷

Two roughly mid-19th century French foils equipped with leather guards and martingales. From the Agorà della Scherma in Busto Arsizio.

The popularity of the martingale received an artificial boost in the Olympic era after the foundation of the International Fencing Federation, who since at least the 1930s mandated the use of a martingale when the foil was not otherwise attached to the hand.⁴⁸ Italian ligatures and wrist straps would already satisfy this requirement, so the Federation's rule may have in fact further entrenched the traditional Italian binding methods as well as the French.

While not providing much protection against the grip coming loose from the hand, by preventing disarms the martingale is closer to the sword knot in its utility, but some additional leverage can still be produced in forceful blade actions. The martingale may be long enough to only permit the first two fingers to be inserted, or it may even allow all four fingers to be wrapped, as in the example below.⁴⁹

One alternative that some fencers made use of to satisfy the FIE's requirements is what Albert Manley called the 'thong'. This is a simple loop of cord separate from the foil that is placed over the grip in the palm of the hand, thus achieving a similar purpose to the martingale.⁵⁰

When foil scoring was electrified in the 1950s, the body wire which attaches to the guard was considered a sufficient alternative to the martingale or thong, and this would no doubt have reduced their popularity. The French grip eventually suffered a similar fate as the Italian grip, at least at the top competitive levels, and declined in use in the second half of the century; yet unlike the Italian grip it is still found in many, if not most, clubs around the world today due to its versatility and ease of use, at least in the early stages of training. While martingales and thongs of the French foil did not have the distinctive influence on the weapon's progression that we have seen with the Italian foil, their basic functionality rightly places them in the category of ligatures.

Conclusion

Among the many distinguishing features of Italian foil fencing, the widespread use of ligatures is one of its more curious and unique developments. From its somewhat humble origin as an ersatz glove in the first half of the 19th century, the ligature soon differentiated itself to become an essential piece of the Neapolitan arsenal by the 1840s. Those who used the ligature lauded its ability to amplify the virtues of the Neapolitan sword and the fencer themselves, while its opponents saw it as a marker of weakness, as a tacit acknowledgement of the weapon's flaws, and the result of stubborn traditionalism. By the time the ligature reached its final and most popular form in the wrist strap at the turn of the 20th century, the practice of binding the foil was closely linked with Italian fencing as a whole.

So ingrained and clearly beneficial was the ligature to its users that it saw the Italian foil be preferred even above anatomic grips for many decades, only seeing clear decline after the weapon's electrification in the 1950s. Throughout this whole time in which Italian ligatures were in use, French fencers also found it convenient to secure the foil to the hand; when attachments were mandated for foil in the 20th century, ligatures became an everyday object even for French foilists. It is then somewhat remarkable how quickly this simple tool disappeared from fencing halls. If anything, this demonstrates that the practicality of anatomic grips, at least with respect to the foil, addresses the same aim that was sought after in the ligature. Perhaps it could be said that the final, true successor to the foil ligature is in fact the anatomic grip.

*******

1 Giuseppe Rosaroll-Scorza and Pietro Grisetti, La scienza della scherma (Milan: Stamperia Del Giornale Italico, 1803).^↩
2 Ibid., 34. It is possible that these authors also had in mind the silk cravat commonly worn around the neck at the time.^↩
3 Ibid., 34–5.^↩
4 See Blasco Florio, La scienza della scherma (Catania: Tipografia del R. Ospizio di Beneficienza, 1844), 129–32; Benedetto Sernicoli, Breve e succinta istruzione intorno alla scherma per uso della guardia civica (Rome: Tipografia Monaldi, 1847), 25.^↩
5 Christopher Holzman, introduction to The Science of Fencing, by Giuseppe Rosaroll-Scorza and Pietro Grisetti, trans. Christopher Holzman (Wichita, KS: self-pub., 2018), xxvii–xxxviii.^↩
6 Rosaroll-Scorza and Grisetti, Scienza della scherma, 36–8.^↩
7 Florio, Scienza della scherma, 82–3.^↩
8 Niccolò Abbondati, Istituzione di arte ginnastica per le truppe di fanteria di S. M. Siciliana (Naples: Reale Tipografia Militare, 1846), 227–8.^↩
9 Comte de Chatauvillard, Essai sur le duel (Paris: Bohaire, 1836), 29. This duelling code also saw use in Italy, receiving an Italian translation in 1864. See Conte di Chatauvillard, Codice del duello, trans. Eugenio Torelli (Naples: Stabilimento Tipografico del Plebiscito, 1864).^↩
10 Alberto Marchionni, Trattato di scherma sopra un nuovo sistema di giuoco misto di scuola italiana e francese (Florence: Tipi di Federigo Bencini, 1847), 186.^↩
11 Ibid., 231–2.^↩
12 Ibid., 62.^↩
13 See Jacopo Gelli, Codie cavalleresco italiano, 15th ed. (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1926), 74–5.^↩
14 Alberto Marchionni and Cesare Errichetti, Norme sui duelli e attribuzioni dei padrini (Florence: Tipografia di P. Fioretti, 1863), 13–4; Luigi de Rosis, Codice italiano sul duello (Naples: Fratelli de Angelis, 1868), 35–6; 43–4.^↩
15 Achille Angelini, Codice cavalleresco italiano (Florence: Tipografia di G. Barbèra, 1883), 105–6.^↩
16 Baron de Bazancourt, Secrets of the Sword, trans. C. F. Clay (London: George Bell, 1900), 165–8.^↩
17 Masaniello Parise, dedication in Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884).^↩
18 Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico, 219–20.^↩
19 Antonino Guglielmo, Sunto ed innovazioni sulla scherma di spada e di sciabola (Messina: Tipi Caporal Fracassa, 1888), 13–4.^↩
20 "A Neapolitan fencer," New York Times, 14 March 1886, 14.^↩
21 Horacio Levene, Teoria de la esgrima (Buenos Aires: Talleres Gráficos G. Garbo, 1929), 9–10.^↩
22 Paolo De Scalzi, La scuola della spada, 2nd ed. (Genoa: Tipografia e Litografia di L. Pellas, 1853), 29–30.^↩
23 Salvatore M. Arista, Del progresso della scherma in Italia: considerazioni sull'impianto della nuova scuola magistrale per l'esercito fondata in Roma nel 1884 (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1884), 6–7.^↩
24 Settimo Del Frate, Istruzione per la scherma di punta di Giuseppe Radaelli professore di scherma e ginnastica scritta d'ordine del Ministero della Guerra (Milan: Litografia Gaetano Baroffio, 1872), 1.^↩
25 See Achille Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli (Florence: Tipi dell'Arte della Stampa, 1877); Luigi Forte, Sul metodo di scherma Redaelli: lettera critica diretta al signor Ferdinando Masiello maestro di scherma all'Accademia di Torino (Catania: Tipografia C. Galàtola, 1878); Giuseppe Perez, Il sistema di spada Radaelli giudicato dall'arte della scherma (Verona: Prem. Stab. Tip. di Gaetano Franchini, 1878).^↩
26 Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola: preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884).^↩
27 Paulo Fambri, "Relazione" in Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola: preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884), ix–x.^↩
28 Ibid., xii–xiii. While commission's report does not refer to Giordano Rossi or any other submission by name aside from Parise, it is clear that the grip with 'curvature towards the left that the axis of the pommel' is referring to Rossi's design. For more detail on his modified grip, see 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), 17–9.^↩
29 Fambri, "Relazione" in Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma, xxi.^↩
30 Arista, Del progresso della scherma in Italia, 6–7; Carlo Pilla, Arte e scuole di scherma: conferenza tenuta alla Società bolognese di scherma nel febbraio 1886 (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1886), 34–6; Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: Stabilimento Tipografico G. Civelli, 1887), 126–30.^↩
31 Masiello, La scherma italiana, 135.^↩
32 Salvatore Arista, "Quattro parole sulla scherma," Don Giovanni, 23 February 1888, 59.^↩
33 See VIII congresso ginnastico italiano: regolamenti e programmi (Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Stefano Marino), 19; Giuseppe Nini, Torneo internazionale di scherma Genova 16-24 Giugno 1892: Relazione della giuria (Genoa, Tipografia del R. Istituto Sordo-Muti, 1892), 37–8.^↩
34 Saverio Cerchione, "Metodo Nazionale di Scherma con arma unica," Gazzetta dello Sport, 15 April 1907, 5.^↩
35 Primo Tiboldi, La scherma di fioretto (Milan: Casa Editrice Sonzogno, 1905), 5.^↩
36 Fambri, "Relazione" in Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma, xxii.^↩
37 Charles de Kay, "French and Italian Swordsmen: School of Parries and School of Touches," Harper's Weekly, 24 March 1894, 287.^↩
38 Note the focus on the wrist in Arthur Lynch, "French and Italian Schools of Fence: The Vogue Among Amateurs in Paris," Outing, March 1902, 677; Tiboldi, Scherma di fioretto, 5.^↩
39 Gustav Ristow, Die moderne Fechtkunst: Methodisce Anleitung zum Unterrichte im Fleuret- und Säbelfechten nebst einem Anhange, enthaltend die wichtigsten Duellregeln (Prague: Josef Koch, 1896), 43.^↩
40 Masaniello Parise, Das Fechten mit Degen und Säbel, trans. Arturo Gazzera and Jacob Erckrath-de Bary (Offenbach am Main: self-pub., [1905]), 98–9.^↩
41 Aldo Nadi, On Fencing (Sunrise, FL: Laureate Press, 1994), 44–5.^↩
42 Giorgio Rastelli, Scherma, 3rd ed. (Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, 1950), 159; William M. Gaugler, The Science of Fencing: A Comprehensive Training Manual for Master and Student; Including Lesson Plans for Foil, Sabre and Épée Instruction (Bangor, Maine: Laureate Press, 1999), 5.^↩
43 Nadi, On Fencing, 42.^↩
44 Renzo Nostini, Scherma di fioretto (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1979), 20.^↩
45 Giancarlo Toràn, email message to author, 21 July 2024.^↩
46 One example can be found in Enciclopedia Italiana di scienze, lettere ed arti (1936), vol. 31, s.v. "scherma," plate VI, fig. 13.^↩
47 Gomard [A. J. J. Possellier], L'Escrime enseignée par une méthode simple basée sur l'observation de la nature [...], (Paris: Librairie Militaire de J. Dumaine, 1845), 14–5. See also Eugène Desmedt, La science de l'escrime (Brussels: Imprimerie Veuve Monnom, 1888), 39; Émile André, Manuel théorique et pratique d'escrime (fleuret, épée, sabre) (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1896), 451.^↩
48 Fédération Internationale d'Escrime, Procès-Verbal extrait du Compte Rendu Sténographique du Congrès tenu les 9 et 10 février 1934 (Brussels: Imprimerie F. Van Buggenhoudt), 1934, 21–2; "Fédération Internationale d'Escrime," L'Escrime et le Tir, November 1937, 13–9.^↩
49 Henry de Silva, Fencing: The Skills of the Game (Ramsbury, UK: Crowood Press, 2002), 10–11.^↩
50 Albert Manley, Complete Fencing (London: Robert Hale, 1979), 64–5.^↩

Fencing in the Treccani Encyclopedia

In the Italian-speaking world, Treccani's Enciclopedia Italiana is what the Encyclopedia Britannica is, or rather was, to the English speaking world before the Internet Age. Published in 35 volumes between 1929 and 1937, the Treccani Encyclopedia brought together some of the most renowned minds that Italy had to offer. Importantly for this blog, the two authors that were invited to write on the topic of fencing, contained in volume 31, were two people that should be very familiar to readers: Jacopo Gelli and Nedo Nadi.

*** Scans ***

Jacopo Gelli (who died the year before this volume's publication) gives his customary historical summary, somewhat glossing over the Neapolitan tradition and curiously ending at Marchionni. Nedo Nadi, on the other hand, describes the sport as it was in the 1930s, giving an overview of technique, terminology, conventions, and Italy's global competitive achievements. Of course Nadi does not miss the opportunity to include some of his own views on the most recent developments in the sport; for example, he states that modern developments in épée fencing, such as the disappearance of single-touch bouts, mean that épée 'as it is practised in sporting competitions betrays the end for which it was created.' He then alludes to a proposal that was apparently being discussed at the time to introduce some form of convention to épée fencing, but this obviously did not come to fruition.

In the discipline of sabre, Nadi admits that the Hungarians had 'sometimes' surpassed the Italians, but asserts the sabre still remains a 'typically Italian weapon', and that around the world it is Italian fencing masters who are most highly prized. As for technique, he shares the Hungarian view that neither the 1st-2nd or the 3rd-4th parrying system is better than the other, and that the best fencers do not rigidly adhere to only one set of parries.

Then as now, Nadi considered sabre fencing to be the most impressive discipline to watch from a layman's perspective, despite the gradual changes in its technique:

The wide and spectacular sabre play which delighted enthusiasts of the past century is by now condemned by modern methods, more adherent to the competitive aim; nevertheless sabre remains the preferred weapon of the layman who, in its wide play and materiality of the blow, has a way to more easily able to follow the happenings of a bout.

This could be read as a somewhat romanticised view of the Radaellian era in Nedo's early youth, with its larger sabres and wide cuts.

The text is complemented with photos demonstrating how all three weapons are gripped as well as the typical parrying positions in foil and sabre. Most of the photos, to my knowledge, are not found outside of this Encyclopedia. The entry on fencing ends with a short, uncredited overview of the history of stick fencing.

German reactions to Italian fencing: J. Frank and Adolf Meyer

Unlike most of the fencing texts I have shared on this blog, the two texts in discussion today were not written by authors who aligned themselves with Radaellian or even Italian fencing. While these authors were writing at a time when Italian fencing was taking over the German competitive scene, both were staunchly opposed to this trend. The texts in question are a 1904 booklet by J. Frank entitled Das Deutsche Fechten im Konkurrenzkampfe mit dem italienischen ('German fencing in competition with Italian') and Adolf Meyer's 1912 treatise Deutsche Hiebstich-Fechtschule für leichten Säbel, Hiebstichdegen, Offiziersdegen und Offizierssäbel ('German school of cut fencing for light sabre, cut-and-thrust sword, officer's sword, and officer's sabre').

*** Frank ***

*** Meyer ***

Frank's 35-page booklet is the more 'in-the-moment' reaction out of the two, as he begins by explaining that in 1901 Italian fencing had been officially introduced at the Militär Turnanstalt in Berlin by order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The Militär Turnanstalt was where gymnastics instructors were trained for the Prussian military, and thus the institution of Italian fencing there was seen as a huge defeat by Frank. Frank alludes to 'an Italian master' who ran a fencing club in Berlin as the prime mover behind this influence, and given what we know from other sources, this person was almost certainly Luigi Sestini.¹

Frank then goes on to compare Italian and German fencing rules, considering the former unsuitable for German culture, particularly in relation to academic fencing and duelling. The booklet also criticises German masters for aiding in the spread of Italian fencing and not doing enough to preserve native practices.

Likewise, Meyer places himself in opposition to Italian influence, describing the differences between Italian fencing with its light weapons and elbow cuts, and German fencing with its heavy weapons and wrist-based actions. Meyer concludes that wrist-based fencing is the most natural and innate of the two methods, thus declaring 'back to naturalness, to the German school!'. This is not to say that Italian fencing had nothing to offer Meyer, however. While Meyer believes that Italian sabres are too light, he also concedes that German fencing swords were too heavy. With this in mind, Meyer introduces his own model of 'cut-and-thrust sword' and 'light sabre' which combine German grips and hilts with lighter blades, between 11 and 12 mm in width and with only a slight curve for the sabre. The 'military weapons' for training officers should have blades between 20 and 22 mm wide. The fencing method detailed throughout the rest of the book appears, to my uneducated eye, as typically German.

Meyer's distinction between 'light sabre' and 'heavy' or 'German' sabre dates back to at least 1896, where we find the first tournament held in Germany with separate events for each weapon. 'Light sabre' was to be performed with 'free measure', i.e. fencers were able to advance and retreat as desired, while the German sabre event was with fixed measure: competitors standing firmly in place as is typical for German academic fencing.² Despite these efforts, large events with both German/heavy sabre and light sabre appear to have ceased after 1910, with light sabre being the only kind offered from then on.³

While German academic fencing was not able to find a place for itself in competitive fencing, it has nonetheless managed to survive the Olympic age, with many clubs throughout central and eastern Europe preserving the practice today. Frank and Meyer demonstrate the tension within the German scene that followed the arrival of Italian fencing at the turn of the 20th century, a tension commonly experienced throughout European fencing culture at the time.

*******

1 "Une enquête," L'Escrime Française, 9 August 1902.^↩
2 "Assauts à venir," Assauts, L'Escrime Française, 23 August 1896, 2. See also the regulations for the 'Zweites Turnier des Deutschen und Oesterreichischen Fechter-Bundes' in Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 15 October 1898, 1259.^↩
3 See event listings in Max Schroeder, Deutsche Fechtkunst: Handbuch des Deutschen Fechtsports (Berlin: Wilhelm Bleib, 1938).^↩

Antonio Buja's unpublished illustrations

Normally when I share a source on this blog it is to make a source freely accessible online for the first time; today, however, I wish to bring attention to a unique source that has been publicly available for some time already, but has only recently come to my attention, and is no doubt unknown to most readers. The source in question is this manuscript compiled by the fencing master Antonio Buja, which now resides in the Biblioteca provinciale Nicola Bernardini, Lecce. Its full title is Tavole illustrative della ginnastica per le armi bianche spada e sciabola, ossia scienza teorico-pratica della scherma ('Illustrative plates of gymnastics for the white [i.e. bladed] weapons sword and sabre, or theoretical-pratical science of fencing').

Antonio Buja was born on 12 March 1825 in Lecce, Apulia. Nothing is known about the first half of his life, but in the early 1860s he joined the National Guard, becoming a captain in 1866. Subsequently he became an employee of the town council of Lecce, seemingly remaining in this role the rest of his career. Since at least the 1870s he also worked as a fencing master in Lecce, having taught at the Real Collegio di San Giuseppe, and likely taught at a private hall in the city in his later years. Newspaper articles from 1874 to 1890 show Buja organising and participating in exhibitions as a respected member of the fencing community. Buja died in Lecce on 11 October 1906, aged 81.¹ The only known published work of his was published in 1875, and consists of a collection of discussions around fencing, primarily its benefits as a physical and moral exercise in comparison to other pursuits such as gymnastics.² [Edit 2024/12/14: It appears Buja also published a short discussion on duelling in 1894, which can be viewed here through KU Leuven's Corble Collection].

Aside from a short preface, his unpublished manuscript consists entirely of illustrations: more than 100 of them spread across 57 plates on both foil and sabre fencing (although the numbering stops at 56, there are actually two plates labelled 'Tav. 5'). The preface explains that the illustrations depict the end of a movement, the beginning of a movement or the movement which most defines a given action. Buja explains that the illustrations are his own, 'drawn and copied from real life'. The word 'copied' here may be alluding to the fact that although Buja is a talented illustrator, many of them do bear great resemblance to illustrations in other, mostly Italian, fencing treatises. In only one instance does Buja give a source for the illustrations being copied, that being on plate 5 (that is, the first plate 5) where he reproduces several plates from the works of Achille Marozzo and Giuseppe Morsicato Pallavicini.³ There are other indications of Buja referencing images from Pallavicini throughout the manuscript, but no citations are given in such instances (e.g. fig. 13 and fig. X, plate 4).

There is a benefit that Buja's plagiarism provides, however, which is what they can tell us about when the manuscript was compiled. Of all Buja's derivative illustrations, the latest I was able to identify was fig. Y on plate 6, which bears close resemblance to one from Masiello's 1887 treatise, as shown below.⁴ Not only are the postures identical, but Buja even made sure to reproduce the particular style of fencing jacket, which is different to the rest of Buja's illustrations. This would therefore suggest the manuscript was composed no earlier than 1887, when Buja was at least in early 60s. In addition to the aforementioned examples, others show Buja being familiar with the illustrations from the treatises of Parise (figs. V, X, and Y, on the second plate 5), Domenico Angelo (the grapples on plate 34), and Ferrero.⁵

Left: Masiello (1887)
Right: Buja manuscript

Left: Ferrero (1868)
Right: Buja manuscript

Left: Angelo (1763)
Right: Buja manuscript

It would be tempting to give Buja a pass for the repeated plagiarism in this manuscript, as it was never published (to my knowledge); yet given the fact that the illustrations are individually labelled and that many of them, particularly the diagrams, show a level of detail that makes their purpose nearly impossible to determine by the image alone, it is very likely that pictures were originally to be accompanied by explanatory notes to enable dissemination, if not publicly, then perhaps locally. Regardless, Buja had already proven to be willing to publish plagiarised material under his name. In the final chapter of his 1875 publication, Buja provides a comparison of the various fencing schools of Europe which borrows heavily from a chapter first published in Blasco Florio's book Discorso sulla utilità della scherma and later reproduced in his 1844 treatise, La Scienza della Scherma.⁶

Despite Buja's reliance on other books, overall the manuscript gives a strong impression that Buja's intent was to demonstrate his own ideas on fencing, founded on both texts and personal experience. The guard position on the second plate 5 labelled fig. 18 resembles a typical Neapolitan guard position, but the rear arm is held in a manner similar to Marchionni.⁷ This guard is not copied from any Italian text (to my knowledge), and likely depicts Buja's personal preference, given that subsequent illustrations show this same arm position.

Further on we see that many of the plates depicting fencing actions have extra details such as the labelling of various points in space and on the fencers' bodies, lines showing the path of the point or the hand, before and after positions of the blade, etc. Buja was clearly using his illustrations to convey additional information beyond the superficial, static positions of the two fencers, providing a more comprehensive idea of the technical requirements of a given action. What he considered these intricacies to be exactly is unfortunately lost to us, given the absence of any explanatory text, but I have no doubt that experienced fencers today could surmise the meaning of many of Buja's lines and labels.

Buja's attempts to push beyond static depictions of fencing is further seen in his inclusion of many techniques that would at the time be considered unusual or unconventional, such as the leaning void on plate 22, the reverse passato sotto on plate 28, the grapples on plates 31 to 34 (very much forbidden in Italy by this point), the spinning inquartata on plate 43, and the ducking parry of 5th on plate 44. In addition to Buja's inclusion of parry of 1st, these positions suggest that Buja was not a strict adherent to the traditionalist and aesthetic ideals of many Southern foil fencers his age.

This unconventionality continues in the sabre section, where, in addition to the the standard depictions of parries and cuts, Buja has also illustrated ways for a soldier to hold their scabbard after drawing the sabre (plate 49), ways to perhaps cut at the leg (plate 54), two left-foot-forward guard positions (plate 55), and a demonstration of how to shield one's eyes from the light of the sun with the left hand (plate 56). When it comes to technique, however, Buja's sabre fencing shows much in common with the other non-Radaellian methods of the time, and shows no evidence of Radaellian influence.

Buja's wonderful illustrations shine a little bit of a light on a region that rarely gets a mention in Italian fencing literature. Even though Buja's motivations with the manuscript are unknown to us today, his work demonstrates that he was a keen observer of the development of Italian fencing throughout his long life and was relatively forward-thinking in his own approach to the practice. There are no doubt countless more interesting details to be found in the illustrations of this unique manuscript, and I look forward to hearing about what readers discover and any possible theories on what the various diagrams and labels are depicting.

*******

1 Jacopo Gelli, Bibliografia generale della scherma con note critiche, biografiche e storiche (Florence: Tipografia Editrice di L. Niccolai, 1890), 41; "Antonio Buja," Gazzetta delle Puglie, 13 October 1906; Corriere Meridionale, 18 October 1906. The earliest appearance of Buja I have been able to find is in Il Cittadino Leccese, 17 April 1874, 203.^↩
2 Antonio Buja, La scherma considerata sotto tutti i rapporti sociali, fisici e morali (Lecce: Tipografia Editrice Salentina, 1875).^↩
3 Achille Marozzo, Opera Nova de Achille Marozzo, Mastro Generali de l'Arte de l'Armi (Modena: D. Antonio Bergolae, 1536); Pallavicini, La seconda parte della Scherma Illustrata, ove si dimostra il vero maneggio della spada, e Pugnale, & anco il modo come si adopera la Cappa, il Borchiero, e la Rotella di notte, le quali regole non sono state intese da nessuno Autore (Palermo: Domenico d'Anselmo, 1673). ^↩
4 Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: Stabilimento Tipografico G. Civelli, 1887).^↩
5 Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e di sciabola (Turin: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884); Giuseppe Rosaroll-Scorza and Pietro Grisetti, La scienza della scherma (Milan: Stamperia Del Giornale Italico, 1803); Domenico Angelo, L'École des armes, avec l'explication générale des principales attitudes et positions concernant l'escrime (London: R. & J. Dodsley, 1763); Giovanni Battista Ferrero, Breve trattato sul maneggio della sciabola (Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1868).^↩
6 Buja, La scherma, 138–144. Cf. Blasco Florio, Discorso sulla utilità della scherma (Messina: Giuseppe Fiumara, 1825), 32–8; Florio, La scienza della scherma (Catania: Tipografia del R. Ospizio di Beneficienza, 1844), 69–74.^↩
7 Alberto Marchionni, Trattato di scherma sopra un nuovo sistema di giuoco misto di scuola italiana e francese (Florence: Tipi di Federigo Bencini, 1847), fig. 8.^↩

A third book of Radaellian student notes

Two years ago I published transcriptions of two interesting copies of Del Frate's 1876 treatise Istruzione per la scherma di sciabola e di spada containing notes written the owners of the books when they studied at the Milan Fencing Master's School. I stated at the end of the article that it is highly likely that additional copies of this kind still survive, and after sending out some enquiries I did indeed located one more. This copy originally belonged to Antonio Maragliano, and it now resides in the Biblioteca Polo Umanistico-Bioscienze at the University of Teramo. Below you may find a standalone transcription of the manuscript as well as a side-by-side comparison with the two previously-discussed manuscripts by Lombardi and Barbasetti.

Maragliano manuscript transcription

Side-by-side comparison

Maragliano's notes are incomplete and the shortest of the three, coming in at around a third the length of Lombardi's notes, and all the content contained in his notes can also be found in both Lombardi and Barbasetti's. As indicated on the first manuscript page, Maragliano was a student of the 1883-84 course at the Master's School, which was the last course intake at the school before its closure in March 1884.¹ Given that this course would have only been around four months in when the school closed, the incomplete nature of Maragliano's manuscript reflect this interruption, indicating the point in the theory curriculum the students had reached in March 1884. Maragliano and his fellow students were able to resume their training the following year in a condensed course at the new Master's School in Rome under Masaniello Parise.² While Maragliano's name can be found in this subsequent intake, it is unclear if he did end up graduating.

Despite their brevity, Maragliano's notes provide a valuable third point of comparison in determining which of the minor variations across the three manuscripts are more likely to be representative of the reference material they were transcribing. In general it is Barbasetti who appears to deviate more often from the original wording through paraphrasing and the occasional omission. Given how minor these variations are, Maragliano's notes provide significant proof that, at least with regard to the content all three manuscripts have in common, the reference material remained very consistent between the years 1876 and 1884.

My sincere thanks to the library staff at the University of Teramo for providing the scans of this manuscript.

*******

1 "Da Milano a Roma," Corriere della Sera, 11 March 1884, 3.^↩
2 Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, "N. 90. - Corso speciale presso la scuola magistrale di scherma," Giornale Militare 1885: parte seconda, no. 31 (30 July 1885): 340–1.^↩

Hutton on Safari

*** This article was written in collaboration with Emerson Hurley of In Search of Lost Fencing. ***

If one has done any reading on the history of British sabre fencing, it is almost certain that the name Alfred Hutton and his 1889 treatise Cold Steel would be mentioned at some point, this book being among the most widely read and available sabre books in the historical fencing community.¹ His high profile—at least in England—in the late 19th century means that his various writings are often cited in discussions on this period in British fencing, and his constant referencing of older fencing treatises also make him relevant to the historiography of the historical fencing movement.

Despite his prominence at home, the contemporary significance of his works drops off entirely once we look away from the British Isles, and yet Hutton still occasionally comes up in Anglophone discussions today on the subject of modern Italian fencing. This is largely owing to his vocal opposition to the formal adoption by the British army of Ferdinando Masiello's sabre method and the subsequent publication of the 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise.²

We aim to demonstrate that Hutton's critique of this text and Radaellian fencing in general is beset by a superficial understanding of the general European fencing context as well as a flawed understanding of fencing as a practice. The latter aspect will be explored in examination of his own technical works, focusing on the aforementioned Cold Steel as well as The Swordsman from 1891,³ and the former will be made clear in deconstruction of his opposition to the Masiello method. Along the way, we will provide the necessary context for a more accurate understanding of Italian sabre fencing in the 1890s.

In doing this, we may also gain a better understanding of how Italian fencing was viewed abroad; compare how well Hutton's perceptions agreed with reality and those of his countrymen; and, finally, come to a more grounded perspective for future assessments of Hutton's impact on British fencing in both civilian and military contexts.

The Italians according to Hutton

While Hutton's broad adaptation of both contemporary and historical fencing treatises for his own system may seem meritorious, his engagement with Italian authors is decidedly superficial and at times even drifts into the realm of plagiarism. Throughout his 1889 treatise Cold Steel, Hutton attributes several techniques as being characteristically 'Italian', these being:

• Frequent use of the false edge
• The vertical rising cut on the inside
• The parries he names high prime, horizontal quarte, high tierce, high quarte, and high octave (or for those unfamiliar with French terms: 1st, horizontal 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th/yielding 6th)
• The passata sotto.⁴

There is no evidence of Hutton ever visiting Italy or having personal contact with an Italian fencing master prior to the publication of either Cold Steel or The Swordsman; his only engagement with Italian fencing was likely through his reading. Hutton's characterisation of the above techniques as 'Italian' would seem to be a result of a wide reading of Italian literature, but this notion is proven false when given due scrutiny. Although Hutton cites freely from British and French sources from the period in Cold Steel, he completely avoids mentioning the sources that inspired these 'Italian' techniques of his. Fortunately, however, some of his later writings reveal his awareness of the treatises by Federico Cesarano and Masaniello Parise,⁵ whom he mentions first in a lecture in February 1893, and then in September 1895, in an article published in the Army and Navy Gazette. The latter states explicitly that Parise's work was the primary inspiration for his 'high octave' parry.⁶

In reality, no discerning fencer outside of England would characterise these parries as typically Italian. All were commonly used throughout the continent by the 1880s, and nowhere else is it implied that Italians were the inspiration for their use. A very weak case can be made in the case of the outside hanging parry—which Hutton calls 'high octave'—as this was very common in Italian sabre texts throughout the century. However, they were not the only ones to include it (it was very popular among Spanish authors), nor did other authors associate the parry with Italians.⁷

Three variations of the outside hanging parry (i.e. 'high octave') by non-Italian authors. From left to right: Vendrell (1878), Merelo (1880), and Silfversvärd (1868).

Hutton's attribution of these parries to the Italians does not demonstrate his wide reading of Italian sources; it might instead indicate that his reading was almost entirely limited to the aforementioned treatises of Cesarano and Parise. His 'horizontal quarte', for example, is something of a rarity, particularly when used as a distinct variant of a regular low 4th. More than 20 sabre treatises were published in Italy between 1860 and 1889, but only around three of them include such a parry, and mostly as a beat parry against the thrust.⁸ Cesarano is one of the authors, and it seems likely that he was Hutton's sole inspiration for adding the parry; however, Hutton uses this parry against the vertical rising cut on the inside, also falsely claimed to be 'an Italian cut, which is used as a sort of substitute for the attack at the leg.' This is entirely Hutton's invention. Contemporary authors did not describe a vertical inside rising as stereotypically Italian, and it is very difficult to find an Italian author describing a specifically vertical rising cut.

The asserted 'Italianness' of Hutton's parries of high prime, high tierce, and high quarte is also misleading; a simple comparison of non-Italian sabre treatises of this period will demonstrate that the first was ubiquitous in Europe, while the specific slanted position of latter two is perhaps more common in Italy but not entirely absent elsewhere.⁹ The same can be said of false edge cuts, which appear infrequently in most Italian sabre treatises, and in some not at all.¹⁰ The passata sotto action is the only technique in the aforementioned list which can justifiably be associated with the Italians at this period, but the caveat here is that it almost never appears in sabre treatises or accounts of sabre bouts, instead being an Italian favourite in foil fencing. Hutton's reliance on a narrow range of source material is betrayed once again as we discover that Cesarano is the only Italian author from this period to include the passata sotto in their sabre curriculum. All of these instances show that Hutton assumes Cesarano and Parise to be representative of Italian sabre fencing, which particularly before the 1880s was a diverse practice with regional trends and external influences, all of which are lost on Hutton.

Three Italian authors whose head parries deviate from the typical slanted positions.
Top: Parries of 5th and 6th according to Bellini (1880).
Bottom left: The same parries according to Mendietta-Magliocco (1868).
Bottom right: The head parry which Tambornini (1862) calls parry of 1st.

While we assert that Hutton's consultation of Italian sabre sources was likely limited almost entirely to Cesarano and Parise, for whom he never gives direct recognition in either Cold Steel or The Swordsman, there is evidence that Hutton was aware of at least one more Italian sabre treatise by the time Cold Steel was published—namely, his uncredited reproduction of an illustration from Arnoldo Ranzatto's 1885 treatise Istruzioni per la scherma di sciabola showing how to grip the sabre.¹¹ This is a stark demonstration that Hutton's use of contemporary Italian material is done entirely out of self-interest; if he truly did consider these works worthy of merit, and not just convenient sources of illustrations, he would have given them the same recognition he afforded other authors, such as Roworth, Miller, and Marozzo. By not acknowledging the authors, Hutton removes any obligation to engage with the works beyond the surface level. To put it simply: taking information from another author's book without citing it—attributing it only to the author's national milieu—is plagiarism. If nothing else, the appropriation of Ranzatto's image may help to clarify that when Hutton recommends the use of a 'light sabre similar to those used on the Continent',¹² he probably had in mind those commonly used in Italy specifically. The sabre represented is of the model Parise type.

Top: Page 22 of Ranzatto's 1885 treatise
Bottom: Plate 1 in Hutton's Cold Steel (1889)

Specifics aside, Hutton's 'Italian' parries betray a deeper failure of understanding. The fact is that there are no Italian parries, because no fencing action belongs to any particular national system. In sabre fencing there is only a limited number of possible parries, and they are available to all systems. Even Hutton's parries of sixte and octave, though they appear in no other works on sabre, are an implicit possibility open to all fencers. The Englishman certainly could not have claimed intellectual priority had another author included them in their system: they would be no more 'English' than the rest of Europe considered parry of 1st to be 'Italian'. What distinguishes one system's parries from those of another is simply their nomenclature, the details of their execution, and the author's preference for some of them over others.

That this fact was lost on Hutton is evidenced by his inclusion of both high tierce and St George's parry in both Cold Steel and The Swordsman. These two actions, though catalogued separately, would to any other master be considered the same head parry in pronation. The features that distinguish them—a small difference in the angle of the blade and the target it is supposed to defend—represent only the differing preferences of individual authors on how this same parry should be performed. Perhaps Hutton was again taken in by the exotic appeal of a foreign technique, not recognising that the two actions fill an identical tactical role: what parries the head will also parry the shoulder. Indeed Hutton himself lists both as defences against the vertical descending cut, without any explanation of the tactical implications.¹³ This redundancy reveals a poor understanding of the role of specific actions in the structure of a fencing system. Rather than defining each action functionally as a solution to a tactical problem, preferencing some possible solutions and excluding others, Hutton has simply included everything he could get his hands on.

Hutton's vials of wrath

When news began circulating in 1893 concerning the trials taking place at the national gymnasium school in Aldershot, Hutton may have felt that his continual lamentations about the state of fencing in the British army were finally being addressed. The head of army gymnasia in England at the time, Colonel Malcolm Fox, had recently spent two months in Florence, during which time he studied fencing under the renowned master Ferdinando Masiello. Fox's experience in Florence had such a great impression on him that upon returning to Aldershot he immediately set about introducing Masiello's method to the British army, which led to the hiring of one of the master's most decorated students, Giuseppe Magrini, who arrived in the country in April 1893.¹⁴ New students at the Aldershot school were now being trained in Masiello's system, but it was not until 1895 that the new system came to the attention of those outside the school through the publication of the official Infantry Sword Exercise.

The Penny Illustrated Paper, 23 September 1893

Ferdinando Masiello was by this point a very prominent figure in Italian fencing. He had been a military fencing instructor since 1871, receiving his first qualification under Cesare Enrichetti in Parma and renewing it at Giuseppe Radaelli's school in 1876. A year later he was promoted to civil fencing master. This means that he was no longer simply a soldier who also taught fencing, but a civilian employed by the army to teach in its academies and colleges solely as a fencing master. In this new, highly coveted role, Masiello taught at various institutions until ending up at the Florence Military College in 1887. That same year he was promoted to 1st class civil master, which was the highest qualification a fencing master could achieve outside of being director or vice director of the national Fencing Master's School.¹⁵

Despite the transportation of the Fencing Master's School from Milan to Rome and the installation of Parise's method in 1884, Masiello remained a fervent supporter of Radaelli's method. In August 1887 he published his own 593-page fencing treatise; aside from giving a detailed and modernised exposition of the Radaellian method, it was full of scathing indictments of Parise's method. The book was met with widespread praise from Masiello's contemporaries, and it firmly cemented him as the spiritual leader of Parise's opponents for the next two decades.¹⁶

In spite of this, or perhaps in response to it, Masiello was offered the role of vice director at the Fencing Master's School in Rome, but he and Parise were unable to reach an agreement: the differences in their methods were too great.¹⁷ Masiello remained at the Florence military college until he retired from military teaching at the end of 1893.¹⁸ The sabre portion of Masiello's treatise was revised and republished that same year and again in 1902, in the latter instance also being published alongside a revised volume on the foil.¹⁹

In contrast with the Italian reception of Masiello's work, the 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise had a much more mixed response from the British public. Articles both for and against the new method appeared in periodicals such as the Army and Navy Gazette, including several letters from our Alfred Hutton, who would later expand these arguments into a 10-page article published in March the following year in the United Service Magazine.²⁰

From the very beginning of the article, it becomes apparent that the context around Masiello's system was totally unknown to Hutton, who in the second paragraph of his critique remarks smugly, but quite wrongly, that Masiello was not 'one of those who have been selected by the Italian Government for the instruction of either their Army or their Navy'.²¹ This sets the mood for the rest of the text, where the English fencer reads the Masiello system in a similarly superficial and ungenerous way.

Hutton's superficiality with regard to source material has been demonstrated in the previous section, but we see it again in the following paragraph, when he wrongly states that '[t]he main object of the Italian fencing-master is to prepare his pupil for the duel … while an English Sword Exercise has to be compiled for military men … who have to fight for their country against all sorts and conditions of enemies, armed in all sorts of ways'.²² Hutton was not the only one to make such a claim in this period, but it is simply not borne out from the evidence. Let us use an example from an author with whom Hutton was familiar, Masaniello Parise, who states that: 'If historically it is true that fencing took place in direct correlation to the frequency of duels, today the matter is quite different.' Fencing to Parise should rather be directed towards the 'more noble aim' of physical education, and through its adversarial nature it was also perceived to give other behavioural and intellectual benefits that gymnastics did not provide.²³ Italy's duelling culture certainly made fencing more relevant to certain members of society, but as in the rest of Europe fencing masters in Italy taught fencing for the sake of fencing, with the duel being just one application.

Even with this in mind, Masiello acknowledged the importance of sabre fencing for the soldier and particularly those in the cavalry, thus in 1891 he published a short treatise on the use of the sabre on horseback.²⁴ His regular fencing method—as described in the 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise—was not subordinated to a specific application. Masiello understood effective sabre fencing to be founded on common principles for all its applications: '... since the sabre is a weapon of the soldier, who must always be ready to fight opponents no matter how they are armed, thus sabre fencing, for its useful effects, must be studied in those manifestations that are always constant and always sufficient in relation to any type of combat.'²⁵

His pigeonholing of Masiello's system leads Hutton, in a few instances, to misattribute certain aspects of the system as resulting from Italian duelling conventions, such as the reason why the legs are not included in the valid target area or why the Italians preferred lighter and more protective fencing sabres than the British. Despite Hutton's implication, no Italian duelling code of the period forbade attacks to the leg; the convention to not hit the legs in sabre fencing was, however, extremely common in fencing halls and tournaments. The light fencing sabres favoured by the Italians were also not weapons designed specifically for the duel, nor were they ever referred to as 'duelling sabres' in Italy, but they were favoured by fencers due to the higher complexity of play and lighter blows they allowed.²⁶ Italian fencing culture in the 1890s was not merely derivative of its duelling culture—each influenced the other and saw their own developments.

Hutton takes it for granted that, because it was being taught at an army institution, Masiello's system must satisfy Hutton's own conceptions of what is necessary for an infantry officer to know. Contrast his view with the fencing curriculum of any other military school in Europe, even those of France where colonial confrontations were also a concern, and it is clear that the goal of this kind of training was to teach fencing as an end to itself, first and foremost. Fencing treatises containing grapples, off-hand techniques, advice for facing multiple opponents, improvised weapons and so on were the absolute exception in the 19th century, regardless of whether a treatise was written as a regulation military text or by a civilian.

Significant portions of Hutton's argumentation lie in strategic appeals to authority to assert that Masiello's system was not only ineffective and unsuitable, but in opposition with the majority views in both Italy and the rest of continental Europe. A perfect example of this is Hutton's condemnation of Masiello's lunge, in which the upper body leans forward to its fullest extent, from which he claims 'a prompt recovery is practically impossible'.²⁷ This is in contrast to what he considers 'the correct form recognised by the great French School'. This particular topic has been dealt with in a previous article, but here it will suffice to observe the fencers in the images below, taken from a French sporting magazine in 1904. Not only do all fencers except one demonstrate some degree of lean, several on par with Masiello, but the fencer with the most upright lunge, seen in the centre of the first image, is the only Italian among those photographed.²⁸

La Vie au Grand Air, 22 December 1904

His appeal to the 'French School' is little more than a shallow excuse to justify his opposition to Masiello. Another ineffective appeal to authority can be seen when he maligns the techniques described in the Infantry Sword Exercise as 'circling cuts' (known in Italian as molinelli), claiming that the type 'recommended by most Italian teachers' primarily used the wrist, unlike Masiello's elbow-focused motions.²⁹ In his casual rejection of elbow molinelli, Hutton demonstrates his ignorance of a hugely significant debate over fencing mechanics that had divided the Italian scene for decades. Moreover, by 1896 the claim that most masters favoured the wrist was categorically false. As demonstrated earlier, Hutton openly admitted to consulting the wrist-centric treatises of Cesarano and Parise when compiling his own works, and he was aware that the latter treatise was the regulation fencing text for the Italian army at the time. What he was clearly not aware of, however, was that since at least 1892 the wrist-centric molinelli had ceased being taught at Parise's school and in army fencing halls generally. After repeated rejections of his sabre method by the cavalry, Parise employed the assistance of the renowned Radaellian master Salvatore Pecoraro to make the necessary changes.³⁰

The resulting reforms, referred to by some as the 'Parise-Pecoraro method', at last received the approval of the cavalry in late 1890, and although it would take until 1904 for Parise's treatise to be updated with the new exercise molinelli, the changes would be reflected in the 1891 and 1896 cavalry regulations. These molinelli were no longer the extended-arm, wrist-centric type advocated by Hutton, but instead bore more resemblance to the kind described in Masiello's treatise, with the arm being fully withdrawn prior to giving the cut. Parise's students were still told to continue the cut through the target with a drawing motion before returning to guard, as opposed to the Radaellian preference for ending the cut at full extension, but the overall motion is characterised more by its use of the elbow than the wrist.³¹

Setting aside the fact that the 200+ fencing masters employed by the Italian military³² were no longer teaching wrist-centric molinelli, from the first publication of Parise's book in 1884 to the appearance of the 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise there had been a total of four sabre treatises published in Italy, and the three most widely read of those were by Radaellians (one of course being Masiello). Even in civilian circles, the Radaellian domination of sabre fencing at this time would be very apparent for anyone paying attention to the scene. Yet again, Hutton feigned knowledge of contemporary Italian fencing but showed no awareness of its most significant developments.

A final example of Hutton's questionable appeals to authority is his citing of several medical professionals who testify to the supposed biomechanical defects of Masiello's fencing system. A letter from doctors I. D. Chepmell and G. H. Savage was published in the Lancet in mid-1895, and it was followed by two articles from surgeon C. T. Dent, one being in response to an article in defence of the method by E. D. Ritchie.³³ The content of these critiques presents views almost identical to Hutton's. They employ all the anatomical terms expected of medical professionals, but they lack any empirical evidence while maintaining a particular fixation on muscular exertion in an activity that is, fundamentally, physical exercise. Dent in particular relies on familiar comparisons to the much-touted 'French system', giving the impression of someone putting an academic veneer on their preconceptions. As with Hutton, the opinions of these men seem to be based solely on their readings of the Infantry Sword Exercise, not practical observation. A very similar debate had in fact taken place in Italy during the 1870s, when Radaelli's system was becoming more prominent. One critic asserted that the 'excessive bending' of the body and limbs demanded by Radaelli's system are 'harmful to one's health' and that they could 'easily cause hernias or distention', among other complications.³⁴ Needless to say, these concerns were not founded in reality or practical observation of the system, and such arguments were irrelevant by the 1890s.

It is precisely practical observation which may have caused Dent to later reconsider his strong opposition. Following the publication of these articles, there appeared a report in the Lancet on a demonstration of Masiello's system at the Aldershot academy organised by Colonel Fox for the benefit of several medical professionals, among them Dent. The report gives a largely positive summary of the advantages of the system, concluding with the following:

At the conclusion of the display Sir William MacCormac cordially thanked Colonel Fox for the opportunity he had afforded him and his colleagues of examining into the new system of swordsmanship—a system that appeared to be thoroughly sound, both practically and theoretically.³⁵

Much has been said about how Hutton's ignorance of Italian fencing affected his judgement of Masiello's system, but this is not the only flaw in his critique. Throughout the article he seems to almost go out of his way to deliberately read passages of the Infantry Sword Exercise in the most dishonest and uncharitable way possible. The text's description of various movements being 'simultaneous' is a particular sticking point for Hutton, who is unable to conceive of how both legs are supposed to move backwards while jumping.³⁶ Following the publication of Hutton's critique in the United Service Magazine, a scathing reply was published anonymously in the same magazine, giving the following remark about Hutton's reading:

Any one, for instance, who has seen 'the jump' on which Captain Hutton has expended the vials of his wrath, will admit that it is a perfectly simple, easy, and effective movement, though by no means one the nature of which it is easy to define accurately in words.³⁷

Thus it would be tenuous to make the claim that Hutton's interpretation of these passages was the average reader's experience. We again see this several pages later when Hutton is astonished by the seeming impossibility to follow the text's advice to 'raise both feet at the same instant from the ground' when performing the rear lunge, exclaiming 'I should like to see some one do this; raising anything from the ground is a more or less deliberate action'.³⁸

One final example of Hutton's pearl-clutching is his imagined horror at the harm that Masiello's forward leaning lunge could have on the cavalrymen, who when 'trained on foot to throw his body forward and out of balance will, by force of habit, do so when mounted, and he will be liable to overbalance himself so much that the slightest mistake on the part of his horse will topple him out of his saddle, and he will fall flat on his face on the ground.'³⁹ Hutton would have been comforted to know that not only was this leaning used to great effect on horseback by the Italian cavalry throughout the 19th century, but its utility was even recognised by the British cavalry itself.

The disingenuous manner in which Hutton approaches his critique often ventures into hypocrisy. He seems unable to decide whether to criticise it as a system to be adapted for his battlefield scenarios or as one which serves well in a fencing hall. Hutton bemoans the exclusion of the legs as a valid target in bouting or the lively footwork, elements making Masiello's method only suitable for salle play, yet when it comes to the force, speed, and accuracy it is said to promote through practice of the exercise molinelli, then suddenly the method is unsuitable even for this context:

This makes it clear that the basis of the system is not swordsmanlike skill but mere muscular violence. The man who has been specially trained to strike only with his 'utmost force' will be found, I am afraid, incapable of playing a light game⁴⁰

Hutton then goes on to express his sympathies for the 'poor sergeants who are compelled to learn this brutal work' as well as the young students who will fall victim to their teachings when they later seek employment at schools. Only one page earlier he expressed his confusion at why the Infantry Sword Exercise would bother teaching the disarm expulsion when the bouting rules state that it is not permissible to hit someone once they are disarmed.⁴¹ Hutton is able to quickly forget about bouting etiquette when it suits his argument.

An argument on the grounds of inconsistency in application for the fencing hall or battlefield would have served Hutton no better here, as he is by far more guilty of this in his own writings. Several examples can be found in Cold Steel, such as his 'cut 8' or vertical rising cut aimed at the groin, which he clarifies 'should never be used in school play', or the similar qualification in his description of hitting with the hilt and grappling, while allowing for 'exceptional circumstances'.⁴² Contrary to what he says in his attack on the Infantry Sword Exercise, a jumping retreat is a perfectly admissible technique here, particularly useful 'in a room where the floor is level, but might be attended with considerable risk in the open'.⁴³ Hutton provides sabre bouting rules which allow for the legs to be an invalid target when they are unprotected and his general rules forbid the use of the left hand for grappling.⁴⁴ Despite his own inconsistency in what he considers acceptable in bouting, Hutton expresses great resentment for those who 'ignore the rules and customs of gentlemanly fencing'.⁴⁵

Throughout his whole critique, Hutton's arguments remain solely in the hypothetical realm. Considering that Aldershot had been teaching Masiello's method since at least the beginning of 1893, there is a distinct lack of engagement with how the army's instructors were reacting to the change and the results among their students. Remember, Hutton was not just criticising the British army's implementation of Masiello's method but the foundations of the method itself. He completely ignores the past and continuing success of Radaellian fencing in Italy as well as in Austria, where (by 1896) Luigi Barbasetti had received a rapturous welcome that quickly led to the adoption of his method—very similar to Masiello's—by the Austrian military.⁴⁶ In due time this would be replicated by other Italian masters in Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere. Inspector of the Aldershot school, Colonel Fox, himself identified Hutton's confinement to the theoretical realm already in 1893:

To conclude, I cannot but think it is a pity that Captain Hutton has not taken the trouble to find out for himself, or to come and see what is actually going on in the headquarter fencing establishment at Aldershot, before condemning it, as he is evidently in entire ignorance of the system that is carried out there.⁴⁷

Three years later, Hutton's response to the 1895 Infantry Sword Exercise again demonstrates this pattern of behaviour. Today, we are only able to engage with fencing from this time through books, but for a wealthy, well-connected ex-soldier such as Hutton, such ignorance is less forgivable. Instances such as this might well prompt us to consider how reliable Hutton was even within his own British context.

Conclusion

Having reached this point, readers may be wondering: why bother refuting Hutton at all if his opinions are irrelevant to Italian fencing? What we hope to have demonstrated with this article is that the way Hutton engaged with source material, both contemporary and historical, did not only lead to incorrect assumptions about European fencing, but also serves as a poor example for modern readers. Emulating Hutton's approach to reading fencing treatises inevitably encourages superficial engagement with the systems described within them, to treat the individual techniques as nifty tools to appropriate without having a deeper understanding of the context behind them.

When reading primary fencing sources, we should ask ourselves questions such as these: Why did the author publish their book, and who was the intended audience? How did the author's contemporaries view the work, both at home and abroad? Is this work representative of that country or region's fencing as a whole? On the surface it would appear Hutton did attempt to approach his readings in this way, but time and time again he was only able to develop conclusions which validated his preconceptions and are contradicted by the historical record.

One would then do well to ask the same questions of Hutton's works, but this is beyond the scope of this article. Only one question will be posed here: what can we speculate about Hutton's motivations? It is undeniable that he was greatly invested in improving the apparent stagnation of British fencing in the latter half of the 19th century, as evidenced by his writings going back to the 1860s, but how can these efforts be reconciled with his near hostility towards Fox's efforts at reform in the 1890s?

Beginning with the publication of Cold Steel in 1889, Hutton coupled his fencing promotion with self-promotion, placing the reinterpreted techniques of old treatises alongside his own unremarkable observations and peddling them as a novelty, or rather a renovation. Any specific choice of inclusion in the material could be justified by his insistence on drawing upon the established works of other masters; thus through their expertise, Hutton was able to derive his own authority. Hutton hosted grand displays of old fencing styles—with the rapier and dagger, sword and buckler, and longsword—while simultaneously inserting himself into debates on fencing and physical education within the British military, despite showing little effort to engage directly with the most influential institution within that field.

When it became apparent that the British military, along with many other European states, was beginning to look to Italy for inspiration in revitalising its own fencing culture, Hutton had no option but to place himself in opposition. Hutton had to reject Masiello's system not because of its lack of merit, but because he had absolutely no involvement in its adoption. As Hutton said himself in 1893: 'What is really needed as a text-book is a judicious blend of the time-honoured English broadsword play with certain details, and not so very many of them, derived from the modern Italians (and this I claim to have already provided in "Cold Steel" and "The Swordsman")'.⁴⁸

It is understandable that Alfred Hutton's works were and are useful for those beginning their dive into the history of modern fencing. For a person living in 19th-century England he was particularly well-read on the topic of fencing and a tireless advocate for the practice within civil and military society; where he fell short was in the analysis and application of those fencing systems. As modern researchers bring more of the world of fencing to light, as we write the history of British fencing in the 19th century, the community ought to begin looking beyond people such as Hutton.

* * *

1 Alfred Hutton, Cold Steel: A practical treatise on the sabre (London: William Clowes, 1889).^↩
2 Infantry Sword Exercise 1895 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1895).^↩
3 Alfred Hutton, The Swordsman: A Manual of Fence for the Foil, Sabre, and Bayonet (London: H. Grevel, 1891).^↩
4 Hutton, Cold Steel, pp. 3, 31, 34, 73, 97, 98. See also Hutton, Our Swordsmanship (London: Harrison and Sons, 1893), 9.^↩
5 Federico Cesarano, Trattato teorico-pratico di scherma della sciabola (Milan: Natale Battezzati, 1874); Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884).^↩
6 Hutton, Our Swordsmanship, 9; Hutton, "To the editor of the 'Army and Navy Gazette'," Army and Navy Gazette, 7 September 1895, 749.^↩
7 Some examples: Jaime Merelo y Casademunt, Tratado completo de la esgrima del sable español (Toledo: Severiano Lopez Fando, 1862), 54; Reinhold Silfversvärd, Handbok för undervisning i sabelfäktning till fot (Stockholm: Iwar Hæggström, 1868); Léon Galley, Traité d'escrime pratique au sabre, à la baïonnette et au bâton (Fribourg: Imprimerie Galley 1877) 22; Liborio Vendrell y Eduart, Arte de esgrimir el sable (Vitoria: Elias Sarasquela, 1879), 40–1; Alfredo Merelo y Fornés, Manual de esgrima de sable y lanza para toda el arma de caballería y sable de infantería (Madrid: M. Minuesa, 1880), 38; Luis Cenzano y Zamora, Manual de esgrima de sable: recopilación de las principales tretas puestas por lecciones al alcance de todos los aficionados (Burgos: Viuda de Villanueva, 1882) 26.^↩
8 The three that demonstrate a similar position as Hutton are: Carlo Tambornini, Breve trattato di scherma alla sciabola (Genoa: Tipografia Ponthenier, 1862); Salvatore Mendietta-Magliocco, Manuale della scherma di sciabola (Parma: Sarzi Erminio, 1868); Cesarano, Trattato teorico-pratico di scherma della sciabola. One might wish to be generous and include the point-forward variations seen in two authors: Giuseppe Cerri, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma per sciabola (Milan: self-pub., 1861); Giovanni Battista Ferrero, Breve trattato sul maneggio della sciabola (Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1868).^↩
9 In the case of slanted head parries, see Bluth, Praktische Anleitung zum Unterricht im Hiebfechten (Berlin: Siegfried Mittler, 1883), 30–31; Antonio Álvarez García, Tratado de esgrima de sable y florete (Jerez: Imp. de El Cronista, 1886), 9. For examples of horizontal head parries by Italian authors, see Tambornini, Breve trattato di scherma alla sciabola; Mendietta-Magliocco, Manuale della scherma di sciabola; Alberto Falciani, La scherma della sciabola e del bastone a due mani brevemente insegnata nella lingua del popolo (Pisa: Fratelli Nistri, 1870).^↩
10 Even Hutton's favourite contemporary Italian author, Parise, only mentions them four times throughout his entire treatise. Cuts with the false edge are mentioned rarely or not at all in Radaellian works. See Giordano Rossi, Manuale teorico-pratico per la scherma di spada e sciabola (Milan: Fratelli Dumolard Editori, 1885); Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: Stabilimento Tipografico G. Civelli, 1887).^↩
11 Arnoldo Ranzatto, Istruzioni per la scherma di sciabola illustrate da dieciotto figure con aggiunte alcune norme per il duello (Venice: Stabilimento Tipografico Fratelli Visentini, 1885), 22.^↩
12 Hutton, Cold Steel, 2.^↩
13 Ibid., 38.^↩
14 "Col. Sir Malcolm Fox: An Appreciation," The Sportsman, 5 August 1915; Mutio, "La nuova scuola di scherma a Londra," Scherma Italiana, 20 April 1893, 27.^↩
15 "Ferdinando Masiello," Cappa e Spada, 15 January 1888; Ministero della Guerra, Bollettino ufficiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli ufficiali del R. Esercito Italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare, (Rome: Tipografia C. Voghera, 1887), 499.^↩
16 One commentator in 1891 likened Masiello's importance in Italian fencing as equivalent to Mérignac for French fencing, and that 'the majority of Italians consider [Masiello] as the head of our Italian school'. Liberato De Amici, "La scherma italiana: Pini e Mérignac," Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile, 16 May 1891, 2.^↩
17 "Scherma," Notizie del giorno, Il Piccolo della Sera, 17 October 1887.^↩
18 Ministero della Guerra, Bollettino ufficiale delle nomine, promozioni e destinazioni negli ufficiali del R. Esercito Italiano e nel personale dell'amministrazione militare, (Rome: Tipografia E. Voghera, 1893), 592.^↩
19 Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma di sciabola, 2nd ed. (Florence: Tipografia di Egisto Bruscoli, 1893); Masiello, La scherma di sciabola, 3rd ed. (Florence: R. Bemporad, 1902); Masiello, La scherma di fioretto, 2nd ed. (Florence: R. Bemporad, 1902).^↩
20 Alfred Hutton, "The Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," United Service Magazine, March 1896, 631–40.^↩
21 Hutton, "Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," 631.^↩
22 Ibid.^↩
23 Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico, 24.^↩
24 Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma di sciabola a cavallo (Florence: Stabilimento G. Civelli, 1891).^↩
25 Masiello, La scherma di sciabola, 2nd ed. (Florence: Tipografia di Egisto Bruscoli, 1893), 11.^↩
26 See Saverio Cerchione, "Il peso dell'arma nello schermire," La Gazzetta dello Sport, 24 October 1898, 2.^↩
27 Hutton, "Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," 636.^↩
28 Louis Perrée, "Quelques mesures prises chez les Maîtres d'armes," La Vie au Grand Air, 22 December 1904, 1038–9.^↩
29 Hutton, "Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," 634.^↩
30 Sebastian Seager, "The Parise-Pecoraro Method (Part 1)," Radaellian Scholar (blog), 21 January 2019, https://radaellianscholar.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-parise-pecoraro-method-part-1.html; Seager, "The Parise-Pecoraro Method (Part 2)," Radaellian Scholar (blog), 16 February 2019, https://radaellianscholar.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-parise-pecoraro-method-part-2.html; Seager, "The Parise-Pecoraro Method (Part 3)," Radaellian Scholar (blog), 23 January 2021, https://radaellianscholar.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-parise-pecoraro-method-part-3.html.^↩
31 Ministero della Guerra, Regolamento di esercizi per la cavalleria, vol. 1, Istruzione individuale (Rome: Voghera Enrico, 1896), 30–2; Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello, 5th ed. (Turin: Casa Editrice Nazionale, 1904), 285–6.^↩
32 A study conducted in 1893 counted a total of 225. See Luigi Moschetti, "La scherma nell'esercito," Scherma Italiana, 1 September 1896, 38–9.^↩
33 I. D. Chepmell and G. H. Savage, "Infantry Sword Exercise and the Recent Handbook from the War Office," The Lancet 146, no. 3752, (27 July 1895): 234, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)05337-0; C. T. Dent, "Infantry Sword Exercise and the Recent Handbook from the War Office," The Lancet 146, no. 3770 (30 November 1895): 1391–2, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(00)31601-4; E. D. Ritchie, "The New Infantry Sword Exercise," The Lancet 147, no. 3787 (28 March 1896): 888–9, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(02)01770-1; C. T. Dent, "The New Infantry Sword Exercise," The Lancet 147, no. 3789 (11 April 1896): 1021, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)39514-4.^↩
34 Achille Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli (Florence: Tipi dell'Arte della Stampa, 1877), 21.^↩
35 "The New Infantry Sword Exercise," The Lancet 147, no. 3800 (27 June 1896): 1814, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(01)39112-2.^↩
36 Hutton, "Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," 633–4, 637.^↩
37 Onlooker, "The New Sword Exercise: A Rejoinder by an Onlooker," United Service Magazine, April 1896, 99.^↩
38 Hutton, "Infantry Sword Exercise of 1895," 637.^↩
39 Ibid., 636–7.^↩
40 Ibid., 639.^↩
41 Ibid., 638.^↩
42 Hutton, Cold Steel, 31, 33, 89.^↩
43 Ibid., 87.^↩
44 Ibid., 120, 236.^↩
45 Ibid., 121.^↩
46 Victor Silberer, foreword to Das Säbelfechten by Luigi Barbasetti, trans. Rudolf Brosch and Heinrich Tenner (Vienna: Verlag der Allgemeinen Sport-Zeitung, 1899), 5–6.^↩
47 Malcolm Fox in Alfred Hutton, Our Swordsmanship (London: Harrison and Sons, 1893), 13.^↩
48 Hutton, Our Swordsmanship, 9.^↩

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.

***Scans***

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.