The 1881 Naples Gymnastics Congress (Part 3)

After a full week of excitement and controversy, the 1881 Naples Gymnastics Congress came to an end on 2 October. To a once again crowded hall at the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, the presidents of the congress and the Italian Gymnastics Federation briefly expressed their thanks to all attendees and benefactors for contributing to the success of the event. They then invited the speakers of the competition juries to give reports on their respective events at the congress. Following Gregorio Draghicchio's report on the gymnastics event, Vincenzo Pizzutti took the podium to share the thoughts of the jury for the didactic exhibition. As mentioned in part 1, this event featured manuscripts, published works, designs, and equipment related to physical education, placed on display in the same building as the fencing competition throughout the entire duration of the congress.

The didactic exhibition featured around 200 items submitted by 71 people, and 11 of those items were directly related to fencing. Only two submissions were fencing equipment, with Errico De Robert submitting a special mask for great stick (bastone) fencing and Alessandro Gauthier submitting a wall-mounted fencing arm which could record the time interval between beating the mounted blade and the wall target.¹ The rest of the submitted fencing items were written publications, most of which should be familiar to regular readers of this blog. Very few of them were technical works; four copies of Giovanni Battista Ferrero's 1868 sabre treatise were on display and Federico Cesarano submitted his 1874 sabre treatise along with his personal report on the 1881 Milan Tournament. The rest of the fencing-related submissions were in fact the booklets and articles criticising Radaelli's method which had been published over the preceding four years, namely:

• 13 copies of Luigi Forte's Sul metodo di scherma Radaelli: lettera critica diretta al signor Ferdinando Masiello maestro di scherma all'accademia di Torino
• 15 copies of Giovanni Pagliuca's Cenni di critica sul sistema di scherma Redaelli
• 1 copy of Giuseppe Perez's Il sistema di spada Radaelli giudicato dall'arte della scherma: lavoro critico
• 5 copies of Achille Angelini's Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli
• 1 copy of Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito's Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881
• 1 copy of Clemente Doux's Il maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo di scherma Radaelli

Most of these works have been translated and discussed previously on this blog, so here it will suffice to say that each of these works were harshly critical of different aspects of Radaelli's teachings, and would without a doubt have created an overwhelmingly negative view of the Milan Master's School for those who perused this area of the didactic exhibition. The exhibition's jury, however, was well aware of how touchy a subject this was, and purposefully refrained from passing judgement on the fencing publications or coming out in support of one school or another, limiting themselves to speaking only on gymnastics. Nevertheless, Pizzutti conceded in his speech at the closing ceremony that if the jury were to give a prize to any of these critical works, Angelini's would deserve it the most 'for the intrinsic merits that it contains'. Cariolato and Granito's report on the 1881 Milan Tournament apparently was not considered by the jury to be in the same category as the other fencing publications, despite the fact that the authors made several recommendations for the government favourable to the Neapolitan school. The tournament report was given a 'special certificate of honour' for its 'praiseworthy statistical research'.²

Next to take the podium was Cesare Parrini, the speaker for the fencing jury. Anyone who might have expected to hear a simple run-down of how well the event was carried out or a general appreciation of the competitors would be surprised to hear Parrini immediately declare that he would not be doing that. In his view, the juries of previous congresses had chosen to maintain a respectable silence rather than express what they all felt in their hearts in condemning certain systems and trends. This silence, he continues, had unfortunately 'affirmed and baptised ... methods and systems which, as soon as they were born, should have been buried forever.'³

Parrini opts not to give an explicit condemnation of any school in particular, yet his inferences are as unsubtle for those reading today in the 21st century as they would have been for an Italian enthusiast listening at the time. Parrini asks the audience to recall the 'spectacle' of the fencing at the Naples Congress, how so many fencers devolved into violent, forceful actions lacking any grace and intelligence. Their fencing was a total negation of fencing's history, which Parrini characterises in a typical Victorian fashion as a progression from barbaric, unrefined violence towards the modern, civilised art of self-defence full of 'grace, composure, and gentlemanly urbanity'. Of course, this latter type of fencing was not without its representatives at the Naples Congress.

See them, representatives of a noble school, a fertile tradition, manoeuvre like the ancient knights in the tournaments who, with the battle over, could calmly place their sword at the feet of the lady of their desires; because that sword was only deadly in appearance; that sword was only signifying that the hand that gripped it was worthy of using it, it was the hand of a courteous knight.

See them, o gentlemen, these knights of antiquity returned to life, composed in body, graceful in their movements; see how their guard is stable, elegant, profiled; see how their silent sword advances directly, describing a circle which only the trained eye can determine in its circumference; see them seize the tempo well; see how, with the left foot firmly on the ground and the hand in line, they extend with grace, with beautiful movement, without shifting their centre of gravity, maintaining measure and striking the opponent in such a chivalrous manner that the loser almost feels no regret for the defeat and admires the one who caused it.

So just who exactly were these 'knights' of modern fencing? They were, of course, the fencers who represented the 'national or Italian school ... which has its roots in this most noble city'. With their refined method and chivalry, it was they who emerged clearly superior at the Naples Congress. The victory of this school naturally had implications beyond simply competitive sport: 'but here it is a question of general interest, of national interest! Our army must be the symbol of force: but kind, noble, and generous force.' The soldier of 1881 relied only on 'the brutal power of his arm' to fulfill his duty, which was detrimental to the national project of creating refined, educated, and 'useful' citizens. In case listeners held any doubts as to which school Parrini had in mind as being the true 'national' school of fencing, he notes that during the congress the jury made a point of not announcing which school each fencer belonged to when they were called out onto the piste, as had occurred at previous congresses.

Naples is a centre of great fencers; to mention an Italian school was almost like recalling the public's attention to the Neapolitan school. Allow me to say that it would have been inhospitable and almost uncharitable.

Parrini and the rest of the jury were clearly aware of the enormous advantages in external perception and morale which Neapolitan fencers possessed at the Naples Congress and the fact that, after many years of insisting that the words 'Neapolitan' and 'Italian' were synonymous with respect to fencing, a significant portion of congress attendees were in full agreement with the equivalence. With the Neapolitan school elevated above all others in the minds of the jury, all that was left to do was for its fencers to demonstrate their superiority in the competition to confirm its right to take the place of the Radaelli school within the military and at last become a truly national school.

After justifying the jury's decision to alter the process of admissions and classifications, as mentioned in part two, Parrini alludes to a sense of disappointment among some of the fencers over which category they were assigned to, and assured them that being relegated to the second category should not be seen as punishment, but a worthy prize and a vote of encouragement to continue improving. Concluding, Parrini reasserts the resolution made by the second general assembly at the congress that the Italian people should endeavour to unite all fencing schools into a single, national school. Yet again, the ideological battle is framed as being one between 'north and south' where 'two institutions ... fight harsh battles and struggle for victory', both with the noble aim of defending the fatherland. Parrini's implication here was that a struggle for survival was being carried out between the Military Fencing Master's School in Milan and the National Academy of Fencing in Naples, the former supported by the government and the latter a civilian organisation, despite its aspirational name. He had no doubt, however, as to which institution and which method would soon emerge victorious:

We hope that the 10th Congress proclaims and consecrates a single method; that the defeated are comforted by the assurance that even their errors will have been useful, because there is no progress without struggle; only when the struggle is made to persist through partisan spirit, through spite, and through stubbornness, only then is there harm and regression. We hope that the winners take courage and persevere in their gloriously beaten path. Gymnastics and fencing, reduced to methodological unity, will make a reality of that which has so far seemed an abstract saying of a great Italian, and we will be able to say—sure that we are right—that Italy was made, but that Italians were also made.

Ending his speech with a reference to Massimo D'Azeglio's often-quoted phrase 'we have made Italy; now we must make Italians' emphasises the national importance that many placed on fencing and physical education in general. In the case of fencing, Parrini frames national unity as being entirely dependent on the abolishment of Radaelli's method, one which had already lost the ideological struggle and was only managing to hold on through spite.

Parrini's speech was followed by the representatives for the target shooting event and the regata, then some closing remarks from congress secretary Luigi Cosenz, who briefly reasserted the need for unity in Italy's physical education, particularly fencing. The emergent opinion among spectators and the second general assembly was for the 'condemnation of a method acknowledged by talented writers as inferior to our ancient school and which has made its way into our army under the aegis of protectionism.'⁴

After a few more brief remarks, the ceremony at last progressed to the awarding of prizes. As mentioned in part two, all fencers who were classified in the first category received a gold medal, while those in the second and third received a silver or bronze medal, respectively. Additionally, several special prizes were donated by various organisations and government bodies, which were destined for fencers whom the jury believed deserved a special distinction. For their foil bouts, Masaniello Parise was awarded a gold pocket watch donated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Gaetano Emanuele di Villabianca was given a bronze clock with a silk banner featuring the coat of arms of the National Academy of Fencing in Naples, donated by the same. For his sabre bouts, Ernesto De Marinis also received a gold pocket watch, this one donated by the National Academy of Fencing. Carlo Pessina was awarded a bronze statuette of the late king Vittorio Emanuele II for his victory in the sabre pool. In addition to his foil prize, Masaniello Parise also received a silver medal in the civilian pistol shooting event, showing that his skill at arms extended beyond foil fencing.

With the last of the prizes awarded, the 9th Italian Gymnastics Congress was finally drawn to a close with Gerolamo Giusso's cry of 'Long live the King, long live the Queen, long live the Prince of Naples!' Besides the speeches given on 2 October, the official report on the congress had yet more to say on the event in its concluding remarks, compiled on behalf of the organisers by Luigi Cosenz. While the majority of this 18-page conclusion was occupied with gymnastics and organisational matters, about a third was dedicated to the topic of fencing and the national implications of the congress's fencing competition. Unlike in Parrini's speech, Cosenz has no qualms in explicitly naming the contending parties in Italian fencing, calling one the 'classical Italian or Neapolitan school' and the other 'known by the name of half-Italian (Radaelli)', with the former represented by the National Academy of Fencing in Naples and the latter by the Fencing Master's School of Milan.

Cosenz notes that despite the many works written on the topic, most of which were of course presented at the Naples Congress, the battle between the two methods was still being waged to the detriment of the nation. While the 'classical Italian system' is framed as the inheritor of an ancient Italian tradition with rich theoretical and scientific foundations, such what one finds in the treatise of Rosaroll and Grisetti, the Radaelli system was in open contradiction with all its supposed influences, be they French or Italian. Furthermore, it was the product of a just single man, then propagated by the colonel of a single regiment and codified by a single author, Settimo Del Frate, and soon after forced upon the entire army. The Radaelli system was apparently being abandoned in civilian circles, as evidenced by the Neapolitan master Giuseppe Lopez y Suarez being hired by the largest civilian fencing society in Milan. The people whom Cosenz considered the best foil fencers in the army were not those who adhered to the half-Italian method, but rather were students of Cesare Enrichetti, whose system adhered in large part to the traditional Neapolitan-Italian school. Cosenz found that many others were distancing themselves from the official half-Italian method and drawing inspiration from elsewhere, even going to so far as to adopt the Italian foil, a tendency which serves as 'one of the greatest condemnations of this method.' Even with respect to sabre, Radaelli's school had been unable to produce sabreurs of the same quality as even Enrichetti's defunct school in Parma. To further emphasise the gravity of the present situation, Cosenz warns that the Italian cavalry, which relied heavily on the sabre in combat, was in a state of clear inferiority compared to Italy's neighbours due to the regulation method.

Any victories by the Radaellians previous congresses are dismissed by Cosenz as the consequence of very few Neapolitans being represented at those events to provide an effective contrast. Moreover, the skill of a few outstanding individuals cannot validate an entire method, since the average results of the method had by then been deemed detrimental to a fencer's development. The only thing left to be done, then, is for the government to fully condemn the Radaelli method and unify Italian fencing under the classical Italian school. Cosenz's other recommendations for future fencing events were that juries should adhere more closely to the written regulations rather than simplify the voting process for the sake of convenience, and that juries be reduced from 20 members to 12 in order to facilitate faster voting and discussion of results.

Cosenz's concluding remarks continue two common threads among Neapolitan critiques of the Milan Master's School. The first is in how he consistently blurs the line between foil and sabre fencing in order to paint the Milan school in general as something foreign and defective. It is undoubtedly true that Radaelli's half-Italian foil method contained considerable influence from French fencing, but the same criticism could at all be levelled at his sabre method. This results in Cosenz and others relying on more vague, often academic defects such as the use of 'excessive force' and aesthetic criteria to prove its inferiority. The second common thread is Cosenz's separation of the Radaellians from the Enrichettians, which is a tactical move to avoid fully isolating those military fencing masters who were less dedicated to the current regime and who may have harboured some sympathies for the Neapolitan school, at least with regard to foil, such as Giovanni Pagliuca.

While generally favourable to the Neapolitan school, the press were not quite as unanimous as the jury in their impressions of the Naples Congress. Just as Cariolato and Granito had asserted that the best Radaellians of the 1881 Milan Tournament—such as Arista, Pecoraro, and Rossi—were those who deviated most from their Radaellian origins, Milan's Corriere della Sera noted a similar sentiment being spread about the winner of the sabre pool, Carlo Pessina, who instead openly refuted these claims and 'clearly proclaimed himself a Radaellist'.⁵ This Radaellian victory should also be seen to 'invalidate' the general assembly's vote against Radaelli's system, as while the opinion of 'dispassionate experts' was negative towards the Radaellian performance in foil, with regard to sabre they were 'very favourable'. Rome's Fanfulla notes that there were many complaints from competitors and the public about the jury of the fencing event. Rather than join the apparent pile-on, the journalist defends the jury's decisions as far as the classification and prizes are concerned, concluding that the public understood nothing of what they saw. Pessina's prize in particular is again implied to be one of the more controversial, with the jury's fairness in this instance being 'acknowledged by all ... except those who did not acknowledge it.'⁶

Dissatisfaction with the jury is common complaint in Italian fencing tournaments of this time, but it is very rare to hear dissent from a member of that same jury. So displeased was Giacomo Massei with the Naples Congress, himself a member of the fencing jury, that he wrote a 16-page booklet to explain all the mistakes that were made by the fencing jury throughout the event.⁷ Massei asserts that in the aftermath of the Naples Congress, the jury's conduct had been unanimously condemned in the eyes of the fencing world and the general public. He places himself within a minority among the jury members which was opposed to these controversial actions, but refrained from resigning as he had initially hoped to steer the jury in the right direction, soon realising that the most that could be done was to bear witness to and record the 'injustices'.

The first of these injustices was the manner in which the jury was elected, which was not done in accordance with congress regulations. Instead of individually electing each of the 20 jury members by secret ballot, a proposal was submitted by a small group of attendees to approve of their curated list of nominees, which the congress assembly subsequently voted on and approved. Massei points the finger in particular at the desire of Gerolamo Giusso and Cesare Parrini, the respective president and secretary of the congress, to save time in the voting process. The deviation from the regulations continued in the admission bouts, where, as discussed in part two, all fencers were admitted to the competition indiscriminately. The consequences of this decision, Massei continues, was that the classification process was stripped of its significance. If all fencers were admitted, then all fencers would at the very least have to be classified in the third category, which meant that instead it being a privilege and vote of encouragement to be assigned to the third category, it became an insult to the fencers who found themselves relegated there alongside the very worst fencers of the event.

Massei provides a list of fencers whom he believed were not given sufficient praise and due consideration in accordance with the classification criteria. His personal classification for foil would have seen La Marca, the Cipolla brothers, Ardito, and Musdaci all promoted to the first category. Raffaele and Eduardo Parise, Barraco, Dattola, d'Ondes, Bellussi, and Rizzo would instead be relegated to the second category, as while they all demonstrated great talent, they were each lacking in some of the classification criteria (except in courtesy, of course). Note that not a single Radaellian foilist was deemed worthy of Massei's praise, and the only foilists he believed deserved a promotion from the third category were the Neapolitan fencers Vacca and Musciomarra. With respect to sabre, the only Radaellian whom he considered worthy of the first category was Pessina, while Saccenti, Candeloro, and Emanuele should have been placed in the second category. The Neapolitans Del Pozzo, Spinelli, and Santa Margherita deserved a promotion from second to first category.

Next in the list of grievances was the decision of the jury to allocate the prize for the foil pool, which the competitors voluntarily gave up, to the sabre competition. This was seen as an insult to the foil competitors, as they had wished that the prize be instead awarded to one of the foil competitors. A further and more egregious injustice was done to the foil competitors in how the jury determined the winner of the special prize for the best first-category foilist. As stated earlier, the prize ended up being awarded to the young up-and-comer Masaniello Parise, who received no shortage of praise from all sides for his masterful technique and composure. Yet despite the fact that Masaniello was one of Massei's students, he believed that Antonio Miceli was in fact more deserving of this prize. The reason, Massei asserts, why Miceli did not receive the prize was because out of the seven criteria which the jury should have been considering, they inexplicably placed the greatest emphasis on the beauty of the fencers' guard positions. This placed Miceli at a marked disadvantage, as he was an older man of large size, making it difficult for him to fully profile his upper body. The fit, young Masaniello undoubtedly had the more graceful guard, but he was not as technically developed as Miceli.

The final injustice Massei witnessed was that the voting for these special prizes was done in secret, rather than as a group discussion. This prevented Massei and his sympathisers from making their case for how the criteria should be prioritised and which fencers should be up for consideration. The supposed consequences of all these irregularities in the jury's conduct was that many fencing masters no longer trusted competition juries, and amateur fencers felt discouraged from taking part in competitions altogether. Of the other jurors at the congress, Massei asserts that Angelini, Perez, Michelozzi, Cariolato, and Benedetto di San Giuseppe all agreed with his assessment. Rather than being a moral victory, Massei saw the Naples congress as a demonstration of the decadence into which the Neapolitan school had sunk, causing the goal of achieving recognition as the only true Italian fencing to drift even further out of reach. The old guard of the Neapolitan school was slowly dying out or leaving the competitive scene, with no clear successors in sight. He gives a rousing call to young Neapolitan masters to ensure his lifetime of hard work would not be in vain: 'Study the ancient, the pure, the good Neapolitan school, and hand it down to others, like a sacred deposit.' Again, for Massei this was not simply a matter of preserving the Neapolitan school, but its propagation was explicitly linked to the national project: 'Remember that in the secret of your halls you are carrying out a slow, but incessant and colossal work for the benefit of the fatherland.'

If nothing else, Massei's booklet demonstrates that the anti-Radaellian bias at the Naples congress was not simply the result of an elaborate Neapolitan conspiracy, as there were significant disagreements in the judging process. In fact, Massei believes the jury had not been harsh enough on the Radaellians. So despite the clear Neapolitan bias shown by the reporting on the event, it would be unwise to ignore all negative remarks about the performance of the Radaellian contingent at the Naples Congress. While the authors of the report for the 1881 Milan Tournament tried to paint the event as a clear victory for the Neapolitan school of foil, the results were still very favourable for the Radaellians, particularly with regard to sabre. In contrast, what the Naples Congress provided for the anti-Radaellian camp was unambiguous proof that the Neapolitans could more than hold their own in sabre fencing too. Partisans of the Neapolitan school were able to effectively rally its best elements, both on the piste and off, and shape the public discourse around a single event in order to raise implications for the national fencing scene.

The congress provided a convenient platform for the pro-Neapolitan cause to be amplified and heard by some of the most influential members of society. Given that three members of the fencing jury were parliamentary deputies at the time of the congress, it seems significant that only six months later the Ministry of War would announce a commission to make recommendations regarding which fencing system should be adopted by the military and how this selection process should take place. The conclusions of this commission, headed by General Giuseppe Colli di Felizzano, were that 'a single method, both for sword and sabre, should be adopted' and that the Radaelli method 'does not correspond to the aim of making good sword and sabre fencers'.⁸ Following closely with the commission's recommendations, in September 1882 the Ministry of War announced a treatise competition, in which the best fencing treatise, 'informed by sound Italian traditions', would be chosen to serve as the new text for the military, which would ensure that fencing could be taught 'according to a perfectly uniform method among the troop corps and military institutions of the Kingdom'.⁹

The wording of the 1882 commission's recommendations and the treatise competition announcement share a lot in common with the order of the day carried by the second general assembly at the Naples Congress, which asserted that Radaelli's system 'does not correspond to the true needs of the army and arms enthusiasts' and that the system be replaced 'for the good of the art and the fatherland'. The one who presented this motion to the congress assembly, Domenico Cariolato, was among the 13 people chosen by the Ministry of War in 1883 to select the winner of the official treatise competition. Of those 13 members, all amateurs, six had also been members of the fencing jury at the Naples Congress two years earlier, and they were arguably the most ardently anti-Radaellian elements of that jury, namely: Achille Angelini, Ottavio Anzani, Domenico Cariolato, Emilio Conti, Luigi Cosenz, and Benedetto di San Giuseppe.¹⁰

It is well beyond the scope of this series to explicate all the problems and clear biases brought to light in the government's fencing treatise commission, but at the very least it is easy to see how the formation of this commission was, at least in part, a consequence of the events and discussions at the 1881 Naples Congress and its concentration of like-minded, influential people. The winning treatise, that authored by the decorated young master Masaniello Parise, may also reflect the legacy of the Naples Congress in a small way. Considering how many other, more widely known, works Parise admits in his bibliography, it is curious that a booklet as rare and unknown as Clemente Doux's earned a mention.¹¹ The fact that it was on display at the Naples Congress, however, goes a long way in explaining how Parise became aware of it, and its subject matter provided obvious ideological value. This was further reinforced by including his inclusion of the booklets by Achille Angelini, Luigi Forte, Giuseppe Perez, and Giovanni Pagliuca, which were also on display at the congress' didactic exhibition. At the end of his historical summary, Parise praises the utility of tournaments such as the 1881 International Milan Tournament for bringing glory to Italy's fencing traditions, and considers congresses 'a very suitable means to bring together into one family all those who cultivate fencing and to let them express to one another their own needs and their own aspirations', citing the report by Luigi Cosenz on the 1881 Naples Congress.¹²

Massei's prediction that the Neapolitan school was dying out was proven embarrassingly wrong with the meteoric rise of Masaniello Parise in the following years, which ushered in a new era of ideological antagonism in Italian fencing. Yet this also marked a new direction in the public discourse around fencing. The national congresses of the Italian Gymnastics Federation did not feature fencing as a major event post-1881, with dedicated fencing tournaments very quickly taking their place and becoming one of Italy's foremost competitive sporting events. In the early- and mid-1880s the most fervent Radaellians were mostly still employed in the military, and did not have the strong civilian base of supporters such as that enjoyed by the Neapolitan school. As the old Radaellian guard matured, however, and as more military masters left the army for better-paid jobs in private halls and civilian sporting clubs, the supporters of Radaellian fencing became a true force to be reckoned with not only on the competition piste, but also in the public press.

In their works refuting Parise's treatise and the government treatise competition which gave it such authority, both Salvatore Arista and Ferdinando Masiello cited the victory of a Radaellian in the sabre pool at the 1881 Naples Congress as one of many examples of how dominant the Radaellians were in competitive fencing prior to the closure of the Milan Master's School.¹³ It would not be until the 1890s that panel discussions on the state of the national fencing scene, resembling the general assemblies of the 1881 Naples Congress, would again take place at a public event.¹⁴ By then it was the Radaellian partisans who had the clear upper hand and the Neapolitans found themselves on the defensive, both sides having an equal claim to national recognition and both having experienced significant ideological and methodological development since the autumn of 1881.

*******

1 Milan's Il Secolo provided a helpful illustration and longer description of Gauthier's invention when he again submitted it to the 1884 Italian General Exposition in Turin. See 'L'Italia a Torino,' Il Secolo, 16 May 1884, 1.^↩
2 Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 112–120.^↩
3 Quoted in Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 94.^↩
4 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano, 137–138.^↩
5 'Lettere telegrafiche,' Corriere della Sera, 3–4 October 1881, 3.^↩
6 Picche, 'Cose di Napoli,' Fanfulla, 7 October 1881, 2.^↩
7 Giacomo Massei, Il XI congresso ginnastico e la sua giuria di scherma (Naples: Stabilimento Tipografico dell'Unione, 1881).^↩
8 Paulo Fambri 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), iv–v.^↩
9 Emilio Ferrero, 'Ministero della Guerra,' Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia, 21 September 1882, 4100–4101.^↩
10 Emilio Ferrero, 'Ministero della Guerra,' Gazzetta Ufficiale del Regno d'Italia, 3 November 1883, 4839.^↩
11 Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola, 11–22. From just the preceding decade, Parise omits the treatises of Vincenzo Bellini, Cesare Causa, Giovanni Gandolfi, and Pietro Duelli.^↩
12 Parise, Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola, 28.^↩
13 Salvatore 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), 10; Ferdinando Masiello, La scherma italiana di spada e di sciabola (Florence: G. Civelli, 1887), ix.^↩
14 See Carlo Pilla, Torneo nazionale di scherma, 3-7 maggio (Bologna: Società Tipografica già Compositori, 1891).^↩

The 1881 Naples Gymnastics Congress (Part 2)

The first bouts for the fencing portion of the Naples Gymnastics Congress began in the morning of 26 September 1881, the second day of the congress. Previous congresses had seen only a modest attendance from Neapolitan fencers, as they were all held in northern or central Italy; this instalment promised a much broader, and thus more representative, roster of Neapolitan fencers of all skill levels. A total of 76 fencers competed at the Naples congress, 61 in foil and 48 in sabre, which was a slight drop from the 75 foil and 55 sabre fencers who had originally registered.¹ A singular piste was erected in the middle of the grand hall in the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, measuring 16 metres long and 8 wide, raised off the ground by about a metre to provide all spectators a satisfactory view of the action.²

The fencing bouts on the 26th were to determine admissions; that is, fencers had to demonstrate that they were sufficiently skilled to be admitted into the rest of the competition. Here, as in the rest of the competition, no distinction was made between amateurs and masters, and bouting pairs were assigned indiscriminately of a fencer's professional status. While the regulations stated that a fencer could be rejected from participation if they were lacking in technical skill, variety, composure or politeness, jurors instead decided to ignore the regulations and be very forgiving in their admission judgements for the sake of simplicity. The result was that all fencers who attended were admitted to the competition, and those who had already done an admission bout in foil were exempt from doing another in sabre.³

Although this was mostly consistent with previous congresses, the skill level of the worst fencers made universal admission a controversial move in some eyes. In particular, it was felt that many of the Radaellians fencers present were of a poor standard and should have been excluded entirely. Nicola Lazzaro, writing for Gazzetta Piemontese, felt that it was 'a mistake' to admit everyone, because the fencing masters of the military 'in their generality made a poor showing and proved how perfectly defective the fencing school being taught in the army is'.⁴

To compensate for admitting everyone, the jury vowed to be much more discerning in the subsequent classification stage, which began on the following day. The foilists were divided into four groups of 15 pairs each, with the first two groups fencing on 27 September and the remaining two on the 28th.⁵ At the end of each bout, jurors were tasked with ranking both fencers in accordance with set aesthetic and technical criteria. Here again, however, the jury opted to simplify the process, disregarding individual scores for each criteria and allowing themselves to simply write on their ballot cards which of the three categories they thought a fencer should be assigned to based on their general impression.⁶ While the original scoring method made it possible to receive a moderate overall score by, for example, being athletic and skilled at touching even if one's fencing was aesthetically off-putting, eliminating this distinction could conceivably have increased the impact of personal bias, as it did not force jurors to consider each performance criterion separately.

Whether or not this did end up significantly affecting the results, a distinctly negative impression of the Radaellian fencers is reflected very early in the event's press coverage. After the first day of fencing, the Gazzetta d'Italia observed a great disparity between the Radaellians and those of the 'so-called National school' (equated here with Neapolitan fencing), finding in the former 'little or no taste, an ugly guard, uncomposed movements', while a fencer of the latter school made 'the perfect gentleman'.⁷ After the second day of foil classification bouts, the same journalist declared that the Radaelli school 'had emerged from the Naples competition with a new condemnation on its shoulders', impressions which were further confirmed by the general assembly on the night of the 27th, as discussed in part 1.⁸ For the correspondent of Paris's L'Événement, the bouts of that day were 'fatal to Redaelli's ridiculous system'—the Neapolitans had 'pulverised' their Radaellian opponents, who supposedly scored only one hit for every ten that landed on them.⁹

Even the Enrichettian competitors, whom Neapolitan partisans were generally more accepting of, mostly flew under the radar in these bouts. The only exception in the classification bouts was the one between the Enrichettian master Giovanni Pagliuca and Masaniello Parise, which for many was one of the most exciting of the entire event. The speed and complexity of their movements was particularly captivating:

The series of ripostes followed one another, the beats, the direct thrusts, the disengages, the feints, all sorts of parries interweave, meddle, and merge. The eyes cannot follow everything that happens.¹⁰

The only marginally positive impression expressed by L'Événement for a Radaellian foilist was in regard to a 'very difficult' recent graduate of the Milan school, Carlo Pessina. Even still, he was no match for his experienced opponent, the Neapolitan amateur Antonio Miceli, a 'colossus of fencing' whose wall of steel was entirely impenetrable to Pessina's speedy attacks.

If many of the foil bouts were perceived as one-sided affairs, this certainly did not diminish the curiosity of the general public. In the first few days of the congress, Nicola Lazzaro noted that the pistol and gymnastics competitions were only sparsely attended, mostly by enthusiasts, and 'the only section of the congress which a reasonable crowd rushed to, including a good number of women, was fencing.'¹¹ Attendance and enthusiasm grew each day, the crowd being noted as 'enormous' on the 28th, with the male journalists always keenly observant of the many fashionable women among them.¹²

In contrast to the strong attendance of local fencers and onlookers, a reduced contingent of military masters, at least compared to the recent Milan tournament, was noted by some. Rome's Fanfulla suggested that while the Neapolitan fencers were clearly superior at the congress, the event could offer no conclusions on the state of the national scene, as the local fencers were not opposed by 'the strongest champions of the other schools'.¹³ Among other absences, Gazzetta d'Italia notes that Ferdinando Masiello had a bad knee (he would undergo a surgical procedure just two weeks later) and Giordano Rossi was ill, while Milan's Il Secolo offered another explanation: 'the Redaellists did not want to go to this congress, because they already knew that things had been prepared to issue a vote against the Milanese school.'¹⁴

Compounding with the general apathy towards sabre fencing in Southern Italy, the absence of many top-tier Radaellians led to an underwhelming start to the sabre event, at least if the meagre press coverage is anything to go by. The 26 sabre classification bouts took place on 29 September (although there may possibly have been more on the 28th) with L'Événement only mentioning Vincenzo Bellini's drubbing of Radaellian master Alessandro Saccenti.¹⁵ In an interesting contrast with the article Niccola Lazzaro wrote for L'Illustrazione Italiana, which was discussed in part 1 of this series, his coverage for Gazzetta Piemontese was noticeably harsher towards the Radaellians. He felt that the condemnation of Radaelli's system which was pronounced at the assembly on the 27th was only further justified in light of the sabre classifications:

Consider these words carefully, weigh their importance and you will see how they attack an entire method so far held in high regard in the army and known by the name of Radaelli, which has given the result that every amateur of the true Italian school fully defeated a military fencing master—with some exceptions—as we saw yesterday in the sabre bout between the Prince of Santa Margherita (amateur) and a certain Gentiluomo (military master). The prince had a flawless victory, that is he landed all his blows without receiving a single one.¹⁶

The resulting classifications broadly reflected the opinions of journalists with regard to foil, but the jury was appeared slightly more forgiving towards the Radaellians with respect to sabre. Below is the list of every fencer who was classified at the congress according to the official report.¹⁷ Unlike the Milan tournament of that year, amateurs and masters were classified together, and the report does not distinguish between them in any way. What the report does helpfully note, however, is the fencing school each fencer belonged to, which I have represented with a letter next to each name.

Key:

E - Enrichetti school

M - Mixed school

N - Neapolitan school

R - Radaelli school

S - Sicilian school

Foil classification:

1st Category	2nd Category	3rd Category
Barraco, Gaetano (N) Bellussi, Federico (M) De Marinis, Ernesto (N) d'Ondes, Lorenzo (N) Miceli, Antonio (N) Pagliuca, Giovanni (E) Parise, Eduardo (N) Parise, Masaniello (N) Parise, Raffaele (N) Pinto, Giulio (N) Rizzo, Antonio (N)	Ardito, Giuseppe (N) Bellini, Andrea (N) Bellusci, Achille (N) Cafarelli, Pasquale (E) Cesarano, Federico (N) Cipolla, Luigi (N) Cipolla, Michele (N) Colombo, Lorenzo (R) Cuddia, Baron Staiti (N) Dattola, Giovanni (N) Emanuele di Villabianca, Gaetano (E) Farina, Baron Francesco (N) La Marca, Vincenzo (N) Musdaci, Raffaele (E) Pellegrini, Giuseppe (R) Pessina, Carlo (R) Robertella, Achille (N) Saccenti, Alessandro (R) Scotti, Arcangelo (E)	Annicchiarico, Concezio (R) Armista, Arturo (R) Audisio, Michele (E) Ballo, Nicola (R) Baroni, Vincenzo (N) Botti, Stanislao (R) Candeloro, Alfonso (R) Capasso, Vittorio (N) Cecirelli, Pasquale (S) Cirillo, Felice (N) Dal Mulin, G. Battista (M) Ferrajuolo, Giuseppe (E) Ferrara, Camillo (R) Ferri, Ferruccio (R) Ferrigni, Raffaele (N) Flauti, Raffaele (N) Franceschi, Nunzio (R) Gabelli, Enrico (M) Gentiluomo, Annibale (R) Massa, Andrea (M) Musciomarra, Francesco (N) Muti, Michele (N) Palmieri, Giuseppe (R) Pasetti, Vittorio (R) Pecci, Scipione (R) Rispoli, Luigi (N) Rossi, Sabato (E) Sirigatti, Salvatore (R) Tagliaferri, Luigi (R) Vacca, Carlo (N) Ugolino, Cesare (R)

Sabre classification:

1st Category	2nd Category	3rd Category
Barraco, Gaetano (N) Bellini, Vincenzo (N) Cipolla, Luigi (N) Candeloro, Alfonso (R) Dattola, Giovanni (N) De Marinis, Ernesto (N) Emanuele, Gaetano di Villabianca (E) Locascio, Cristofaro (N) Pagliuca, Giovanni (E) Pessina, Carlo (R) Saccenti, Alessandro (R)	Armista, Arturo (R) Annichiarico, Concezio (R) Audisio, Michele (E) Bellussi, Federico (M) Botti, Stanislao (R) Colombo, Lorenzo (R) Caffarelli, Pasquale (R) Corvino, Celeste (R) Del Pozzo, Giuseppe (N) Ferri, Ferruccio (R) Musdaci, Raffaele (R) Maffei, Vito (R) Pasetti, Vittorio (R) Pellegrino, Giuseppe (R) Pecci, Scipione (R) Palmieri, Giuseppe (R) Spinelli, Giuseppe (N) Siciliani, Carlo (N) Sammartino, Salvatore (R) S. Margherita, prince (N) Sirigatti, Salvatore (R) Ugolino, Cesare (R)	Atticciati, Ernesto (R) Barone, Vincenzo (N) Ballo, Nicola (R) Bozza, Augusto (R) Dal Mulin, G. Battista (M) De Peppo, Alfredo (N) Ferrara, Camillo (R) Ferrajuolo, Giuseppe (E) Gabelli, Enrico (M) Gentiluomo, Annibale (R) Rossi, Sabato (R) Sallazzaro de Nunnatores (R) Tagliaferri, Luigi (R) Vial, Pietro (N) Valcarenghi, Giordano (R)

One striking observation is that the third category in foil is considerably larger in proportion to the first two, a contrast that is absent in the sabre classification. The difference, as one might have guessed, lies in how the Radaellians were classified. In foil, 15 out of 19 fencers listed as Radaellians were classified in the third category, with the remaining four in the second category. In sabre, Radaellians were more distributed among the three categories, with the bulk (16 out of 28) in second category. Three Radaellians achieved a first category rating and only nine were relegated to the third category.

Of the Enrichettian masters, it is curious to see that several all are listed as such for both foil and sabre. Since late 1877, every Enrichettian had been trained in, and were presumably obliged to teach, Radaelli's method. Assuming fencers self-nominated their fencing school attribution for the sake of this report (although we cannot certain this was the case), choosing to be known as an Enrichettian sabreur rather than a Radaellian one may have given some military masters the opportunity to distance themselves from the Milan school and its controversial director. Giovanni Pagliuca had publicly criticised Radaelli's foil method in a recent publication, and may have wanted to further his standing among the Neapolitans by listing himself as an Enrichettian sabreur at the Naples Congress. Michele Audisio, on the other hand, had been listed as a Radaellian sabreur in the report for the Milan International Tournament that same year, which prompts the question of why he his fencing would be considered any different just five months later.¹⁸

It is also interesting to note that of the three members of the Parise family competing at the Naples Congress—Masaniello, his cousin Eduardo, and uncle Raffaele—not one of them competed in sabre. A higher proportion of fencers competed only in foil, 28 out of 61, than did in sabre only (14 out of 48). Of those 28 foilists who only competed in foil, 25 of them were of the Neapolitan school. While this indicates a lack of interest in sabre in Southern Italy, it is worth noting that eight out of the 14 sabreurs to only fence in that weapon were also of the Neapolitan school, with the remaining being all Radaellians. Of those Neapolitan sabre specialists, Maestro Vincenzo Bellini was considered by many to be the south's answer to Radaelli, having developed his own 'Neapolitan school' of sabre and publishing a short treatise on it a year after the Naples Congress.¹⁹ Before the competition had even begun, L'Événement asserted that the Bellini was 'one of the strongest sabre fencers of Italy, and, in everyone's opinion, he should take the place of that babbler Redaelli.'²⁰ Bellini firmly secured a place in the first category, while his students Cristofaro Locascio and Carlo Siciliani placed in the first and second categories respectively.

All those classified in the first category received a gold medal, those in the second category a silver medal, and those in the third category a bronze medal. More importantly though, the categorisation established was which fencers would be able to take part in the subsequent fencing events of the congress. Only those classified in the first category could compete in the 'pools', which were single-touch single elimination tournaments, and fencing in the grand exhibition was reserved for those in the first and second categories. The pools for foil and sabre were originally set to take place on the evening of the 29th, but the classification bouts went on for longer than anticipated. Meanwhile, the foilists who had been classified in the first category decided amongst themselves that winning a single-touch pool was of no great importance to them, as the outcome of a single-touch bout was considered little more than a coin toss. The foilists volunteered to give up the special medal reserved for the winner of that foil pool for the jury to award it to whomever they pleased.²¹ Thus only the sabre pool and the grand exhibition would go ahead, both on the following day.

As midday on 30 September approached, a large crowd filed into the grand Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, anxiously awaiting the day's events. Over 2000 people had been invited to the grand exhibition, and there seemed to be few absences among them.

There was no room left for a man's foot to stand which had not been taken up by a curious onlooker. The grand windows, the arcades on the upper floors which faced the hall, were crowded with people. Slightly after midday, amidst feverish anticipation, the sabre pool took place.²²

The referee for the day's action, Mario Del Tufo, mounted the raised piste followed by the first two competitors, Alfonso Candeloro and Giovanni Pagliuca, with the former emerging victorious. Alessandro Saccenti then defeated his opponent, Cristofaro Locascio, Vincenzo Bellini defeated Gaetano Barraco, and Carlo Pessina defeated Ernesto De Marinis. With both Giovanni Dattola and Luigi Cipolla being absent from the pool for unspecified reasons, there was an odd number of sabre fencers. This was solved in the customary way by matching the last remaining fencer with someone who had already fenced and won in that round. The person who had to fence a second time would remain in the competition regardless of the bout's outcome. In this instance the odd one out was Gaetano Emanuele di Villabianca, who was paired with and subsequently defeated Pessina (who was therefore not eliminated). In the second round, Pessina defeated Saccenti and Bellini defeated Candeloro. Emanuele was again paired with one of the preceding fencers, this time Bellini, who defeated Emanuele and knocked him out of the pool.²³ The last two remaining fencers, Pessina and Bellini, then took to the piste:

A single sabre blow will bring victory to one of these two. Everyone is on their feet, one dares not even breathe. Bellini vigorously attacks his opponent on the march; the latter retreats while parrying, and at the moment the former finishes his action with a successful blow to the head, Pessina, believing he was still in time to make a stop hit, delivers a descending cut and lightly touches Bellini's arm.²⁴

As the journalist for L'Événement continues, the referee Mario Del Tufo was visibly indecisive about what had occurred. The outraged journalist insists that Pessina was at fault, and that anyone who had spent at least six months in a fencing hall knew it. When pressed by the jury, Del Tufo is unable to make a decision, and they take no heed of Bellini's own attempts to explain the exchange. The jury retires to another room for discussion, emerging six minutes later to declare that a double touch had occurred and that the touches are annulled for both. The bout must continue. The fencers come on guard once more, and an irritated Bellini rushes his opponent, receiving a clean stop thrust to his chest. Pessina wins the sabre pool.

The sabre pool bracket, visualised. The numbers indicate the order of the bouts, while the asterisks mark the extra bouts to resolve the odd number of fencers.

After a 20-minute intermission for the public to recover from the sustained tension of the pool, the grand exhibition begins. The crowd is treated to seven foil bouts from those in the first category, the most memorable of which being Masaniello Parise's bouts with Ernesto De Marinis and Antonio Miceli, the bout between Federico Bellussi and Gaetano Barraco, and the final one between Eduardo Parise and Pagliuca. Five bouts among the first category sabreurs followed, including one between Neapolitans Locascio and De Marinis as well as an exciting rematch between Pessina and Bellini. This time around, the press was in full agreement that Bellini was the better of the two fencers, with the Gazzetta Piemontese commenting that the bout 'showed that the Jury was not entirely right in awarding the prize for the pool to Pessina.'²⁵

At around 4 pm the crowd saw three bouts between the second category foilists, the more appreciated of which being between Enrichettian masters Emanuele di Villiabianca and Raffaele Musdaci. The poor choice of the organisers to schedule the most exciting bouts at the beginning of the exhibition meant that, by the late afternoon, the crowd's interest was waning, and many had started making their way home. Just two sabre bouts from the second category fencers were carried out before the grand exhibition was finally concluded at 6 pm.

In the third and final part of this series, we will see what conclusions the jury drew from the Naples Congress, also taking into account the additional fencing awards presented on the congress' final day as well as considerations on the written works submitted to the didactic exhibition. I will also explore how the congress influenced events in Italian fencing over the following years and how its results were utilised by partisans on either side of the Radaellian-Neapolitan debate.

*******

1 Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 18. The actual number of fencers who attended was tallied up from the lists on pp. 99–102.^↩
2 'Napoli,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 29 September 1881, 1.^↩
3 Cesare Parrini in Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 97.^↩
4 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Ultime notizie,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3.^↩
5 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 1 October 1881, 1; 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 30 September 1881, 2; 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2. There was evidently some confusion about this among the press. Lazzaro's account states that each of the four groups contained 16 fencers each, while the Gazzetta d'Italia states there were 15, but is inconsistent in the number of groups.^↩
6 Parrini in Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico, 97. The original judging criteria from the congress regulations is quoted in Giacomo Massei, Il XI congresso ginnastico e la sua giuria di scherma (Naples: Stabilimento Tipografico dell'Unione, 1881), 6–7.^↩
7 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 29 September 1881, 2.^↩
8 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2.^↩
9 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2.^↩
10 Id.^↩
11 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 1 October 1881, 1.^↩
12 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2; E. W. Foulques, 'Chronique de Naples,' Le Voltaire, 12 October 1881, 2.^↩
13 Picche, 'Cose di Napoli,' 4 October 1881, 1–2.^↩
14 'IX Congresso Ginnastico,' Gazzetta d'Italia, 1 October 1881, 2; 'Napoli,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 29 September 1881, 1; 'La scuola milanese di scherma,' Il Secolo, 1 October 1881, 3. On Masiello's knee operation, see Nunzio Spina, 'La prima meniscectomia in Italia: storia di armi, di coraggio e di felici intuizioni,' Giornale Italiano di Ortopedia e Traumatologia 34, no. 2 (June 2008): 90–96, https://old.giot.it/article/la-prima-meniscectomia-in-italia-storia-di-armi-di-coraggio-e-di-felici-intuizioni/.^↩
15 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2.^↩
16 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3.^↩
17 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 99–102.^↩
18 Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881 (Naples: Tipi Ferrante, 1881), 126.^↩
19 Vincenzo Bellini, Trattato di scherma sulla sciabola (Naples: G. de Angelis, 1882).^↩
20 Fioretto, 'Lettres de Naples,' L'Événement, 27 September 1881, 2.^↩
21 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 91; Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2.^↩
22 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli, 91–92.^↩
23 Confusingly, Cosenz's official report on the pool lacks one of these bouts and does not explain the additional bouts resulting from the odd number of fencers. A better list of the pool bouts is found in 'Congresso ginnastico,' Corriere della Sera, 3 October 1881, 2. This system of resolving an odd number of fencers was also utilised at the 1881 Milan Tournament. See Cariolato & Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma, 57.^↩
24 Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2.^↩
25 Nicola Lazzaro, 'Il nono Congresso ginnastico,' Gazzetta Piemontese, 2 October 1881, 3. On the shared opinion of Bellini's superiority, see Frantz, 'Les grand congrès d'escrime de Naples,' L'Événement, 10 October 1881, 2; 'Congresso ginnastico,' Corriere della Sera, 3 October 1881, 2.^↩

The 1881 Naples Gymnastics Congress (Part 1)

The annual congresses of the Italian Gymnastics Federation were important events in the rise of Radaellian fencing during the 1870s. It was at these congresses that the first public fencing competitions of modern Italy took place, and where the cream of the first-generation Radaellians like Giuseppe Ronga, Salvatore Pecoraro, Ferdinando Masiello had their first victories on the piste. By defeating fencers of more traditional and established schools, they helped spread the notoriety of Radaelli's school beyond the Italian military and into the public sphere. Additionally, the repeated successes of the military masters at these congresses served as a significant counterpoint to Radaelli's critics, who mainly had to appeal to theoretical arguments and cherry-picked anecdotes to demonstrate the flaws in his fencing system.

But these victories were not enough, at least not by 1881. At the 9th Italian Gymnastics Congress in Naples a graduate of Radaelli's school secured the top prize in the sabre pool, and yet the reputation of the Radaellians emerged from the congress in worse shape than ever. Less than three years later the Milan Fencing Master's School would be closed and the Radaellians left dismayed and leaderless. This short series of articles will explore not only what transpired at the 1881 congress, but also how these events were perceived by the fencing-literate public and how this perception was quickly capitalised on by the supporters of the Neapolitan school of fencing.

***

While the Naples Congress of 1881 is a significant event in Radaellian history, the year also marked the end of Italian fencing's reliance on the gymnastics congresses. Two primary causes for this can be observed. The first is a sudden loss of momentum in the congresses. After the 8th gymnastics congress in 1877, the next had to be delayed several times due in part to poor organisation within the national federation.¹ Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the Milan International Fencing Tournament held in the summer of 1881 was widely considered a rousing success (despite some controversy), proving that competitive fencing could attract enough attention on its own without relying on the much larger and more mature gymnastics scene. Fencing and gymnastics competitions were occasionally featured alongside each other after 1881, but the most anticipated events for the former were, from this point on, dedicated tournaments.

Despite repeated deferrals, the 9th Italian Gymnastics Congress did eventually go ahead in the autumn of 1881, starting on 25 September and concluding on 2 October. In addition to fencing, the Naples congress featured competitions in gymnastics, target shooting, and rowing. While all these were taking place, a 'didactic exhibition' was on display in one of the venue's halls, showing off new gymnastics apparatuses as well as published and unpublished writings on topics relating to gymnastics and physical education. Dozens of prizes donated by the government, sporting clubs and wealthy individuals were allocated for the winners of all the competitions and for the best works of the didactic exhibition. A total of 945 registrations were reported for the congress, with 402 of those for the various competitions, noting that this included some overlap between competitions. The fencing tournament received 75 registrations for foil and 55 for sabre.²

At midday on 25 September the 9th Italian Gymnastics Congress was officially inaugurated in the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, which was then the site of both the Royal Technical Institute (a secondary school) and the Royal Institute of Encouragement, a scientific institute. After several long speeches on the state of physical education in Italy, the congress attendees voted on the composition of the various juries which would be overseeing the competitions. The resulting fencing jury was composed of the following people:

Mario Del Tufo (President)	Luigi Cosenz (Secretary)
Cesare Parrini (Speaker)	Guglielmo De Sauget
Cesare Guarrasci	Giacomo Massei
Gioacchino Granito, Prince of Belmonte	Benedetto Emanuele di San Giuseppe
Ottavio Anzani	Emilio Conti
Domenico Cariolato	Achille Parise
Giuseppe Perez	Achille Angelini
Vittorio Février	Ernesto Dias
Leopoldo Notarbartolo Sciara	Eugenio Michelozzi-Giacomini
Cesare Gaeta	Cesare Enrichetti

Juries had been generator of controversy in previous fencing competitions, and they would continue to be so for many years to come. The Naples Congress was no different in this respect, and the location of the event should give no surprise as to why that is. The composition of this particular jury would have likely been very intimidating for the Radaellian attendees, as it was positively bursting with characters who were known to be particularly hostile towards the Milan Master's School. Achille Angelini and Giuseppe Perez were both very publicly opposed to Radaelli's teachings, while the Prince of Belmonte and Domenico Cariolato had very recently co-authored the report on the 1881 Milan International Tournament, which was similarly disparaging towards the Radaellians and their method. Enrichettian competitors may have take some comfort in the presence of their revered master on the jury, but the Neapolitan camp could be extra confident with the formidable local masters Mario Del Tufo, Giacomo Massei, and Achille Parise on the bench alongside Enrichetti.

The needle swings even further in favour of the Neapolitans when the other, less recognisable members of the jury are scrutinised. Ernesto Dias and Vittorio Février (/Févrié) are notable for having escalated the main controversy at the 1881 Milan Tournament. Dias and Février were the first members of the jury to resign in protest after the vote to decide who would receive the prize for 'best fencer of the tournament' came out in favour of the Radaellian master Salvatore Arista, rather than the Neapolitan favourite Ottavio Anzani. Fellow jurors Cariolato, Belmonte, and Emilio Conti then resigned in solidarity with Dias and Février, forcing the Radaellian camp to make a compromise and award a 'best fencer' prize to both Arista and Anzani.³

Emilio Conti of Milan had once been a fencer of the mixed school, but in the late-1870s he became a fervent advocate for the Neapolitan school and a valuable northern ally in the anti-Radaellian camp.⁴ Ottavio Anzani, Luigi Cosenz, and Benedetto di San Giuseppe were all well-known amateur fencers of the Neapolitan school, and had studied under the likes of Massei, Del Tufo, and the Parises.⁵ As secretary of the entire congress, Cosenz was also responsible for compiling the official report, which will be referenced liberally throughout this series of articles. He was hardly an impartial observer of everything that took place here, and we will see him taking full advantage of his position to advance the views of the Neapolitan camp in the report's concluding remarks.

Finally, Eugenio Michelozzi-Giacomini had authored an article, published in the prominent Florentine newspaper Gazzetta d'Italia, on the 1881 Milan Tournament which took a similar position as Cariolato and Belmonte's report. He took no issue with the jury giving equal praise to Arista and Anzani, but was dismayed to see that 'the majority of masters who swarm like mushrooms from regimental schools are very far from resembling them' in elegance and correctness. Michelozzi felt that the tournament reflected poorly on the state of fencing in Italy, where 'the art of good fencing still exists ... but unfortunately in few masters.' The mixed school of foil, such as the system taught by Radaelli, with all its ill-suited French importations, had to be totally abandoned in favour of the traditional Italian school so as to preserve Italy's fencing primacy.⁶

Returning now to Naples, I shall leave the topic of the 1881 congress' fencing competitions to the second part of this series. Here I will instead focus on another of the events which took place during the congress: the general assembly. As is typical of congresses, the Naples Gymnastics Congress was also an opportunity for attendees to witness formal discussions on various topics relating to physical education in Italy. Most of these discussions were concerned with gymnastics and the organisation of the National Gymnastics Federation, but at the second general assembly of the congress, held on 27 September, the discussion was immediately dominated by the anti-Radaellian elements of the presiding bench, with predictable results.

The assembly was opened at 9 pm by the mayor of Naples and the congress' president, Girolamo Giusso, joined at the bench by Mario Del Tufo, Eugenio Michelozzi-Giacomini, Antonio Paternostro, Giuseppe Perez, Benedetto di San Giuseppe, Cesare Parrini, Achille Angelini, and Luigi Cosenz. The secretary began by reading several letters of blessing and encouragement for the congress, one of which was from Ferdinando Masiello, who was

Very sad to be unable to attend the fencing-gymnastics congress in person, like always, since I am gravely ill, my thoughts will be with you. I send my heartfelt greetings to the presidency and all attendees, rising from the end of my bed, crying long live the King, long live Italy, house of Savoy!⁷

After the letter readings, the evening's discussion at last commenced with a proposal from the fencing jury. Below is the full translation of the official minutes for the discussion, which lasted for two hours.

President: Takes his leave, asking Cav. Parrini to assume the presidency.

Parrini: Assumes the presidency. He then reads a formulation by the jury regarding fencing methods, which he submits for the appreciation of the congress attendees, to adopt a national method, asking them to declare a method which they consider the best and to also make a decision as to if changes should be made to it, and that they above all adhere to what is truly Italian.

He adds: from this 9th congress, which is based in a city which has truly Italian traditions, it is desired that nothing be imported from other methods, and that the government take to heart and give encouragement to this Italian art of defence.

He talks about a booklet by General Angelini, on the handling of the sabre, in opposition to the Radaelli method.⁸

Angelini: Regarding the booklet which I took the liberty of submitting to the consideration of the congress, it is certainly painful for me to recall having seen our Minister of War, without plausible or justifiable reasons, substitute the glorious Italian School with a system which I know was not adopted in any civilian or military school of other nations, and which we here have condemned by public opinion, as shown by the booklets and many newspapers which I am ready to place on the bench of the presidency.

The orator also mentions the criticisms made of the same system by the colonels Gnecco and Doux, as well as by Professor Perez; these distinguished gentlemen renounced the efficacy of the Radaelli school with irrefutable arguments.

He concludes by voting that the system in question be abolished and the classical Italian school be adopted; that the Fencing Master's School be organised differently, it being impossible to provide the army—from men who have already been trained and who lack time—with good sword fencers and much less so masters in the instruction which requires, aside from natural dispositions, years and not months.

Draghicchio: Makes a point of order, while noting that the matter at hand is interesting for connoisseurs of fencing, he wishes for the discussion to only be had by qualified people, so that unqualified individuals are not counted in the vote.

President: Points out that separate assemblies cannot be formed. He believes that, by establishing principles, everyone can vote. He asks Prof. Draghicchio to desist from his point of order and let the discussion continue. He adds, for greater clarity, that the discussion could not be limited to fencers, because it would make a tournament with parties, which would certainly be missing in a general vote.

Draghicchio: Notes that by limiting the discussion to experts the votes would be genuine.

President: We are not looking for a vote, but a broad discussion which may inform government leaders, so that this forgotten art may grow.

Draghicchio: Withdraws his motion.

President: Thanks Prof. Draghicchio, also on behalf of the assembly. He then reads out a few chapters of General Angelini's booklet.

Perez: Talks broadly about the sabre, percussive blows, the various movements of the hand, and elasticity of the body.

Campanella (captain): Does not oppose what Perez said, but points out that the Radaelli system, with regard to the sabre, does indeed avoid percussive blows. Regarding Angelini’s booklet, he would like to read it in order to discuss it.

He adds: since it is a very important vote, he does not want it to be done by surprise, but that all congress attendees have an understanding.

President: Had not wanted to read the booklet so as to not distract the assembly; he now asks to attentively follow the reading of it which the secretary will give.

Cosenz: (Reads a few pages from Angelini's booklet)

Michelozzi: Supports Angelini’s opinion regarding the Master's School to be founded in Italy, having a single method and abolishing the many which exist.

He adds: the Italian school is the first to have had supremacy everywhere; I have seen with pain that the old Italian art has been abandoned, something which does not allow many, who do not know its rules, to imagine it.

He proposes that the art of fencing abandons the new systems and that a single fencing school be established.

In this regard, he talks about the old fencing and its fundamental movements, the stability of the guard, the hand, etc.

The old traditions are now abandoned and the new systems make masters in a few months; this is impossible, no matter how much aptitude they may have. He adds that they are taught with false methods, and urges the assembly to heed this, voting so that the government leaders take action.

Belmonte: Presents the following order of the day:

'Given the advantages which can come to the Italian youth from the union of all gymnastics societies;

'Given the harm which the Radaelli system causes to fencing:

'The assembly fully rejects the Radaelli system and votes so that, together with all the Italian gymnastic forces united, they are united and combined with all fencing societies in which the old system of Italian fencing is kept pure, in order to form a grand federation which unites all the willing Italian youth into a single group.'

President: Notes that Belmonte's order of the day, although it differs in form from the present discussion, also adheres in substance to the matter at hand. He puts it to a vote.

Cariolato: Presents the following order of the day:

'Having considered the conditions in which the teaching of fencing in the army finds itself;

'Considering that Maestro Radaelli's system does not correspond to the true needs of the army and arms enthusiasts;

'Considering that the distinct personal qualities of the army's masters would have been such foundations as to make the most formidable fencers out of them, if they had been given scientific and not empirical instruction:

'The assembly votes, for the good of the art and the fatherland, that the government substitute the empirical teaching of the Master's School with scientific teaching, and proceeds to the order of the day.'

Ettari: Asks for clarification about the seat of the Fencing Federation.

President: Notes that with the order of the day not having been voted on, the seat of the Federation cannot be defined.

Ettari: Wants this to be discussed after the order the day, if it is approved.

President: Adds that everything will be done.

Ettari: Wishes fencing and gymnastics to be united in the federation.

President: For his part, it is hoped that, in time, this proposal be accepted by the assembly.

Campanella: Wishes that the methods for the army be indicated in Cariolato's order of the day.

President: Notes that ministers do not pay attention to the votes of the congress; that they know how to evaluate everything; that any subjectivity must be removed; that the rest will come by itself.

Having then engaged in the discussion regarding the Prince of Belmonte's order of the day, he wished to declare that he, by attacking the Radaelli system, intends to allude to the written system, and not to those distinguished fencers who, although they call themselves Radaellians—because they came from the Master's School—do not put into practice the precepts of that system.

Campanella: Is convinced that the Radaelli sabre system has been good for the army, because today all soldiers and non-commissioned officers fence, unlike several years ago. He wishes that, in the same way in which the Radaelli system has been opposed, the sabre method intended to replace it is indicated, because he knows the existence of a sword method, i.e. the Italian, but he has not yet heard sabre being spoken about.

President: Does not wish for methods to be either mentioned or proposed.

Michelozzi: Demonstrates, with various arguments, that when the sword method is established, the sabre method will easily emerge.

Cariolato: Talks at length about the Radaelli school and the Cavalli school and gives the history of their foundation; demonstrates that before Radaelli there existed a sabre system with excellent masters and that there is no need to create one, because it already exists. Talks about the foundation of the Master's School, the direction of which was entrusted to Radaelli. He commends him for having brought development to fencing.

President: Shares, with the whole presidency, the praise bestowed on Radaelli, who has sought to throw greater light on an existing method; and that if he was wrong, he meant well and not to cause harm to the art. However, with this in mind, it is necessary to see if the light comes with a better method.

Perez: Wishes that fencing teachers be provided with licences, like all masters.

Belmonte: Asks that Cariolato's order of the day be put to a vote, because he withdraws his, saving it for another session.

President: Strongly recommends the Prince of Belmonte to not abandon the idea expressed in his order of the day.

Then Cariolato's order of the day is put to a vote, voting that this be combined with the federative concept expressed by Belmonte.

The Assembly approves by a majority vote.

The session is adjourned at 11 pm.

President                                    Secretary

  C. PARRINI                              L. COSENZ⁹

Just as they did in their report for the 1881 Milan tournament, Belmonte and Cariolato seize upon the opportunity to condemn the Radaelli school and declare the indisputable superiority of 'Italian' fencing. Many similarities are emerge when comparing the orders of the day they put forward in the Naples congress with their opinions regarding the Milan tournament, which can be summarised as follows:

1. The Milan tournament proved that the Neapolitan school and the Italian foil are indisputably superior to other methods;
2. The Radaelli sabre school can be considered acceptable after some minor changes;
3. The talents of young students at the Milan Fencing Master's School are being wasted on a flawed (foil) method;
4. Many leave the army soon after graduating and spread this flawed method throughout Italy;
5. The fencing societies of Milan and Turin call for the unification of Italian fencing;
6. Civilians are also besmirching the title of fencing master by claiming to be one without having had the proper training.¹⁰

Now in Naples, Cariolato and Belmonte are again claiming to speak on behalf of the collective, and indeed with such a friendly crowd they do seem to be in the majority. The term 'Italian' is once again weaponised to cast the Radaelli school as an un-Italian, corrupting influence on the nation's fencers. The Radaelli method is 'empirical', while the true, classical Italian school is 'scientific'. When Campanella rightly points out their equivocating around fencing methods, he objects that appealing to the 'Italian school' ignores sabre fencing and that no alternative sabre method had been proposed. Cariolato's vague reference to a pre-existing sabre school associated with Neapolitan master Licurgo Cavalli seems to have been enough to quell any further discussion on this point.

Stepping out into the public sphere, we see that press coverage on the gymnastics congress further illustrates how factional Italian fencing had become by this point, with several journalists voicing their outright approval for drastic fencing reform in the military. As we will see in part two of this series, in the days following this assembly the performance of the Radaellian contingent at the congress was often quite poorly perceived, which further reinforced the negative opinion of Radaelli's school expressed by the assembly.

The correspondents of the French newspaper L'Événement had no hesitation in displaying their anti-Radaellian bias before the congress had even begun. Writing on the evening before the congress' inauguration, the correspondent 'Fioretto' told readers that they had met Radaelli twice when visiting his hall in Milan, and that the master 'has never fenced'.¹¹ In this colourful diatribe, Radaelli is painted as some kind of charlatan who 'pretends to have invented a new system of fencing' and does not teach his students how to parry, so their only defence is to retreat. This particular criticism suggests the journalist's awareness of Achille Angelini's 1877 booklet, in which the author makes a very similar claim which was later repeated by others, such as the members of the 1883 fencing treatise commission.¹²

Even Radaelli's treatise is dismissed as a 'revolt against common sense', being composed by Del Frate due to the fact that Radaelli 'can neither speak nor write'. The journalist hoped that the new Minister of War, Emilio Ferrero, would heed the cries of Neapolitan fencers and strip Radaelli of his authority. In L'Événement's subsequent coverage of the congress, the correspondent 'Frantz' rejoiced at the assembly's order of the day, which they hoped would finally push the Minister of War into action. The Radaellian competitors, however, should not be criticised too harshly for their poor performance, as the current two-year fencing master's course was far too short and '[i]t is not their fault if the government forces them to study with Redaelli, who knows fencing as well as I do the Qur'an.'¹³

In stark contrast to this coverage, the (evidently bored) correspondent of Rome's Fanfulla was quite dismissive of the debate at the assembly on 27 September despite their apparent sympathy for the Neapolitan school:

Utility of congresses. Assembly. Order of the day: the best Italian fencing school. General Angelini favours Neapolitan; congress attendees idem. Me too. A member asks that it clearly state in the order of the day which sabre system the congress prefers. Is there an Italian system? So many masters, so many systems. The Radaelli system is discussed. What standard should the ministry of war have for military schools? Memorable response from the federal secretary Parrini: 'The ministry will pay not attention to our order of the day'. They should hold a congress of congresses to deliberate the utility of congresses.¹⁴

Nicola Lazzaro in Milan's Illustrazione Italiana is also sympathetic towards the Neapolitan school while simultaneously dismissive about the usefulness of the congresses. Indeed he even goes so far as calling the Naples congress harmful, as the orders of the day expressed by the assemblies 'create dualism and antagonism which was necessary to avoid in the interest of everyone', even if the substance of their conclusions were worthy of consideration. This was typified for Lazzaro by the discussion regarding the Radaelli school. While this school's flaws could not be ignored, the 'so-called Italian or more truly the southern' school also cannot not be passed off as infallible, even if it were superior to the former.

So there are flaws in our school and there are flaws in the Radaelli school; instead of pointing the finger at them, wouldn't it have been better to try and take what little good they have?¹⁵

Yet not all reporting on the congress shared the jury's anti-Radaellian inclination. In its short remark on the assembly discussion, L'Indipendente of Trieste observed that the Radaelli system was 'fiercely contested and bravely supported by two parties'.¹⁶ The typically pro-Radaellian newspaper Il Secolo of Milan was much more explicit, quoting the assembly's order of the day in full and then dismissing it outright:

To this vote we must add two observations. It was issued by a congress being held in the central city of the school opposing Redaelli's; and the Redaellians did not want to go to this congress because they already know that matters were predisposed to issue a vote opposed to the Milanese school.
As for changing the army's teachings, we must recall that it is not at all likely, because the Redaelli school was chosen after long experience and debate.
The consequence is obvious: the Neapolitans and the Milanese will continue to teach fencing according to their respective systems and to have champions in both.¹⁷

Antagonism between the two camps remained strong over the next decade and a half, showing much truth behind this prediction. What the journalist in Il Secolo may not have predicted, however, is the reversal of fortunes between the two camps that would take place in the coming years.

In part two we will see how the results of the fencing competitions bolstered the Neapolitan narrative of a rogue school in Milan harming the reputation of true Italian fencing through its lax standards and defective teachings. Yet even amongst this sea of damning judgements, the Radaellians still managed to emerge with at least one victory.

*******

1 Luigi Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico italiano in Napoli (Naples: Francesco Giannini, 1881), 3–16.^↩
2 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico, 17–8.^↩
3 Domenico Cariolato and Gioacchino Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma tenuto in Milano nel giugno 1881 (Naples: Tipi Ferrante, 1881), 133–5.^↩
4 "Emilio Conti," Lo Sport Italico, 13 May 1894.^↩
5 "Il barone Ottavio Anzani," Lo Sport Italico, 13 May 1894; "Maestri e dilettanti," Lo Sport Italico, 12 July 1894; "Benedetto Emanuele Barone di San Giuseppe," Lo Sport Italico, 6 May 1894.^↩
6 Eugenio Michelozzi Giacomini, "Sport," Gazzetta d'Italia, 11 June 1881, 3.^↩
7 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico, 44.^↩
8 Translator's Note: The booklet in question is Achille Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio della sciabola secondo il metodo Redaelli (Florence: Tipi dell'Arte della Stampa, 1877). A full translation of this booklet can be found here.^↩
9 Cosenz, Il IX congresso ginnastico, 46–51.^↩
10 Cariolato & Granito, Relazione del torneo internazionale di scherma, 147–8.^↩
11 Fioretto, "Lettres de Naples," L'Événement, 27 September 1881, 2.^↩
12 Angelini, Osservazioni sul maneggio, 35–7; Paulo Fambri, "Relazione" in Masaniello Parise, Trattato teorico pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola: preceduto da un cenno storico sulla scherma e sul duello (Rome: Tipografia Nazionale, 1884), xxiii.^↩
13 Frantz, "Le grand congrès d'escrime de Naples," L'Événement, 6 October 1881, 2.^↩
14 Picche, "Il congresso ginnastico," Fanfulla, 2 October 18881, 1–2.^↩
15 Nicola Lazzaro, "Il congresso ginnastico," L'Illustrazione Italiana, 23 October 1881, 263–4.^↩
16 "IX congresso ginnastico," L'Indipendente, 2 October 1881, 3.^↩
17 "La scuola milanese di scherma," Il Secolo, 1 October 1881, 3.^↩

Review - La scherma: Trattato di fioretto, sciabola e spada by Domenico Conte

Since the majority of my readership is located outside of Italy, I feel it is necessary to amplify a recent and significant publication from the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma in Naples. The work in question, titled La scherma: Trattato di fioretto, sciabola e spada, is the first publication of manuscript fencing treatise written by Domenico Conte, a well-regarded fencing master active in the middle of the 20th century. The manuscript was discovered at an antique fair and edited for publication by Bernardo Leonardi, the current vice-president of the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma. Based on annotations throughout the manuscript, Leonardi places the compilation of this manuscript between 1950 and 1958. While I have good reason to suspect that at least some parts of the manuscript should be dated much later than this, the work is nevertheless extremely valuable for understanding the development of Italian fencing theory during a period in which relatively few fencing treatises were being published in Italy.

The book's introductory material provides welcome background on the both the author and the material, beginning with a preface by Pasquale La Ragione, president of the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma and a star pupil of Conte himself. Readers are treated to a very personal appreciation of the master and his teaching methodology, giving greater context to the material that follows. This is complemented with a short technical appreciation of Conte's work by Emilio Basile, the teaching vice president at the Accademia Nazionale, who considers the treatise as a continuation and respectfully modern development of the Neapolitan school. Finally, in two short sections Leonardi provides a detailed physical description of the manuscript as well as a biographical summary on Conte's career, highlighting his many years of teaching at the Circolo Nautico Posillipo and the Accademia Nazionale in Naples, among others places.

The fencing treatise itself, which comprises the rest of the book, is 228 pages long, 105 of those pages devoted to foil, 63 to sabre, and 60 to épée. The foil material is broadly based on the foundations laid out by Masaniello Parise. This is unsurprising, given that Conte was a graduate of the Military Fencing Master's School during its reopening in the 1920s and early 1930s, at which time it was still using Parise's treatise as the reference text for foil. While Conte follows Parise in assuming the use of a traditional Italian grip foil, it cannot be said that Conte's theory was stuck in the 19th century. He introduces many necessary modernisations (such as the fleche) and gives sound tactical advice useful for both coaches and competitors, emphasising that the former must adapt their lessons to each student's individual style and temperament.

Of particular relevance to this blog is Conte's sabre style, which is unmistakably Radaellian in foundation. In it we find the familiar six elbow-centric exercise molinelli, with slight torso movement accompanying the swing, as well as four preliminary exercises equivalent to Pecoraro and Pessina's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and diagonal exercises. From a guard position with an extended arm, direct cuts are performed with a slight preparatory bending of the arm prior to execution of the cut (similar to Masiello and Barbasetti), which is very rare in treatises written this late in the 20th century. Conte shows himself to be a firm supporter of what was by then considered quintessentially Italian sabre fencing.

Conte's épée method also shows some conservative tendencies, choosing to only describe the Greco-style Italian model épée, which had fallen out of favour among Italy's top épéeists by the 1950s. In keeping with this style of grip, Conte advocates an in-line method somewhat resembling that favoured by Agesilao Greco.¹

As I alluded to at the beginning, in addition to bringing this work to the attention of my readers, I also wish to highlight some evidence in the text which to me strongly call into question the 1950s dating proposed by Leonardi. This evidence is the fact that there are many instances throughout Conte's text which show an unmistakable resemblance to the foil and sabre treatises compiled by Giorgio Pessina and Ugo Pignotti, which were respectively published in 1969 and 1972.² Here are two side-by-side comparisons of their respective foil texts:

Pessina & Pignotti (1969)	Conte
Lo sviluppo delle singole azioni di offesa è direttamente subordinato all'atteggiamento nel quale viene a trovarsi l'avversario al momento iniziale dell'azione stessa, dato che questa deve adattarsi alle condizioni che offre la posizione dell'arma avversa per avere libertà e possibilità di attuazione. (p. 19)	Lo sviluppo delle singole azioni di offesa è direttamente subordinato all'atteggiamento nel quale viene a trovarsi l'avversario al momento iniziale dell'azione stessa, poiché questa deve adattarsi alle condizioni che offre l'arma avversa per avere libertà e possibilità di sviluppare determinate azioni di offesa, l'atteggiamento viene definito "invito". (p. 39)
Come la botta dritta è il colpo fondamentale di offesa è applicabile in contrapposizione agli inviti, così la cavazione è il colpo fondamentale di offesa applicabile in contrapposizione ai legamenti e si esegue anch'essa in un solo tempo, come è spiegato qui appresso. Sempre a misura di allungo, con movimento articolare delle dita lievemente sussidiate dal polso, si libera la propria lama dal legamento avversario, facendo descrivere alla punta una spirale allungata in seguito alla progressiva distensione del braccio per risolversi sulla linea del bersaglio scoperto, riducendo al minimo possibile il restante tratto rettilineo nell'esecuzione dell'affondo, evitando la discontinuità del movimento. (p. 30)	Come la botta dritta è il colpo fondamentale di offesa applicabile in opposto agli inviti, così la cavazione è il colpo fondamentale di offesa applicabile in opposto ai legamenti. Si esegue ugualmente in un sol tempo, incorporando in sé il colpo dritto. Dalla posizione di guardia, a giusta misura, con movimento articolare delle dita, appena sussidiate dal polso, si svincolerà la propria lama dallo stato di possesso esercitato dal legamento avversario, girando il pugno di quarta o seconda posizione, secondo il bisogno, in modo che la punta del fioretto descrive una spirale allungata, per risolversi in breve tratto rettilineo al bersaglio scoperto, ove si vibrerà il colpo proseguendo diritto. (p. 42)

And here are two examples from the sabre texts:

Pessina & Pignotti (1972)	Conte
Pur non essendo state ancora trattate le caratteristiche delle singole posizioni con la sciabola, tuttavia riteniamo opportuno anticipare che la guardia di terza — ormai d’uso comune fra gli sciabolatori di ogni Paese — è da preferirsi alle altre, non solo perché offre alcune garanzie per il braccio che rappresenta il bersaglio più avanzato ... (p. 20)	Pur non avendo ancora trattato particolarmente le caratteristiche delle singole posizioni con la sciabola, diremo subito che la guardia di 3a od di 2a sembra doversi preferire alle altre, anche esse possibili, offrendo alcune garanzie per il braccio che nella scherma di sciabola è il bersaglio più avanzato. (p. 137)
Indi si passerà ad alternare questi vari esercizi fra loro per acquisire quel senso di equilibrata prontezza con la quale l'arma deve essere portata, senza scosse, in tutte le direzioni ove e quando occorra. Infine, si passerà a modificare l'ampiezza e la velocità dei movimenti sia nella singola esecuzione che in quella ripetuta e combinata, procedendo da un massimo ad un minimo e inversamente. Tali modificazioni, per le quali è richiesta una graduale stretta della mano sull'impugnatura dell'arma, sviluppano quel senso di sicurezza nel portamento del ferro che permette allo sciabolatore di padroneggiare ogni movimento offensivo o difensivo, e di ridurre il movimento stesso allo stretto necessario. (p. 34)	Proseguendo ancora, gli stessi esercizi si alternano fra loro per acquistare quel senso di equilibrata prontezza con la quale l’arma deve essere portata in tutte le direzioni, ove e quando occorra. Infine, è assai utile modificare l'ampiezza e la velocità dei movimenti, sia nella esecuzione singola, sia in quella ripetuta o combinata, procedendo da un massimo ad un minimo e inversamente. Dette modificazioni richiedono la graduale stretta della mano alla impugnatura e sviluppano quel senso di sicurezza che permette allo schermitore di padroneggiare ogni suo movimento offensivo o difensivo, sicché esso non vada oltre il bisogno. (p. 138)

Besides the above-demonstrated textual comparisons with Pessina and Pignotti's works, there is also an unmistakable similarity in the progression of the material. The clearest example of this are chapters 2 and 3 of Conte's sabre section, which are almost identical in progression to Pessina/Pignotti. The main distinction that can be made between the two is that Conte is more likely to break the material down in to more sections than Pessina/Pignotti.

Needless to say, the most likely reason for all these similarities is that Conte borrowed directly from Pessina and Pignotti's works. Yet there may also a possibility that all three authors had access to and borrowed from the same pre-existing reference material. One good candidate for such material is hinted at in one of Conte's annotations cited in Leonardi's preface, where Conte refers to the 'writings of M° S[alvatore] Angelillo recovered from the files of the Magistrale of Rome'.³ An intriguing lead for future research, perhaps. As for Conte's épée material, my familiarity with épée treatises in general is admittedly rather poor, so any confident declarations about the originality of this material will also need to wait for future analysis, hopefully by someone far more competent than myself.

Regardless of the questionable dating and originality of Conte's work, the publication of his manuscript is a welcome addition to the Italian fencing corpus, and I congratulate both Bernardo Leonardi and the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma for their laudable work in preserving and promoting this exciting piece of Italian fencing history.

*******

1 Agesilao Greco, La spada e la sua disciplina d'arte (Rome:  G. U. Nalato, 1912); La spada nella sua realtà (Rome: Casa Editrice Pinciana, 1930).^↩
2 Giorgio Pessina & Ugo Pignotti, Il fioretto (Rome: Scuola Centrale dello Sport, [1969]); La sciabola (Rome: Scuola Centrale dello Sport, [1972]).^↩
3 See p. 17^↩