Fencing at the 1875 Siena Gymnastics Congress

In 1870s Italy, competitive fencing was very much still in its infancy. The dominant fencing events of the time were exhibitions: non-competitive public displays designed to entertain and to show off the skills of the fencers and the master's ability to train well-rounded students. These exhibitions were generally organised as a local club's yearly celebration or by a visiting fencing master seeking to build their reputation. Starting in 1873, however, the Italian Gymnastics Federation began holding a fencing competition as one of the events at their annual congress.

Following the success of this new addition at the 1873 and 1874 congresses, in preparation for the 1875 Siena congress the organising committee sent a request to the Italian government to send a group of fencers to represent the Milan military fencing master's school, which had formally become the sole military institution of its kind in December of 1874. The ministry of war accepted this request and sent six young sotto-maestri or 'assistant masters': Luigi Scarani, Giordano Rossi, Giordano Moccagatta, Benedetto Toziani, Salvatore Pecoraro, and Giuseppe Alciatti.

By the beginning of the congress a total of 42 fencers had enrolled in the event, all of them from northern and central Italy and the majority being military fencing masters. Compared to the grand tournaments that would later be seen in the 1890s and beyond, the Siena congress was relatively modest, and with no fencers from the southern provinces it was certainly not a 'national' competition in the truest sense. Nevertheless, like the other congresses of the 1870s, the results of this competition contributed to the growing reputation of the military fencing masters and the schools that created them.

As alluded to above, at the end of 1874 the Parma military fencing master's school, directed by Cesare Enrichetti, was absorbed by the Milan school, thus marking the total unification of the military's fencing instruction under Giuseppe Radaelli. In May 1875 the first conversion course took place at the Milan school for military fencing masters that had not yet been taught Radaelli's method, which was the beginning of a period of great collaboration between the Radaellians and the champions of the Enrichetti school, resulting in further refinement for both sabre and sword (foil) fencing. In August 1875, however, this fusion of the two schools was still very much in its early stages, with the first conversion course at the Milan school still underway.

The fencing competition in Siena took place on 16 August 1875, with the jury's speaker Giovanni Boffi noting in his report that despite observing several disappointing double touches, the quality of the fencing on the whole had improved substantially since the previous congress, where he had noted that 'the fencers did not fully observe the laws which the art of fencing teaches, both due to the lack of composure during the bouts, the positions of the fencers, and the implementation of the actions.' Boffi also expressed his views on how to avoid these lamented double touches in future competitions:

Any amateur of fencing knows very well that in fencing the first things that should be observed are the elegance of one's position, the invitation to the actions, parries, and ripostes, anticipating the opponent's intentions, and by adhering to these rules, in my opinion, I believe that discussions during the bout and double touches would vanish—these double touches being most deplorable during a bout. And with these words of mine I do not pretend to maintain that during a bout there can be no double touches, and that is why I have allowed perfect and imperfect tempi, i.e. the intentions of the two fencers lunging at the same time. We know very well that the tempo cannot be taken on simple actions, but rather on compound actions and on the opponent’s faulty attack; and he who makes the action in tempo should not be touched, and if he is touched, the fault should fall on the one who did the action in tempo.

Ferdinando Masiello came in first place for the sword competition, and Giuseppe Ronga (a Radaellian) for sabre, with both having achieved these same results at the Bologna congress the year prior. Although Masiello would eventually become the most vocal proponent of Radaelli's method, at this stage he was still the star pupil of Enrichetti, having not yet attended the Milan school, but still came in 4th place overall in the sabre competition. The Enrichettians as a whole were given great praise, with their solid collective performance backed up by elegant and composed form throughout. Of the 6 students from the Milan master's school: in the sword competition Rossi came in 5th and received a silver medal and Pecoraro earned an honourable mention; in sabre, only Alciatti received a bronze medal, being in 10th place overall. Also of historical note was the winner of the amateur sword pool—a 15-year-old Eugenio Pini, who would eventually become famous both in Italy and throughout the western fencing world.

Three days later came the grand fencing exhibition, scheduled as one of the final events of the Siena gymnastics congress. The congress report does not give its own account of the exhibition, but instead reproduces the following article published in Gazzetta d'Italia on 22 August, which is once again full of praise for the Enrichettians but with some critical remarks for the Radaellians:

This morning at 11:30 in the Lizza Theatre the fencing exhibition took place. The audience is estimated to have risen to as many as 2000 people, among whom many ladies. There were 28 bouts from 46 fencers, of whom 38 masters, and what masters they were! In the intermissions the town band let us enjoy good musical pieces.

Colonel Corrado Colli opened the exhibition with the fencing master of our military recruiting headquarters,¹ Arlunno Carlo. In this demonstration we saw how, even at a rather advanced age, exercise can maintain that virile strength which usually disappears as the years pass; in fact Colli made a great impression, even with a fencer as correct as Arlunno. The latter dealt marked and distinct coupés, and the colonel, among other blows, showed us a magnificent blow in controtempo. Those present greatly applauded the two opponents.

The second sword bout which interested us most was from the other cavalry colonel Giuseppe Colli, together with the distinguished master Bellincioni. Mr. Colli showed himself to be an expert connoisseur of fencing. He has a tall, slender figure, truly a handsome soldier. His guard is very elegant, an uncommon subsidence of struggles. His competitor Mr. Bellincioni is a precise and skilled player, very quick in his actions. His short stature confines him to a somewhat low game, but his blows never miss.

The sabre clash between the masters Giuseppe Ronga and Massimiliano Roggia was also very satisfactory. However, it must be noted how in general the students of the Radaelli school are not devoid of certain flaws. Their guard lacks composure because they keep their left foot out of line and they raise it when they lunge, this with a serious continuous loss of balance; moreover, since their bouts look like raids, it sometimes happens that when marching down the piste their out-of-line feet meet and the fencer falls, as happened here in Siena and six times last year in Bologna.

To us the Radaelli method seems to be based on a rising rotation from the left side; a continuous rotation which imposes a posture of preparation to these rotary movements, which, by bringing the weapon arm to the left side, leaves the fencer's body almost completely exposed, since the sabre is then positioned out of line. Nor can we understand how this method is suited to a cavalry soldier, when the lance and the horse's head prevent this precise rotation which seems to be the basis of the system. This is without taking into account that with the descending cuts being thrown a bit too violently, they do not help to keep the cavalryman in his saddle, nor do they give the impression of fencers who are masters of a weapon that they must know how to dominate.

With this sincere critique we do not intend to condemn the ability and goodwill of the students, who, with their seemingly lovely dispositions and slender figures, could outdo themselves if the teaching they imparted were free of these defects. Everyone knows that it is not possible to be an eminent sabre master without knowing well enough about the sword, and it is equally well-known by everyone that before today it was customary to take at least a year of sword lessons before moving on to handling the heavier weapon. That the students of the Radaelli school had very little knowledge of the foil was seen in the competitions where, in the course of a bout, we did not see one clean blow, nor a varied action or an attempt in tempo.

The master from Ancona, Mr. Italiano Enrici, who had not received the full sympathy of the spectators during the competition due to his slightly strange and advantageous guard, showed us in the exhibition that he also knows how to hold an elegant guard, and conduct a bout in the manner of a true and talented master.

The honour of closing the first part of the exhibition was given to our master Mr. Cesare Picconi along with Bellincioni. We had never had the fortune of seeing our talented fellow citizen fence, but his bout showed him worthy of his great fame, which confirms yet again the excellence of the methods he learnt from his poor father. He directed the exhibition himself, and honourably exhibited his students Rinieri de' Rocchi and Sergardi.

The masters Arlunno and Masiello, students of Prof. Enrichetti, inaugurated the second part. I spoke about both of them in my past correspondence, and if I wanted to fully describe the beautiful things of their bout, I could not, because it is impossible to repeat the delicacy, the taste, and the perfection of their play. At the moment they appeared in the limelight there was frenetic applause, which was repeated a good three times. The blows which I managed to observe distinctly were two coupés masterfully given by Masiello; then Arlunno dealt a thrust of inquartata in second intention, and after him Masiello gave an arrest and the sword curved on the opponent's chest. The bout closed with a sbasso² of the rarest precision. Needless to say, thunderous applause broke out and the fencers were called to the stage multiple times with their master, who wished to kiss them as a reward for the height at which these two excellent students held the Enrichetti school even within the walls of Siena.

The latter master met with Colonel Corrado Colli, and they carried out an exemplary fight. Enrichetti sculpted magnificent coupés and a surprising sbasso. The match between these fine contenders was confirmation of the professor's skill, and convinced us how such a master could create students like Masiello, Arlunno, Vergiati, and others. There is no doubt: Enrichetti's method will always give the most remarkable impression in any fencing gathering. It is a school which for the good of the army we would like to see imitated by many, and which would be eminently useful if it were studied and applied in fencing halls.

Also distinguishing themselves were the masters Paolo Cornaglia, Paolo Bianchi, Lorenzo Del Vivo, Ettore Marchi, and all those who eventually took part in the marvellous exhibition.

Closing the day were Masiello and Count Giuseppe Colli with a bout brilliant for its variations of attack, parrying changes, and many blows of tempo, controtempo, and proposal. With the exhibition finished—which, in the words of the masters themselves, was unlike any other so far—prolonged and unanimous applause saluted all the fencers and brought an end to such an impressive day.

1 TN: Recruiting centres in Italy were in charge of both the recruitment and training of soldiers.^↩
2 TN: Otherwise known as passata sotto.^↩

The remarks regarding the Radaellians' less aesthetic form is a criticism that would continue to follow them for many years after this competition, often being a point of contention in how it should affect their classification scores at the tournaments which took aesthetics into account, such as in the 1881 Milan tournament. The observation on their twisted body position is particularly interesting, seemingly indicating that the Radaellians at this time put an emphasis on rising cuts from the left. The described out-of-line position with the feet may be similar that seen in several of the fencers in the following footage of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, with the rear foot further to the outside than the traditional position:

Despite the various critical remarks, both the competition and the exhibition were evidently popular with the public, and the overall impressions of the above Gazzetta d'Italia article and Giovanni Boffi showed positivity in this event marking significant progress in Italian fencing and demonstrating the art's recent resurgence in popularity. Given the number of military masters present at the tournament, it is therefore understandable why many commentators would later attribute this great resurgence to the institution of the military fencing master's schools.

Bibliography

"Congresso ginnastico." Il Secolo, 4 August 1875, 2.

Federazione Ginnastica Italiana. Sesto congresso-concorso ginnastico italiano tenuto in Siena dal 15 al 20 Agosto 1875. Relazione fatta a cura del comitato esecutivo. Siena: Stab. tip. di A. Mucci, 1876.

Ricotti-Magnani, Cesare Francesco. "N. 251. — SCUOLE MILITARI (Nota N. 5). — Scuola magistrale di scherma. — 6 dicembre." Giornale Militare 1874: parte prima, no. 44 (11 December 1874): 492.

⸺. "N. 57. — Istruttori e sott'istruttori di scherma chiamati alla scuola magistrale di scherma in Milano. — 4 aprile", Giornale Militare 1875: parte seconda, no. 12 (15 April 1875): 105–6.

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

Valletti, Felice. Relazione sull'operato del VI congresso ginnastico tenutosi in Siena - Agosto 1875. Turin: Tipografia Subalpina di Marino e Gantin, 1875.

Die moderne Fechtkunst by Gustav Ristow

Although Luigi Barbasetti's seminal 1899 treatise Das Säbelfechten is sometimes cited as the first German-language treatise to be published on the Radaellian sabre method, such an honour should in fact be given to Gustav Ristow and his 1896 treatise Die moderne Fechtkunst ('The modern art of fencing'), the scans of which I present here to the reader.

Scans: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kWq_-s1nslkwZXrvYrsbp7sf_Fbp685Q/view?usp=sharing

Those who have read Ferdinando Masiello's 1887 treatise may find some of the illustrations from this book particularly familiar, as it is clear that Ristow largely plagiarised Masiello's work without so much as a single mention of him. This is also reflected in the text itself, which largely follows the same structure and is often just a straight translation of Masiello's text.

Top: Ristow
Bottom: Masiello (1887)

Aside from a shorter and more Germanocentric introduction, some obvious changes can be observed in the fact that Ristow does not advocate Masiello's shoulder-based disengagements and point manipulation, instead preferring the more traditional wrist and finger movement, and he depicts a fully upright posture in the lunge as opposed to Masiello's diagonal lean.

Counteraction in 2nd. Note the upright posture in Ristow (top) compared the straight line from left heel to right shoulder show in Masiello (bottom)

Readers will also note that for some reason all the illustrations are placed at the end of the book in a seemingly random order, with even each step in the molinelli being randomly arranged. This could be an indication that my own copy has been rebound in a questionable order at some point in its long life.

While I have yet to find much detail on the life of Gustav Ristow, more is known about his master, Italian military fencing master Pietro Arnoldo. Having been born into poverty in Forno di Zoldo (northern Veneto), Arnoldo left his hometown at the age of 15 and joined the military, eventually fighting in the Battle of Custoza in 1866. Three years later he attended the military fencing master's school in Parma, learning under the renowned Cesare Enrichetti. After graduating in 1871, he taught in the 31st infantry regiment until 1875, when he left the army and moved to Austria. Arnoldo settled in the city of Graz, teaching at the Steiermärkischen Fechtclub until becoming gravely ill in 1897. When his illness eventually became unbearable, Arnoldo tragically took his own life on 21 July 1898, only 56 years old.

Left: Pietro Arnoldo
Right: Gustav Ristow

Although it is unclear if Ristow's exposure to the Radaellian method was through his beloved master, it is likely Arnoldo was aware of the developments in sabre fencing taking place in Italy both before and after moving to Austria, and since he had attended Enrichetti's school at the same time as Masiello, he would likely have been aware of Masiello's highly influential 1887 treatise.

Aside from authoring Die moderne Fechtkunst, Ristow was also the translator for Barbasetti's duelling code, published in 1898 under the title Ehren-Kodex. Gustav Ristow died of dysentery in Albania on 11 July 1916 whilst serving as a colonel in the Austro-Hungarian army.

References

Barbasetti, Luigi. Ehren-Kodex. Translated by Gustav Ristow. Vienna: Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 1898.

⸺. Das Säbelfechten. Translated by Rudolf Brosch and Heinrich Tenner. Vienna: Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 1899.

G. R. [Gustav Ristow], "Pietro Arnoldo." Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 6 August 1898, 928.

Gelli, Jacopo. "Pietro Arnoldo." La Gazzetta dello Sport, 25 January 1897, 3.

⸺. "In memoria di un Maestro di scherma italiano: Pietro Arnoldo." La Stampa Sportiva, 4 May 1902, 11.

⸺. "A traverso la scherma. Le sfide e i maestri." L'Illustrazione Italiana, 7 December 1902, 452.

Gemeinsames Zentralnachweisebureau. Nachrichten über Verwundete und Verletzte. 5 October 1916, 5.

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

Ristow, Gustav. Die moderne Fechtkunst: Methodische Anleitung zum Unterrichte im Fleuret- und Säbelfechten, nebst einem Anhange, enthaltend die wichtigsten Duellregeln. Prague: J. G. Calve, 1896.

Generoso Pavese: champion or charlatan?

As the recently unified Kingdom of Italy struggled to stabilise the economic conditions in Southern Italy, a great wave of emigration took place, and from the 1880s until well into the 20th century millions of these emigrants would arrive in the United States of America. For many the 'Land of Opportunity' brought promises of prosperity which they could share with their family back in Italy, while for others it represented a new life—an opportunity to make a name for themselves in their chosen field.¹

Among these new arrivals, many brought with them a love of fencing, both as a professional pursuit and as a healthy pastime. Masters such as Filippo Brigandi, Pietro Lanzilli, and Leonardo Terrone are a few of the many names that would represent the Italian school of fencing in the USA at some point during this period (for better or worse), but one Italian fencer of this era whose name is perhaps among the most well-known in the historical record is Generoso Pavese, due in no small part to the fact that he published a fencing treatise in 1905 entitled Foil and Sabre Fencing.²

A great advantage that this treatise had for the Anglophone world of fencing was that for a long time it was the closest thing to an English translation of Masaniello Parise's acclaimed 1884 treatise Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola, the regulation fencing text of the Italian military at the time. Pavese was an avid proponent of this tradition, claiming to be a world fencing champion and a graduate of Parise's military fencing master's school.³

However, as I will demonstrate, this image of Pavese as a revered fencing master and competitive champion quickly begins to crumble once its foundations are examined. In this article I will address each aspect of Pavese's professional life and the factual claims made by or about him, where the ability to verify said claims exists, and attempt to redefine his place among the figures of Italian fencing in this period.

American Debut

According to his 1898 certificate of naturalisation, Pavese claims to have arrived in the USA on 16 May 1891, but this date is later contradicted by his passport application from 1905, which gives his arrival date as 29 April 1892; this latter year will be what is more commonly listed in subsequent state and federal censuses. The 1905 passport application states Pavese was born on 30 January 1865 in Vallata, Italy, which is corroborated by his own treatise, but which also claims he arrived in 1893 on the occasion of the Chicago world's fair.⁴

Despite these earlier dates, the first mention I have been able to find of Pavese is in late 1893, appearing as a guest at a couple of fencing exhibitions in New York held in honour of the famous Italian fencing masters Eugenio Pini, Agesilao Greco, and Carlo Pessina, who had been touring the country holding exhibitions and challenging local champions. Generoso Pavese and Luigi Sfrisi are said to be Italian army officers, neither presenting any challenge in their bouts against the likes of Pini and Greco. In the Italian fencing magazine Scherma Italiana, neither Pavese nor Sfrisi are so much as given even an honourable mention in its reporting on these events.⁵

It is only after Pini, Greco, and Pessina have left the country that Pavese begins to receive individual attention from the American press. As early as February 1894, only a few weeks after the Italian masters departed, Pavese had begun challenging various east-coast fencers and organising public contests, with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle calling him the 'champion of Italy'.⁶ Another article promoting the same event claims Pavese is a student of one 'Pessini' (likely Pessina), the 'recognised champion swordsman of the Italian army in Italy'.⁷ Following this event, one newspaper says that Pavese was 'formerly a lieutenant in the Italian army, but is now a shoemaker in Newark'.⁸

In May of that same year, Sfrisi too is named the 'champion of Italy' in a Connecticut newspaper promoting his upcoming exhibition against fencing master Etienne Postel and amateur Helen Englehart.⁹ While Sfrisi does not appear in any subsequent events in America (he would eventually return to Italy and continue to teach fencing), for Pavese the year 1894 would be the start of over a decade of challenges and public contests all across the United States, seeking out publicity wherever he could.

European Champion

America would be home to many other self-proclaimed masters and champions from Europe aside from Pavese (subjects for future articles, perhaps), but none ever received quite so much media attention as he. The 1890s would be a particularly popular time for these pretenders, and not just those hailing from Italy. Newspapers throughout the country advertised public contests involving 'champions' of America, England, Germany, Russia, and France, many of whom Pavese would encounter at some point in his career.

Aside from the aforementioned Sfrisi, another person declaring himself the 'Italian champion' in 1894 was one Greco Martino. Having seen Pavese's claims of being the champion of Italy, Martino had a letter of his published in New York's National Police Gazette proclaiming that he was the 'legitimate' champion of Italy, having held the title for 8 years, and that not only was Pavese a fraud, but Martino had never even heard of him before. He challenged Pavese to a contest, claiming he can defeat him in only 10 minutes, but it is unclear if this ever eventuated.¹⁰

Needless to say, none of these three men had ever held a 'championship' title in Italy, nor did any such title even exist. Not only that, but no competitive record can be found for either Pavese or Martino; Luigi Sfrisi is the only one of these three with any verifiable background in Italy. What is known about Sfrisi's career up to this point is that he was a sergeant and fencing instructor at the cavalry normal school in Pinerolo before attending Parise's military fencing master's school in 1885, and that he was classified in the second category for masters in both sabre and foil at the 1891 Bologna tournament.¹¹

As for Pavese, a later article claimed that he had performed excellently at the Florence 1887, Rome 1889, Bologna 1891, and Venice 1891 tournaments,¹² and the preface to his own treatise claims:

During the years 1889, 1890, 1891 and 1892 he attended and took part in all the principal fencing tournaments in Italy, France, Spain and Austria, and gained distinguished honors at his every appearance.¹³

Most of the major tournaments in this period are well-documented in newspapers and sporting magazines, particularly in France and Italy, and sometimes a tournament committee would publish their own report with a comprehensive list of competitors and their results. The cited tournaments of Florence (1887), Rome (1889), and Bologna (1891) were particularly significant tournaments at the time, and so although their mention suggests Pavese was well-informed of the Italian competitive scene, his name is absent from all the articles and reports that discussed them.¹⁴

Even the renowned French masters Mérignac, Prévost, and Rouleau are specifically listed as having been defeated by Pavese on a trip to Paris along with Eugenio Pini in 1892.¹⁵ This claim came to the attention of the French newspaper Le Journal, commenting that they do not recall having ever seen Pavese in Paris, and that if he had indeed defeated all these masters, it would have been highly publicised.¹⁶

In January 1905 Mérignac came to New York to give an exhibition, inviting all local fencers to take part, Pavese included.¹⁷ Having taken issue with Pavese's claiming to have defeated him in the past, Mérignac singled out him as soon as he arrived in the country, with both supposedly agreeing to a challenge of two 20-minute sabre bouts and two 20-minute foil bouts to decide world championship.¹⁸ It does not seem like this challenge ever took place, and Pavese did not attend the exhibition in New York, with the Boston Globe saying he had 'engagements elsewhere' and sending his student Count Magnoni in his place.¹⁹

The only tournament outside of America I have been able to find Pavese taking part in was during his trip to Europe in 1905. At an international foil tournament in Paris, Pavese was eliminated in the first round by a French military fencing master named Molinié, who would end up in 6th place.²⁰ Mentions can also be found of small exhibitions organised by Pavese in Italy in the same year, but he seems to have avoided the all the other tournaments which took place around the continent during that time.²¹

Duellist

The image of a seasoned duellist, ever-ready to heroically defend his honour by the sword, is a significant part of how Pavese promoted himself in America. Italians in general already had an international reputation for a 'fiery temperament' by this time, and Pavese seemed happy to play along with this stereotype, challenging his American opponent to a duel if a particular bout was not judged in his favour, or even just as an alternative to a contest with blunt weapons.²² In a brief yet enthusiastic report of a public exhibition of his in 1896, the Boston Post wrote:

Brave men who are skilled in handling the foils would accept an insult rather than challenge this man to an encounter. Pavese has had many a battle, and could tell some thrilling stories, many of them having a coloring of love. His career has been romantic, and he has to stop and think before he can tell you the number of duels he has fought.²³

In the first few days of the Spanish-American War, Spanish naval attaché (later revealed to be a spy) Lieutenant Ramon de Carranza challenged General Fitzhugh Lee and Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee to a duel after the latter two accused Spain of blowing up the USS Maine.²⁴ Recognising an opportunity for celebrity, or perhaps even out of genuine patriotic zeal for his adopted homeland, Pavese responded to this challenge on behalf of Lee and Sigsbee with a letter published in the New York Evening Journal.

The accompanying article describes how Pavese has fought in a number of duels, emerging victorious each time, citing duels with a Rodriguez in Madrid, Count Cotini of Aversa, a Cardacci of Naples, a Fiorontini of Belgium, and Giuseppe Grasso of Parma.²⁵ Whilst this list of specific names and locations lends an air of credibility to Pavese, there are a couple of underlying issues with his story.

Firstly, although he states in his letter his desire that the 'challenge issued by you [Carranza] to General Lee and Captain Sigsbee should not go unanswered', there had been multiple other gentlemen putting their names forward publicly as replacements for Lee and Sigsbee weeks before Pavese did (with no reply from Carranza).²⁶ Secondly, although some of the names listed in the article from the New York Evening Journal would reappear in future media attention around Pavese (who certainly did not miss an opportunity to recount his challenge to Carranza), the details surrounding his prior duels and the Carranza affair itself would become more dramatic and change in future retellings.

An article from the Denver Evening Post in 1899 highlights how quickly this mythology would develop. It claims Pavese had had 'something like twelve duels', with two of them being fatal for his opponent; he is said to have thrust Martinez through the chest in Barcelona in 1887, and 'Cardac' was stabbed through the heart in Madrid in 1888. It then gives an elaborate account of how his duel with Count Cotini came about, even requiring the Italian minister of war to give his personal approval to 'fight for the honor of the regiment.'²⁷ The article says the duel took place in November 1898, but given that Pavese had long been in the USA by that time, this was probably meant to be 1888. The minister cited is Cesare Ricotti-Magnani, and while he did indeed serve as Italian minister of war several times, he was not the acting minister of war in either 1888 or 1898.²⁸

A recurring theme in the retellings would be his two fatal duels against Frenchmen, with the aforementioned Cardac/Cardacci, supposedly a famous French fencing master, being the most commonly mentioned (albeit with several spelling variants), but the chronology, locations, and total number of duels were inconsistently recalled.²⁹ Whilst the number and nature of the duels attributed to Pavese are not unprecedented in the period, the unverified participants and the deaths of two make the narrative extremely unlikely. Despite the frequency of duels themselves, it must be noted that duels which resulted in death were a rarity in Western Europe by this time, and were thus always subject to avid media coverage, particularly if the one who died was a famous French fencing master, as Pavese claims.³⁰ No record can be found of any duels in which Generoso Pavese was involved, nor any of the supposed victims.

Regardless of how true Pavese's duelling past was, his characteristic hot-headedness seemed to be largely beneficial to his reputation. It was through this eagerness to hand out duelling challenges that he would end up meeting President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, who was supposedly impressed by Pavese's chivalric conduct when he challenged the French fencing masters Lucien Mérignac and Alphonse Kirchhoffer to a duel when the French press claimed the latter two convincingly defeated their respective opponents, Francesco Pessina and Franco Vega, in a duel in December 1902. It is hard to know if the Frenchmen actually received their challenge from Pavese, or even cared, but the result was that Pavese was given an opportunity to meet with the U.S. President, and was for some time said to be his fencing master—a story which caught the attention of both American and European newspapers.³¹

As for the Carranza affair, some articles would claim that Pavese travelled to Canada to personally challenge Carranza to a duel, which he refused, even attempting to follow the Spaniard back to Madrid.³² As with the others, no record can be found of this duel taking place, and passports and passenger listings can be found under his name which indicate that the first time he left the American continent since his arrival was his aforementioned trip to Europe in 1905.³³

Military Fencing Master

Along with his self-given title of 'champion of Italy' and later 'world champion', from early on many newspapers also referred to Pavese as a 'professor', a title commonly used in English for fencing masters.³⁴ As there were no federal governing bodies for the title of fencing master in America at this time, it could take as little as declaring yourself a fencing master or giving lessons on a regular basis to be considered as such. Italy, on the other hand, had a much more established culture for the certification of fencing masters—especially within the military, where Pavese is said to have earned his qualification.

In the preface of Pavese's treatise it states that he joined the military voluntarily, serving in the 19th cavalry before being accepted to the internationally-renowned military fencing master's school in Rome, then returning to his old regiment as a fencing master after graduating.³⁵ A similar background is given articles from the Washington Times and Baltimore Sun, with the former saying that he was the fencing instructor of the 19th cavalry for eleven years, and the latter that he attended the school from the age of 16 to 27, acting as the fencing master of the 19th cavalry for only some of that time.³⁶

Contrary to all this, however, in a feature article on Pavese in the New York Sun from 1903, it claimed that at the age of seventeen Pavese entered the 'instruction platoon' (i.e. the cavalry school) in Pinerolo, where his talent for fencing was noticed, resulting in him being admitted to the Rome fencing master's school in 1885. After graduating in 1887 with honours, he 'remained there until 1887 [sic] when he was ordered by the Italian Government to leave school and join his regiment—the Ninth Cavalry.' The same article says that while Pavese was at the school he was fortunate to have studied under 'three of the best swordsmen ever known: Professors Carlo Pessini, Doni and Peresi'.³⁷

The first of these names refers to Carlo Pessina, a prominent instructor at the school, and the third is likely meant to be Masaniello Parise, the school's director. The second of the three, likely one Vittorio Doni, was indeed a military fencing master, but he is not known to have been teaching there at the time, albeit he did attend a 4-month course at said school in the first half of 1885, after which he would have returned to teaching in his regiment, coincidentally the 19th cavalry.³⁸ It will also be remembered that the aforementioned Luigi Sfrisi was teaching at the Pinerolo cavalry school in 1885, so it is possible that Pavese has some history with him too.

While it is conceivable that Pavese could have taken part in the entrance exam, there is no evidence to suggest that he ever attended the military fencing master's school and subsequently graduated. Lists of the people who were accepted into the school were published in the official military journal, as were the start and end dates of its courses. He also cannot have been a student at the school if articles from December 1893 were correct in stating that he was an army officer, as only sergeants were admitted.³⁹

Nor did the unverified claims about his military service end after his time Italy. On his death, obituaries in the New York Times and Baltimore Sun say he served as a cavalry captain under Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War, with the two being 'close friends'. This is, unsurprisingly, entirely unsubstantiated, with the 1930 federal census clearly stating 'no' in the column marking veteran status of the U.S. navy or military.⁴⁰

While evidence indicates that he was never a qualified military fencing master in his native Italy, it is not unlikely that Pavese was involved in the military to some degree, perhaps training at the Pinerolo cavalry school, given his recognised ability for horse riding, as shown in various mounted tournaments throughout his career, and his constant desire to associate himself with military pursuits. This desire manifested itself even in his later life, when he founded a Fascist youth 'military school' in Baltimore in the late 1920s, modelled after the 'Balilla' organisations of Fascist Italy.⁴¹

Unlike Pavese, a Florentine civilian fencing master named Marco Piacenti did have an established competitive reputation throughout Europe first as an amateur, then becoming a master in 1898. Shortly after this he moved to Boston, where he would teach at the local athletics club for a few years before returning to Italy.⁴² As someone who was very active in the fencing scene the same time as Pavese claims to have been, Piacenti would be in perfect position to verify Pavese's integrity and merit as master, but this he never did. On the contrary, in an 1899 article by Piacenti published in the Boston Sunday Post, he denounces the 'self-styled fencing teachers' who come to the USA looking to profit off their lies, as well as giving a plausible reason as to why this phenomenon was so prevalent at the time:

Fencing in North America is without doubt the branch of sport which is least valued here, and the cause of this is that there have come to this country a great number of self-styled fencing teachers who have adopted a method that is neither the French nor the Italian method, and which has disgusted many Americans with fencing altogether, as they have not had a chance to see its artistic side. In fact while we see hundreds at a fencing tourney in Italy or France only about twenty amateurs will come together at such a tourney in a great city like Boston.
The reason is that the persons who come to this country have no profession, and in order to make their living begin to teach fencing, of which they do not know the first rudiment.
In this first year of my teaching in Boston I have seen people with a very good disposition for fencing and also with a very fine constitution for this sport, but they had been spoiled by their former teachers.
[...]
I sincerely hope that a good fencing teacher, Italian or French, will soon come to this country, and that this highly interesting sport will then eagerly be taken up by those who now take no interest in it.⁴³

American Champion

It would be a whole other article in itself to thoroughly address Pavese's competitive career in the USA, so for this article it will suffice to demonstrate how his lack of credibility regarding other aspects of his life also manifested in this realm. From late 1894 until the late 1910s, Pavese insistently promoted himself as 'champion of the world' (and, later, that he remained undefeated) at a time when several others in the USA were also giving themselves the same title.

American news media were, by and large, happy to entertain these claims even in spite of several public defeats and withdrawals on the part of Pavese. In April 1894 a contest between Pavese and the multi-talented sportsman Duncan C. Ross ended early when enraged Italian spectators stormed the stage to protest perceived bias from the referee in favour of Ross. The two would meet at least twice more in the future, both times with the match ending prematurely in similar circumstances.⁴⁴

In March 1897 Pavese was decisively defeated by an Italian fencing master named Francesco Scannapieco in Philadelphia, but again he would continue to proclaim his title as world champion, denying his defeat by Scannapieco.⁴⁵ A defeat that received more publicity took place in San Francisco in 1899 against the French master Louis Tronchet, with the hot-headed and outraged Pavese declaring 'his willingness to meet Tronchet in mortal combat in Montreal or Mexico'.⁴⁶

None of this is to say that Pavese was a particularly bad fencer, at least by American standards. Pavese taught and successfully fenced in public for over a decade, earning the admiration of many; however, given that some of the public bouts occurring this time involved prize money of up to $1,000 for the victor (over $30,000 in today's money), anyone's public boasting of American or world championship or of being undefeated should, as a default, be taken as little more than self-promotion for the sake of profit.

The Treatise

So with all this said—having thoroughly demonstrated that not only did Pavese lie about his background and career, but inconsistently so—what does this mean for his treatise? While Pavese himself says he drew from from Masaniello Parise's 1884 treatise Trattato teorico-pratico della scherma di spada e sciabola to some degree, the fact that Pavese likely did not attend the Parise's military fencing master's school in Rome means that any additions or original insights that may be found in his book cannot be assumed to derive from what was taught at said school. However, since nothing is yet known about Pavese's fencing experience during his time in Italy, it cannot be said for sure that he was not taught Parise's method.

If Pavese did grow up in the Naples area, it is certainly possible that he could have received lessons from Masaniello Parise prior to his appointment to the Rome school or any other member of the Parise family of fencing masters who were active during Pavese's youth. In short, the uncertainty of Pavese's fencing pedigree does not entirely negate any value that might be obtained from his treatise, but it cannot in good faith be considered representative of any particular lineage or institution until more insight is gained into his early years. What one can do is determine how much his book draws from Parise's material, where he diverges, and if any other possible influences are evident. While a comprehensive comparison would be beyond the present scope, there are a few aspects of the book which I feel are worth highlighting.

Starting with the foil, the more visually obvious divergences from Parise's method are seen in his guard position, which appears more evenly-weighted rather than Parise's slight rear-weighting, as well as in Pavese's lunge, which is more akin to what's prescribed in northern Italian masters such as Masiello, with a forward lean creating a straight line from left shoulder to left heel, a movement which Pavese explicitly describes as being 'very important'.⁴⁷

Top: Pavese
Bottom: Parise

Aside from the regular step forward or 'step in advance', Pavese also describes what is commonly known today as the balestra or jump forward, a technique that had only recently started to be described in Italian treatises.⁴⁸ Also curiously modern is part of his terminology, that being his designation of parry of 1st what was usually referred to in contemporary Italian terminology as 'half-circle' or less commonly 'parry of 5th'. In the Italian school it would be more common later in the 20th century for the term 1st or prima to be used to refer to both the French-style pronated parry and the supinated 'half-circle' parry, but not so in 1905, making Pavese an outlier in this respect.

His sabre section is even more abridged than the foil, with many noteworthy omissions. Both Parise's 'yielding 6th' parry (otherwise known as parry of 7th) as well as his guard of 1st, Parise's preferred engaging guard, are both missing. The exercise molinelli are entirely absent, but he preserves their drawing recovery swing in the individual cuts. He also removes Parise's prescribed obtuse angle between the extended arm and sabre when cutting, instead preferring to maximise reach with a straight line from shoulder to point.

Pavese's unique addition of the 'Form for Articles of Agreement'—a bouting contract seemingly inspired by those used for duels—and the advice he gives about fencing equipment and bouting culture are an admirable attempt by the author to adapt the material for an American audience—that is, one which had far less general cultural awareness of fencing and was accustomed to different public events compared to those in Western Europe. His work gives the impression of a man who was determined to continue promoting the art in spite of the cultural apathy he encountered both before and after the treatise's publication.

Conclusion

The typical approach to understanding a historical figure or event is, essentially, through examining as many reliable sources as possible to determine what happened and why. The challenge that became apparent in writing this article is a good demonstration of how difficult it is to convincingly prove something did not happen. At what point does the absence of evidence become sufficiently overwhelming to conclude that a particular event did not take place, or at least not how another source might claim so?

Through the extensive examination of government records, newspapers, sporting magazines, tournament reports, and military journals, no evidence of Generoso Pavese's fencing career in Italy was found during the period he claims to have been not only active, but renowned to some degree in the Italian fencing scene. Even after arriving in the USA and receiving considerable attention from media institutions around the country, the claims made by and about him were often contradictory, provably false or greatly exaggerated. Although these claims may weave a compelling narrative, they misleadingly depict Pavese as belonging to a particular class of fencing masters whose qualifications made them highly regarded around the world, therefore presenting a tempting opportunity for those willing to exploit this reputation for personal gain.

The method he describes in his treatise cannot be be considered a product of Italy's military fencing master's school due the unreliability of his narrative, but despite this Pavese's treatise remains an interesting example of one person's attempt at propagating the modern Italian school of fencing in the USA before the more successful attempts later in the century.

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1 A good summary of this period of Italian immigration can be found on the website of the US Library of Congress: "Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History," accessed 9 January 2022, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/.^↩
2 Generoso Pavese, Foil and Sabre Fencing (Baltimore, MD: King Bros., 1905).^↩
3 Id., p. 5.^↩
4 For the 1905 passport application: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 669; Volume #: Roll 669 - 01 Feb 1905-28 Feb 1905. Note also that on his death in 1947, some obituaries gave his place of birth as Florence. See "Noted fencer dies at 81," Baltimore Sun, 16 January 1947, 10; "Generoso Pavese," New York Times, 16 January 1947, 25.^↩
5 American articles: "With steel blades," New York World, 8 December 1893, 9; "Italy's master of fencing," New York Times, 8 December 1893, 3. Italian articles: Accademie, Tornei e Notizie, Scherma Italiana, 16 November 1893, 84; Accademie, Tornei e Notizie, Scherma Italiana, 1 January 1894, 6–7; Accademie, Tornei e Notizie, Scherma Italiana, 13 January 1894, 12.^↩
6 "A mounted sword combat," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 22 February 1894, 8.^↩
7 "To cross swords," Brooklyn Citizen, 22 February 1894, 3.^↩
8 "Parvese defeats Kendal," New York Daily Tribune, 12 March 1894, 3.^↩
9 "Music and fencing," New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, 16 May 1894, 2.^↩
10 National Police Gazette, 28 April 1894, 11.^↩
11 For his attendance at the fencing master's school: Cesare Francesco Ricotti-Magnani, "N. 90. - Corso speciale presso la scuola magistrale di scherma. - (Segretariato generale). - 27 luglio," Giornale Militare 1885: parte seconda, no. 31 (30 July 1885): 340–1. It is also likely Sfrisi took part in the last course to be held at the Milan master's school before its closure, as mentioned in Cesare Francesco Ricotti-Magnani, "CIRCOLARE N. 73. - Ammissione di sottufficiali ad un corso speciale presso la scuola magistrale di scherma. - (Segretariato generale). - 20 giugno," Giornale Militare 1885: parte seconda, no. 26 (23 June 1885): 293. For his participation in the Bologna tournament: Carlo Pilla, Torneo nazionale di scherma 3-7 maggio (Bologna: Società tipografica già compositori, 1891).^↩
12 "He'll teach Roosevelt to fence," New York Sun, 15 February 1903, 8.^↩
13 Pavese, Foil and Sabre Fencing, 5.^↩
14 Some sporting magazines that covered fencing tournaments are L'Escrime Française for France, Scherma Italiana for Italy, and Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung for Austria. For the 1887 Florence tournament, extensive coverage is found in the Florentine newspaper La Nazione throughout May 1887. For the 1889 Rome tournament, see various articles in large newspapers such as Turin's Gazzetta Piemontese, Milan's Corriere della Sera, and Rome's La Tribuna in November 1889. For the 1891 Bologna tournament, see Pilla, ibid. For the 1891 Venice tournament, a report is found in Baiardo: periodico schermistico bimensile from 8 September 1891.^↩
15 "He'll teach Roosevelt to fence," New York Sun, 15 February 1903, 8.^↩
16 "Escrime," Le Journal, 24 November 1904, 6.^↩
17 "Master of the foil coming to America for matches with Yankee swordsmen," Indianapolis Sun, 11 January 1905, 7.^↩
18 L'Auto, 6 January 1905, 1.^↩
19 "Rondell's great fight," Boston Globe, evening edition, 25 January 1905, 3.^↩
20 "Escrime," L'Auto, 1 April 1905, 5.^↩
21 "Sport," Don Chisciottino, 4 June 1905, 3; "Scherma," Il Vaglio, 1 July 1905, 3.^↩
22 "Pavese dares Tronchet to fight to the death," San Francisco Call, 6 November 1899, 6; G Pavese, "Pavese will fence Senac," National Police Gazette, 23 March 1901, 11; E. G. Westlake, "Who Is the Fencing Champion of the Western Continent?," Columbus Daily Herald, 27 April 1901, 3.^↩
23 "Austin & Stone's," Boston Post, 14 April 1896, 6.^↩
24 "Challenged to a duel," New York Times, 26 April 1898, 4.^↩
25 "Pavese ready to fight Spaniards," New York Evening Journal, 9 June 1898, 6.^↩
26 "Capt. Stahl Challenges Carranza," New York Times, 28 April 1898, 7; "Gen. Lee back in Washington," New York Times, 29 April 1898, 3; "W. D. Ballari wants to Fight Carranza," New York Times, 30 April 1898, 4.^↩
27 "Pavese's sword," Mexican Herald, 22 October 1899, 13, extract from Denver Evening Post.^↩
28 Parlamento Italiano, "Cesare Ricotti Magnani," viewed 10 February 2022, <https://storia.camera.it/deputato/cesare-ricotti-magnani-18220130/governi>^↩
29 "Pavese dares Tronchet to fight to the death," San Francisco Call, 6 November 1899, 6; "Swordsman Pavese In Town," Baltimore Sun, 20 October 1901, 6; "Swordsman Pavese accepts," Baltimore Sun, 20 May 1902, 6; "He'll teach Roosevelt to fence," New York Sun, 15 February 1903, 8; "Fencing bout arranged," Altoona Mirror, 2 March 1909, 6; "Prof Pavese, Teddy's sword master, open for business; want a date?," Tacoma Times, 14 April 1909, 2.^↩
30 According to Gelli, less than 2% of duels in Italy from 1 June 1879 to the end of 1889 resulted in death. Jacopo Gelli, Statistica del duello (Milan: Tipografia degli Operai, 1892).^↩
31 "He'll teach Roosevelt to fence," New York Sun, 15 February 1903, 8; "Master of the rapier," The Argus, 21 February 1903, 10; "President's skill with foils," Washington Times, 5 October 1904, 7; "Escrime," Le Journal, 24 November 1904, 6; "Roosevelt allievo di un schermidore italiano," Gazzetta dello Sport, 28 November 1904, 2.^↩
32 "Prof. Pavese, Teddy's sword master, open for business; want a date?," Detroit Times, 21 April 1909, 4; "An expert swordsman," Waterbury Evening Democrat, 4 May 1899, 4.^↩
33 Aside from the passport cited in footnote 5, the only passenger listing I have found so far with containing Pavese's name is on his return in 1905: Year: 1905; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 15; Page Number: 64^↩
36 "A mounted sword combat," Brooklyn Daily Eagle 22 February 1894, 8; Miscellaneous Sports, New York World, 30 May 1894, 2; "To cross swords," Brooklyn Citizen, 22 February 1894, 3.^↩
35 Pavese, Foil and Sabre Fencing, 5.^↩
36 "Prof. Pavese and his claims for the Italian school of fencing," The Washington Times, 6 July 1902, 28; "Swordsman Pavese in Town," Baltimore Sun, 20 October 1904, 6.^↩
37 "He'll teach Roosevelt to fence," New York Sun, 15 February 1903, 8. An aforementioned article from 1894 also mentions a 'Pessini' as Pavese's master: "To cross swords," Brooklyn Citizen, 22 February 1894, 3. The Baltimore Sun of 21 July 1904 instead claims that Pavese was 'two years riding master at one of the leading cavalry schools of Italy'.^↩
38 Cesare Francesco Ricotti-Magnani, "N. 2. - Corsi eventuali presso la scuola magistrale militare di scherma. - (Segretariato generale). - 2 gennaio," Giornale Militare 1885: parte seconda, no. 1 (7 January 1885): 2–3.^↩
39 Lists of successful applicants to the Rome fencing master's school during this time may be found in the following issues of the Giornale Militare: 3 October 1884, 7 January 1885, 15 April 1885, 27 July 1885, 4 March 1886, 23 September 1887, 18 August 1887. Some students who were known to have attended the school do not appear in these lists, but they such instances are rare. It must also be noted that the comprehensive directory of military officers contained in the annual yearbook Annuario Militare del Regno d'Italia does not list a Generoso Pavese at any point in the 1880s or 90s.^↩
40 Claims of military service: "Noted fencer dies at 81," Baltimore Sun, 16 January 1947, 10; "Generoso Pavese," New York Times, 16 January 1947, 25. For his census entry, see U. S. Federal Census. Year: 1930; Census Place: Baltimore, Maryland; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 0577; FHL microfilm: 2340591.^↩
41 "First Fascist School Opened in Baltimore," Daily Worker, 19 June 1928, 4.^↩
42 Biographical details on Marco Piacenti: P. B. [Pietro Baldi], "Marco Piacenti," Gazzetta dello Sport, 18 March 1898, 1; "Le Maitre Piacenti," Les Armes, 5 June 1910, 250. Piacenti's tournament achievements are easily verified by contemporary newspapers and sporting magazines, such as the Italian Scherma Italiana and the Hungarian Sport-Világ. Piacenti was classified in the 1st category in both foil and sabre at the tournaments of Genoa 1892, Venice 1894, Milan 1894, Prague 1895, and Budapest 1896, among many others.^↩
43 Marco Piacenti, "Marco Piacenta on fencing," Boston Sunday Post 7 May 1899, 21.^↩
44 "Broadsword contest ended in a fizzle," Brooklyn Standard Union, 9 April 1894, 8; "Boxing resumed at Coney," New York Sun, 2 August 1894, 5; "Broadswordsmen in danger," New York Sun, 10 September 1895, 5.^↩
45 "Scannapieco Won the Championship," 11 March 1897, 5. This defeat did not go unnoticed by all, however, with the Wilmington Sun commenting on an event of Pavese's in New York the following year: 'Professor Pavese, of New York, who, although easily beaten by Professor Scannapieco, claims the fencing championship of the world ...' (31 March 1898, p. 3).^↩
46 "Pavese dares Tronchet to fight to the death," San Francisco Call, 6 November 1899, 6.^↩
47 Pavese, Foil and Sabre Fencing, 127.^↩
48 Other early examples are found in: Luigi Barbasetti, Das Stossfechten (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1900); Primo Tiboldi, La scherma di fioretto (Milan: Casa Editrice Sonzogno, 1905).^↩

Fechten im Bild by Hans Murero

This most recent addition to my personal collection entitled Fechten im Bild (literally 'Fencing in picture') is more of a novelty than your standard fencing treatise, since instead of relying on text, it predominantly consists of photos of various fencing positions for sabre, foil, and épée (36 photos, to be exact), with the methods shown for the first two weapons based heavily on the Barbasetti lineage.

Scans: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1loO_vQf83bWzHwPwPBBfBopD65PC8zww/view?usp=sharing

Its author, Hans Murero, was born in 1881 in Klagenfurt, Austria, and was a graduate of the Wiener-Neustadt school, studying under the renowned Milan Neralić, himself a student of Luigi Barbasetti. Murero remained at the Wiener-Neustadt school as an assistant instructor until Neralić hired him as his assistant in Berlin. Murero was recalled to the Wiener-Neustadt school during the First World War, after which he spent some time teaching at the Wiener Athletiksport-Klub and Union Fechtclub in Vienna, eventually returning to teaching in Berlin, where he died of laryngeal disease in 1930.

Sources

"Hans Murero," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 2 February 1919, 106–7.

"Michael Neralić," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 24 February 1918, 60.

"Tagesneuigkeiten," Neues Wiener Journal, 24 May 1930, 9.

Vittorio Argento on Neapolitan sabre fencing

Throughout the 19th century, sabre fencing in southern Italy was always considered a secondary discipline to sword (foil) fencing, a preference which its proponents justified by looking to the centuries-long tradition their region boasted in this regard. In this article from Gazzetta dello Sport, published 18 & 21 August 1899 under the title 'La scherma di sciabola a Napoli', journalist and amateur fencer Vittorio Argento takes stock of the last century and highlights the individual Neapolitans who went against the traditional neglect for sabre and instead elevated it to new heights, citing such names as Augusto Parise, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Barraco, and Saverio Cerchione.

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Sabre fencing in Naples

By now the custom of giving little consideration to the handling of the sabre, widespread amongst the majority of our fencers, has almost completely stopped; but once, not too long ago, if this weapon was not held completely in contempt, it was not appreciated according to its true value.

And to think that even then most duels were done with sabres!

What a contradiction! Fencing enthusiasts who can never believe they have trained enough with the sword, who sacrifice most of their time to the handling of this weapon and give it the utmost importance—in the only case in which it should be of use to them, they set it aside and choose the sabre as their preferred combat weapon, perhaps due to the preconception of thinking it less capable of producing mortal wounds; as if it were not possible to thrust with a sabre, or as if, even excluding murderous intentions in duels, cuts were not often fatal too. But let us not get off-track.

So there were very few who sometimes deigned to take the sabre in hand, and those rough wooden scimitars stayed hanging in fencing halls, full of cobwebs and almost never being disturbed.

If a master was asked by some students for a sabre lesson, he immediately tried to dissuade them.

Why waste time with the sabre? The art, the true art of fencing consists in sword fencing. Those who wield this weapon well can also wield the sabre as a consequence. With this conviction they pushed on.

Nor was there reason to be disillusioned, because in the event—and this was a rare event—that two fencers, recalcitrant to their master’s advice, wished to indulge themselves by having a sabre bout, being at the same level, they certainly could not have realised their own deficiency.

This is the rate at which it progressed for so many years, with the known offensive actions confined in the limits of backhands and double backhands, forehands and double forehands, vertical strikes, horizontal strikes, etc., more or less like in the old spadancia fencing system. Defence consisted of attacking with the aim of saving oneself with body parries; parries were rarely done by opposing one’s own blade to the opponent’s.

This was the state of things when Maestro Augusto Parise returned from Modena, where he had been a fencing teacher for some time at the military school, and where he had had the opportunity to train in handling the sabre with his other colleagues, especially with Enrichetti, Simonetti, Lupi, Pavia, and Pinto. He opened a fencing hall in our city, dedicating himself primarily to the teaching of sabre fencing and introducing us to steel blades for the first time.

With the first boost from this master, sabre fencing gradually began to be cultivated with greater care even in other halls, and the masters Annibale, Raffaele, and Eduardo Parise, Giuseppe Lopez, Vincenzo La Marca, Giuseppe Zugiani, and many distinguished amateurs such as Morbillo, Miceli, Rizzo, and Anzani were also strong sabreurs at that time. But soon these fencers preferred the sword again, which, through its limited target to be defended and the numerous means of defence which it offers, is less exposed to surprises and better lends itself to a serious and rational game.

One who with rare perseverance, and more through his own intuition than through any training acquired, cultivated and kept sabre fencing alive in Naples was the young amateur Vincenzo Bellini, then a medical student. He set about it with such passion that he almost totally abandoned his studies in order to devote himself exclusively to the profession of this art. I do not think he had anything to regret. Working tirelessly, he was able to produce many strong fencers, first and foremost Locascio.

He also published a treatise about his system which may be criticised, discussed, perhaps found incomplete; but the conscientious critic cannot help but consider that it was edited when the teaching of sabre was in a rudimentary state, lacking in exact rules and a rational progression, and that any art in its first development is subject to continuous changes before being able to approach perfection.

Besides, if Maestro Bellini publishes a new edition of his treatise, it will immediately be seen if and in what manner he will have followed and appreciated the continuous progress made by sabre fencing in recent times.

Those who have given the greatest influence to sabre fencing were, without any doubt, the military masters who went on to the various regiments stationed in Naples and nearby cities or at the Nunziatella military college.

The masters Monti, Pessina, Cerchione, Pagliuca, Barraco, Nappi, Cafarelli, Macri, Marenco, and so on—strong young men, willing to work and eager to show their valour—presented themselves in all the exhibitions, participated in all the fencing gatherings, frequented the best halls, fencing with sword and sabre, but naturally giving preference to the latter, which is the soldier’s weapon.

To see these young masters fence sabre, our fencers were convinced—from the evidence of the facts—that as strong as they were with the sword, they were completely insufficient with regard to the sabre. They started to give up the prejudice that this weapon was something like a coachman’s whip or a goatherd’s stick, and instead became persuaded that in the hands of someone who knew how to use it well by cultivating its handling with accurate and conscientious study, the sabre lent itself to a more elegant and finer game, no more or no less than the foil, and they devoted themselves—some with their own master, others with some of the best military masters—to training in the handling of the sabre.

It was then that Maestro Barraco, either through kindness or by his own choice, took leave of the army and opened in Naples the hall which produced Giuseppe Del Pozzo, Giuseppe Morelli, Aspreno Brancaccio, Luca Caracciolo, Captain Roberto Galato, Gaetano Fernandez, Enrico Formento, and others.

By staying faithful to a single system, Barraco—a profound connoisseur of his art, a strong fencer and intelligent teacher—would have been able to create students who should have all been similar, both in handling the weapon as in the tactics of fencing; but his restless spirit, the passion of always wanting to find new things, induced him to bring continuous innovations into his system, such that his students often differed from each other to the point that they seemed to be trained in different schools; and if this did not diminish the merit of the individuals, it did cause the lack of a standard which should have distinguished his school from all the others.

Now sabre fencing in Naples has progressed in a truly admirable way, especially in the last ten years.

Having witnessed public and private bouts with Pessina, Greco, Cerchione, Pecoraro, Guasti, Drosi, Conte, Nappi, Caprioli, Marenco, Mormile, Campanella, Burba, and many many other famous masters and amateurs, who, in being strong fencers, became very likeable through the grace of their movements, the plasticity of their pose, and above all the precision and lightness of their blade carriage, which has been so useful that our sabre fencers have slowly begun to refine their game, to force themselves to dominate the blade, guiding it until it barely touches—I would almost say grazes—the opponent. Those huge deep sea diver helmets, those padded vests which made sabre fencing so clumsy have almost completely gone into disuse. In Cerchione’s hall, for example, where the cream of sabre fencers is found, such as Filippo Salvati, Marquis Mastellone, Giuseppe Giurato, masters Russomando, De Simone, Galimi, etc., they fence with light jackets and often even with foil masks and foil gloves; nor once the bout has ended does one ever see those bruises on the chest that were seen (despite the padded vests) when cuts were given by letting the blade fall on its own.

In short, if we do not have that great number of strong sabre fencers that we should have, taking into account the number of inhabitants in our city and how many of them, it is said, study fencing, on the other hand we have fencers who are greatly esteemed and appreciated by the strongest masters and amateurs of Italy and who can, without fear of being accused of presumption, aspire to making those people reconsider who once rightly asserted the Neapolitans to still be children with regard to sabre fencing.

Vittorio Argento

Austro-Hungarian fencing sabres in the 1890s

The comparative lightness of Italian fencing sabres was something that foreign commentators took particular note of in the 1890s as Italian fencing weapons and styles received ever more exposure throughout Europe, particularly within Austria-Hungary. An aspect of this that is often overlooked, however, is what these observations can tell us about the fencing cultures of the Austro-Hungarian empire prior to the explosive spread of Italian sabre fencing with the arrivals of Luigi Barbasetti and Italo Santelli. In short: if Italian sabres were considered light, what were the sabres like in Austria-Hungary?

Fencing equipment — Udrycki de Udryce (1879)

Although there were some distinct moments in which Italian sabre fencing gained notable footholds within Austria-Hungary in the 1890s, it must be kept in mind that this influence did not begin at a single moment in time, nor was it felt equally in all corners the vast empire. Former Italian military fencing master Pietro Arnoldo had been established in Graz since the mid-1870s, forming his own local contingent of Italianate sabreurs,¹ and several Radaellian masters had taught in Trieste (then part of Austria-Hungary) since 1881.²

Despite this, it would not be until after Barbasetti's arrival in Vienna in 1894 that Italian influence spreads throughout Austria proper, and the fencing masters of Budapest would not adopt Italian fencing customs until there became a demand for it following the 1896 Budapest 'Millennium Tournament' and the arrival of Italo Santelli. Italian influence would take several years to reach most of the major cities of the empire, either through directly hiring a master from Italy, or by acquiring a recent graduate of the Wiener-Neustadt school (following its reorganisation by Barbasetti in 1895). Italian influence was therefore quite localised initially and took place at varying rates.

Due to the my own linguistic limitations and the greater prevalence of sources from Austria and Hungary, this article will focus on the evidence from just these two regions, with a particular bias towards the cities of Vienna and Budapest. The incredible diversity of cultures which comprised the Austro-Hungarian empire cannot be completely ignored, thus any conclusions drawn from this article should not be assumed as universal for all the constituent regions.

Treatises

The preferences for fencing sabres as detailed in treatises throughout Europe as a whole is a topic that I have discussed in greater detail previously, so here I will focus on a few treatises from just the Austro-Hungarian region in the years prior to any (apparent) Italian influence.

First we have Murz (1890), who says that a sabre weighs between 640 and 790 g.³ Chappon (1893) gives a similar range of 600 to 850 g plus a blade of 80 to 85 cm⁴ and Horváthi Menyhárt (1896) also gives the weight as between 620 and 800 g.⁵

Arlow & Litomyský (1894)

Arlow & Litomyský (1894) recommend 'medium-light' blades with a width of 13 mm at the weak and 16 mm at the strong, at least in the initial stages. Students can be transitioned to heavier blades at the later stages of training if their technique is not affected, but they acknowledge play becomes very limited with the weight of a military service weapon.⁶

Although a limited sample size, the three aforementioned weight ranges are notably consistent with each other and, as we will see, the blade width given by Arlow & Litomyský seems to have been well within the average range expected in fencing halls and tournaments.

Tournaments

For the 'First Viennese Fencing Tournament' in 1883, the regulations prescribed 'the common spadon with a straight or curved blade' as the permitted fencing sabre for the event (spadon being a common Austrian term for fencing sabre).⁷ There then seems to have been few public competitions in Vienna until fencing experienced a large resurgence of interest in the mid-1890s, due in no small part to Barbasetti's influence.

In Budapest, for what was considered to be the first 'national' Hungarian tournament in 1894, sabre blades had to be between 6 and 8 'lines' wide,⁸ or around 13.2–17.6 mm, with the explicit intention being to exclude 'thin, whip-like Italian sabres'.⁹ Following the tournament, an article remarked that the sabres used at the tournament were mostly in the range of 7–8 lines wide (15.4–17.6 mm).¹⁰

Gyula Iványi and Zsiga Halász, c. 1895

At the Austro-Hungarian fencing tournament in Vienna two years later, the mandated 'Austrian sabre' had to have a minimum blade width of 10 mm, but no wider than 15 mm, blade length between 84 and 88 cm, with a guard no wider than 11 cm.¹¹

Later that year, as part of the Millennium Exhibition in Budapest, a large international tournament was held, attracting many prominent fencers from Austria-Hungary and abroad. Despite the attendance of several notable Italian amateurs and fencing masters, the rules dictating the kind of sabres allowed at the tournament are well in line with the 1894 tournament and what we see in the aforementioned fencing treatises. The required specifications were:

• Guard no wider than 11 cm
• Blade width between 6 and 8 lines (13.2–17.6 mm)
• Minimum blade thickness of 2 lines (4.4 mm)
• Maximum blade length of 88 cm
• Maximum total length of 150 cm
• Minimum weight of 600 g¹²

The resulting spectacle of the Italian fencers at this tournament meant that Italian fencing, along with its lighter sabres, would quickly come to dominate Budapest's fencing halls in the following years. This is not to say that proponents of the old styles were entirely eradicated from the scene, however. In 1903 a tournament was held in Budapest solely for those born after 1 January 1880, with the mandated fencing sabres being of the 'Keresztessy' type, provided by the organisers of the tournament. The sabres weighed 690 g and were 1 metre long in total, with 84–84.5 cm of that being the blade.¹³

Hungarian fencing master József Keresztessy

These sabres were named after the late renowned Hungarian fencing master József Keresztessy,¹⁴ who ran one of the most popular and long-lived fencing schools in Budapest during the latter half of the 19th century. Articles at the time compared the Keresztessy sabres to the now more dominant Italian sabres, with one report saying that: 'Fencing was done not with the Italian sabres used so far, but with the much heavier Keresztessy Hungarian sabres.'¹⁵

Contemporary Commentary

One major challenge of understanding history is determining what the norms were within a given society, as the people of the time are more likely to write about events and phenomena outside the norm or their daily experience. In this regard we are fortunate that the main cities of Austria-Hungary were experiencing significant cultural change with regard to sabre fencing during the 1890s, such that in reading period commentary on these changes we are able to gain an insight into what the prevailing norms were.

After a tragic accident at a Viennese fencing hall in 1889, in which a young man was killed when his opponent's sabre pierced his mask due to a violent thrust, an article in the Austrian sporting magazine Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung discussed whether or not thrusts should be allowed in sabre fencing. The writer's recommendation was that fencers should use blades that are 9 lines wide (~19.8 mm), instead of the common 7 line (~15.4 mm) blades, as the narrower tips of the latter type were more likely to fit through the mesh of fencing masks.¹⁶

Four years later, one commentator sent out a rallying cry to the fencers of Vienna that sabres were becoming far too thin, and that action must be taken to prevent further decline:

Those who have closely followed sabre fencing on the fencing floors of Vienna in recent years will have observed that cut fencing is in decline, which is related to the fact that the cutting weapon has steadily decreased in weight. From 11 lines [24 mm] wide, we have gradually come closer to 4 line [8.8 mm] blades, and recently even 3 line [6.6 mm] sabres have been ordered from arms dealers!
A further decrease from these blade sizes is hardly possible, and here it comes to a standstill on its own, because we cannot imagine that the cutting weapon could be reduced to the width of a knitting needle. Through the continued decrease in the heaviness of the sabre, the character of the cutting weapon itself has now almost lost its character, because the cut necessitates a certain force which is not produced by the powerful swing of the arm alone. The light fencing sabre has been adapted to the style of fencing as it currently stands, and in our opinion it is the exact wrong thing, because the manner of wielding the weapon should naturally accommodate itself.
The common school of cut fencing from previous years has been completely abandoned. Instead of drawing swings in the cuts, effort is made to strike directly from the guard without any chambering, and in recent times they seek to move the blade so that the point describes no large movements in the cutting plane and is brought to the opponent’s opening by the shortest path. This naturally has the consequence that a cut is no longer given, but a whole other kind of contact with the opponent takes place, lying somewhere between a cut and a thrust, whereby we cannot fail to mention how the thrust is intended more than it was previously. We have already seen sabre bouts in which the cut only happens in exceptional circumstances! We would not think of looking back to the old method and the huge heavy sabres of the old days, nor would we like to see the thrust excluded; but with how sabre fencing is done now, the decline of cut fencing does not seem too far off.¹⁷

As a result of this article, around a dozen fencing clubs held a round-table discussion and unanimously agreed that they would not allow fencing sabres with blades less than 6 lines wide (13.2 mm) in their clubs and competitions. There was a desire from some of those present that the lower limit be one or two lines greater, but the general sentiment was that this agreement was a positive step towards preserving traditional Austrian fencing. The writer further justified the decision by stating that 7 and 8 line (15.4–17.6 mm) blades were common at military training institutions.¹⁸

Commenting on this initiative by the Viennese clubs and the continuing discussion of whether to allow thrusts in sabre fencing, one Budapest magazine states that the Hungarians tend to use heavier, wider, and more curved sabres than the Italians, with the majority of Hungarian fencing sabres being between 8 and 10 lines wide (17.6–22 mm).¹⁹

The Hungarian Athletics Club's national fencing tournament at the Vigadó (1895)

By mid-1895, the typical 8-line sabre blades seem to have become all but a distant memory for many in Austria thanks to the trend encouraged by Barbasetti. A writer in the Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung gives an emphatic promotion for the new Italian school of fencing and its lighter weapons, countering some of the common arguments against the latter aspect:

At first glance, the objection regarding the introduction of the Italian sabre appears to be objectively conceived. In practice everyone will have already experienced the uncomfortable feeling which becomes apparent when switching to a weapon with a different weight or form. With the introduction of the Italian sabre, the feared difference between the school sabre and the sabre for the duel is unfounded, since it really already exists.
The service sabres of our officers are 17 lines [37.3 mm] wide in the cavalry, 11 lines [24.1 mm] in the infantry, and many years ago in our fencing halls 9 line [19.8 mm] wide spadons were in use. Since then there has been a steady decline in blade width, and today there should be few fencing halls where blades wider than 5 lines [11 mm] would be used. Matters of honour should be no game, but they do not have to be a slaughter either. This applies to practice too; fighting with service sabres can only occur in exceptional cases. Heavy sabres 9 lines wide should likewise be used extremely rarely; as a rule, the seconds should bring to the duelling ground the same kind of sabres common in the fencing hall, and 5-6 line [11–13.2 mm] wide sabres are also dangerous enough, if wielded correctly, to produce the usually intended result of incapacitation.
The width of the Italian sabre hardly differs from our modern fencing sabre; indeed in Italy a heavier blade is used in the fencing school, and lighter blades are only used for exhibitions and such, as they significantly facilitate greater elegance and speed.²⁰

Aside from giving us further corroboration regarding established fencing practices in Austria, we also see how the aforementioned efforts from the old guard to preserve the heavier 'spadons' had evidently been in vain, perhaps with the silver lining that the arrival of Italian fencing had breathed new life into an arguably neglected pursuit in Austria by this time.

The Italianisation of sabre fencing would take slightly longer in neighbouring Hungary compared to its Germanic cousin, but was no less remarkable in nature. Following the aforementioned 1896 Millennium Exhibition in Budapest, fencing masters such as Italo Santelli, Federico Giroldini, and Arturo Gazzera would establish themselves in the Hungarian capital, changing the fencing landscape there as quickly as Barbasetti did in Austria. In February 1897 the Italian journalist Roderico Rizzotti, who had been a judge at the Millennium Exhibition the previous year, remarked how Károly Fodor's fencing halls were now completely filled with Italian sabres, foils, masks, and gloves, with the few remaining heavy Hungarian sabres serving only as wall decoration.²¹

No doubt there were still many who held out against the new Italian trend, as evidenced by the aforementioned tournament in 1903 with the mandated Keresztessy sabres, but in the decades following the arrival of the Italians there were few in Hungary who could ignore the profound impact of the methods and practices they introduced had on the country.²²

Summary

Given the data and anecdotal evidence presented here, I feel able to, with a reasonable amount of confidence, provide a general summary of the kind of fencing sabres one would expect to see being used at a fencing hall in Vienna or Budapest in the early 1890s, with the generalisation most likely applying to the late-1880s, if not earlier. One may expect a fencing sabre from this time to have the following attributes:

• Total weight between 600 and 850 g
• Blade no longer than 85 cm
• Blade width between 14 and 20 mm at the guard
• A thicker and less flexible blade than those commonly used in Italy or France
• Guard no wider than 11 cm

The reader should feel free to draw their own conclusions from this data, keeping in mind the variations that undoubtedly existed between clubs, cities, regions, and time periods. If nothing else, the data provides an excellent reference point for those interested in Italian fencing in this period, showing how foreign observers viewed Italian fencing methods and equipment and how their initial hesitation would eventually give way to emulation.

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1 "Il suicidio di un schermitore italiano a Graz," Il Piccolo, 22 July 1898, 1.^↩
2 These being Salvatore Arista, G. T. Angelini, and Luigi Barbasetti. See Giulio Cesari, "Il cinquantenario della Società Triestina di Scherma," Rivista Mensile della Città di Trieste, May 1931, 1–7.^↩
3 Frigyes Murz, Vitőr-, kard- és párbajvivás (Debrecen: Debreczeni Ellenőr, 1890), 107.^↩
4 Károly Chappon, Kardvívás kezdő és haladó vívók számára (Debrecen: Csokonai Ny., 1893), 13.^↩
5 Béla Horváthi Menyhárt, Kard- és párbaj-vívás (Pécs: József Taizs, 1896), 5.^↩
6 Gusztáv Arlow and Franz Litomyský, Systematisches Lehrbuch für den Unterricht im Säbelfechten aus der Hoch-Tierce-Auslage (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1894), 23–4.^↩
7 "Grosse Wiener Fecht-Turnier," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 22 February 1883, 143–4.^↩
8 The 'line' (Linie in German, vonal in Hungarian) is an old Austrian unit of measurement which by the 1890s had become standardised to a little over 2 mm. See here for more information.^↩
9 "A vívómérkőzés," Sport-Világ, 15 April 1894, 171. Italian sabres were also derisively dismissed as 'children's sabres' in a Hungarian article from the previous year (see "Nemzetközi vivóversenyek," Vadász- és Verseny-Lap, 26 November 1893, 668.).^↩
10 "Az első vívómérkőzés," Sport-Világ, 27 May 1894, 240.^↩
11 "Das Österr.-ung. Fechtturnier in Wien," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 26 January 1896, 86.^↩
12 "Az ezredéves országos kiállítás alkalmával 1896. évi május hó Budapesten rendezendő nemzetközi vívóverseny szabályzata," Sport-Világ, 16 February 1896, 7.^↩
13 "Sport," Pesti Napló, 4 January 1903, 14.^↩
14 "Keresztessy József," Vívómúzeum, accessed 1 November 2021, http://vivomuzeum.hu/gyujtemeny/keresztessy-jozsef-1819-08-07-1895-04-16.^↩
15 "Sport," Pesti Napló, 5 May 1903, 11. See also: Magyarország, 5 May 1903, 10; "Das szemere-Fechtturnier," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 10 May 1903, 551.^↩
16 "Der Stich beim Säbelfechten," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 21 April 1889, 379.^↩
17 Josef Schmied-Kowarzik, "Über die Notwendigkeit der Einführung eines Normalsäbels," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 29 October 1893, 1144.^↩
18 Josef Schmied-Kowarzik, "Der Normalsäbel," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 3 December 1893, 1261.^↩
19 "A szúrás a vívásnál," Sport-Világ, 1 January 1894, 19.^↩
20 "Die italienische Fechtmethode und der italienische Säbel," Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 5 May 1895, 424–5.^↩
21 Roderico Rizzotti, "Scherma in Ungheria," Gazzetta dello Sport, 3.^↩
22 Gusztáv Arlow, A Kardvívás (Budapest: Az Athenaeum Irodalmi és Nyomdai, 1902), xviii–xix; Béla Nagy, "A Nagyvilág Vivómüvészete," Nemzeti Sport, 6 January 1907, 3–4.^↩