The Italian Schools of Fencing Art Scien
The Italian Schools of Fencing Art Scien
The Italian Schools of Fencing Art Scien
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concomitant court culture, what had been a multi-purpose martial art equally
suited to the battlefield, the dueling-ground, or a self-defense scenario increasingly funneled into a specialized art intended for an encounter between equals
on a level playing field, be it an (ostensibly) friendly fencing bout or a potentially lethal encounter. In other words, paralleling dancing and riding, the handling of weapons became a courtly phenomenon, a way to display class and
breeding. The art and science of arms thus participated in the overall cultural
changes taking place in the early modern world.
1
Historiography of Fencing
Modern writing on fencing, both that of Italian scholars and that of scholars
of other nations, cannot be separated from its nationalist and scientificpositivist roots. The nineteenth centurys concerns were those of the struggle
against absolutism, justified by an ideology that included a strong belief in both
what Herbert Spencer called the law of progress and in the nation-state
the flowering of a timeless national character into a sovereign political entity
as both the inevitable and most perfect mode of human social organization.
Risorgimento Italy was fertile ground for these ideas, which are most evident
in the writings of Jacopo Gelli (18581935). Gelli, a historian, military officer,
and (ironically) advocate for the abolition of the duel, wrote several works on
dueling and code of honor, as well as traced the development of fencing, in
his Larte delle armi in Italia. Like his English contemporary Egerton Castle,1
Gelli was of the opinion that fencing, like all human endeavors, shows development from a primitive state to a more advanced and scientific one.2 His chief
concern is thus how closely previous authors presaged his own modern style
of fencing; unfortunately, he not only viewed the past through this positivist
lens, but also completely misunderstood the idiom of previous authors. For
instance, Gelli believed that medieval modes of fencing remained unchanged
through the eighteenth century and groundlessly accuses several authors of
plagiarism. Similarly, he summarily dismissed the German medieval school of
fencing and devoted many pages to refuting the opinions of both Castle and
the sixteenth-century English critic of Italian fencing, George Silver.
This nationalistic concern is also seen in Francesco Novatis facsimile of
the Pisani-Dossi manuscript of Fiore dei Liberi. Why did Novati, a renowned
1 Castle, Schools and Masters of Fence.
2 For a full treatment of historical positivism in fencing history, see my essay Daggers of the
Mind, Towards a Historiography of Fencing.
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The Italian verb, schermire, to fence, is ultimately derived from the Germanic
schirmjan or skirman, and is of considerable antiquitybesides being
Latinized into escrimar, it has cognates in Spanish, Portuguese, Provenal,
Bavarian, and Middle English.4 The culture of la scherma in premodern Italy,
however, has two important elements that must be accounted for in any treatment of violence and its performance, the urban nature of Italian society, and
Mediterranean honor culture.
Regarding the first criterion, the professional teaching of fencing, as with
any martial art, is necessarily an urban phenomenon drawing on a population
with both the desire and spare cash to acquire these skills. Italy certainly provided this environment, and ownership of weapons in medieval Italian towns
3 On this, see Gaugler, Epic Encounters Between Italian and French Fencing Masters 1881
1911, p. 13. Though it does not really bear on the subject of this essay, I should also note that
there were also considerable controversies between Italian masters over whose method was
better, such as the Roman-Neapolitan critique of the Milanese Giuseppe Radaellis supposedly less pure northern method of sabre.
4 Diez, An Etymological Dictionary of the Romance Languages, Chiefly from the German, p. 390.
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friend who sought to avenge the old masters loss of income.17 This resort to an
extrajudicial challenge seems to imply a lack of a legal means of resolving this
dispute.
A century earlier, in a case from 1474, Johannes Angellus, Captain of Milan,
reported to Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza that a Master Ferando from Spain
had challenged local masters to a fencing contest in a public square. Two
Italians appeared, a Master Zentille, son of the deceased Master Pagano, and
a Master Ferando from Capua. Angellus concern was more for the unlawful
public assembly than for the Spaniards abrogating some sort of monopoly
(in free cities of the Holy Roman Empire, the town council was usually petitioned for the right to hold a public competition, and Angellus is mainly concerned that they had not asked for such permission). The fact that two masters
felt that they had to respond to a foreigners challenge might mean that they
did not enjoy a legally sanctioned monopoly and had to defend their prerogative, though they might have equally taken up the gauntlet for the pleasure
of a public contestalbeit at great risk to their reputations. Teaching fencing
could apparently be a family business, as is seen by Zentilles father, Pagano,
also having been a fencing master, and would be exemplified in the seventeenth century by the Marcelli family.18 The document also details where the
local masters held their schools.19 Finally, earlier in the early fifteenth century,
Fiore dei Liberi (q.v.) relates in his autobiographies that he had to fight five
duels with masters jealous of his teaching. Again, no legal method of conflictresolution seemed to exist; it was entirely up to Fiore to defend his right to
teach. So, while guild structures certainly did exist in Italy (especially in the
Bolognese tradition), they seem to have been far from universally potent.
Further research is needed in this area.
Regarding the second criterion mentioned above, honor culture, while
hardly unique to Italy or the medieval and early modern eras, did affect the
particular forms interpersonal violence took.20 Honor is both individual and
collective, it involves ones own self-respect, of course, but also the communitys acknowledgement of ones right to that self-respect. It is personal, yet
17 Vincent Saviolo, His Practice, 1.13.
18 Marcelli gives the portraits of himself and eight of his relatives in the frontispiece to his
book, labeling them fencing masters of the Casa Marcelli.
19 Scuole di scherma in Milano nel 1474.
20 It has been incorporated into two notable works on dueling in northern Europe in the
modern era, McAleer, Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin de Sicle Germany, and Nye,
Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France. On the origins of dueling in Italy,
see Cavinas Science of Duel and Science of Honour in this volume.
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something that also reflects the status of ones family or clan. It is the highest value in an honor-based society; its opposite is shame. Any insults must
be requited, or status is lost. Such insults are categorized in a strict hierarchy, with physical assault and attacks against the virtue of the women of
ones family perhaps the most infamous and worthy of the most serious
requitingby violence.21 Such could go so far as to take the form of private
warfare between clans and patronage networks. For instance, Edward Muir
recounts in his Mad Blood Stirring the vendetta between the Savorgnan,
Zambarlani, and Strumieri factions in sixteenth-century Friulia feud that
resulted in murders, dismemberments, and ambushes.22
Over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the performance of
honor took a new form as the vendetta transformed into the duel.23 This was
directly connected with new codes of the rise of centralized powers and court
culture. As Muir states, courtliness erected rigid barriers between the human
and the animal, condemning all animal-like behavior in men and women.
Thus good manners repressed emotions. The courteous denied or delayed all
impulses, never admitted fear, controlled and channeled anger into the duel,
and sublimated sexual appetites through elaborate flirtations.24 I should also
note that it also coincided with the ability of newly potent rulers to suppress
feuding clans.
The literature on the duel is voluminous, and I can only give a short prcis
here, but in general, we can say two things about it: The duel, at least before the
1560s, involved submission to a central authority whose task it was to grant the
field and supervise the combat; and it involved conventional rules and a legal
process. It was, in other words, a channeling of violence into a more socially
acceptable means. While origins of this ritual begin with ancient Lombard
law, the duel for point of honorthe type of duel that Italian fencing masters
concern themselves with in their worksfirst began to assume its ritualized
21 The idea of a Mediterranean honor culture was first popularized in Peristainy (ed.)
Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society and most famously articulated by
Julian Pitt-Rivers, especially in his The fate of Shechem, or: The politics of sex, essays in the
anthropology of the Mediterranean.
22 Muir, Mad Blood Stirring.
23 Notable works include Angelozzi, La nobilt disciplinata, Bryson, The Sixteenth-Century
Italian Duel, Cavina, Il duello giudiziario per punto donore, Donati, Lidea di nobilit
in Italia, Hughes, Soldiers and Gentlemen: The Rise of the Duel in Renaissance Italy,
Kiernan, The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy, and Quint,
Duelling and Civility in Sixteenth-Century Italy.
24 Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, pp. 16364. See also his Ritual in Early Modern Europe
pp.149151.
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form in the late fourteenth century. In Naples, Baldo di Ubaldi (13271400) and
Paris de Puteo (14101493) both popularized and elaborated upon the foundations laid by Giovanni da Legnano (c. 13201383).25 It was in the early sixteenth
century that the duel for the point of honor became the subject of a prescriptive literature, with writers such as Girolamo Muzio (14961576) codifying the
procedure; fencing masters such as Achille Marozzo and Vincent Saviolo also
appended lengthy works on the duel to their writings (the latter of which is
almost wholly drawn from Muzio). A duel could only be legitimately called
for when a hidden truthparticularly an accusation of lyingneeded to be
discovered. Anything else was more properly a subject for the courts. What
was at risk, therefore, was ones honorshorthand for face, social credit,
standing amongst ones peers, etc.
We can see as an early example the combats that Fiore dei Liberis student
Galeazzo da Mantova undertook against the French knight Jehan le Meingre
(called Boucicault) in 1395 and 1406the former undertaken because of the
latters comment on the Italian lack of courage, the latter to avenge his earlier loss. The 1395 fight took place in Padua before that citys lord, Francesco
Novello di Carrara and Francesco Gonzaga, lord of Mantua and Galeazzos
kinsman, and was stopped before serious harm came to either. Similarly, in
1392, Galeazzo had defeated an English champion before the King of France.
Much like the tournament, the duel thus became an arena in which centralized authority could exert itself.26
In both earlier and later periods the format was roughly the same. The
wronged party would have a cartelloa signed, notarized, and often published challengedrawn up, stating what the accused had done. The recipient
could then agree to meet them on the field of battle, or else draw up a reply of
their own, typically accusing the plaintiff of lyingin which case, the plaintiff
became the defendant. This maneuvering was often strategic, since the challenged party had the choice of weapons.
The duel itself was a ritualized combat, conducted before witnesses in a
closed field granted by a ruler, and in a predetermined period of timethe
contest would be ended by sunset. If one party touched their back to the palisade surrounding the field, their case was lost. The right of the first attack went
to the accuser, which is why so much of early modern fencing literature concerns agent and patient swordsmen. Other stipulations, such as a prohibition against grappling or striking the opponents horse or (in earlier periods) a
25 Cavina, Il duello, pp. 9091.
26 For more on royal sponsorship of deeds of arms in the context of the growth of centralized power during the Hundred Years War, see Muhlberger, Deeds of Arms.
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specified number of passes, might also apply. At first, the expectation was that
such duels would use normal military equipment, and even be fought on horseback, but by the close of the fifteenth century, Castiglione mocks those who
am themselves for cannonades.27 Conversely, his contemporary in Urbino,
the Spanish master-at-arms Pietro (Pedro) Monte, deplored the duel fought in
shirtsleeves (en camisa) on the grounds it did not conform to military usage.28
Fashion, however, did not heed Montes complaints, and, though some challenged duelists called for armor or even bizarre equipment such as swords that
would shatter if employed improperly, it was considered the best display of
virt to use the sidearms in common usethe sword alone or accompanied
by a daggeron foot and without defensive armament.
For all of this, the duel quickly passed out of the reach of rulers, even as
fencing books continued to be dedicated to noble patrons. In 1549, the Council
of Trent renewed the ecclesiastical prohibition against dueling, and in 1563, it
specifically called upon rulers to prohibit the practice (The La ChataigneraieJarnac debacle had already taken place in Paris in 1547). The legal recognition
of the duel of honor thus ended. However, the legalistic elements, such as the
cartelli and treatises on how to conduct such affairs honorably, remained in
place until the First World War.
We must not invest too much in the image of the Italian bravo eager to
avenge any punctilio with blood. In fact, there is a certain irony that at the
moment when Italianate fencing began to become fashionable in Europe,
interpersonal violence was actually on the decline. Donald Weinstein has
claimed that duels were rare in Italy, especially after the seventeenth century,
and that cartelli often came to naught.29 The record on rates of interpersonal
violence in premodern Europe is spotty at best, but Pieter Spirenburg, in his
synthesis A History of Murder, has redacted various studies and highlighted
some trends.30 Foremost amongst these is that violence seems to have been
most common in urban areas and in times of economic stress. Studies of
murder rates collated by Spirenburg from various studies range from 925
per 100,000 inhabitants in thirteenth-century Kent, to a high of 110 in preBlack Death 1340s Oxford and a similar amount in late fourteenth century
27 Baldassare Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano, ed. Giulio Carnazzi, p. 76.
28 Anglo, The Man who Taught Leonardo Darts, p. 266.
29 Weinstein, Fighting or flyting: Verbal duelling in mid-sixteenth-century Italy. On martial
performance in general, see the essays in Del Negro and Ortalli (eds.), Il gioco e la guerra
nel secondo millennio.
30 Spierenburg, A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the
Present.
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However, even if death by the sword was becoming more uncommon, fencing remained an important performance. The wearing of swords was still a
symbol of social class, and fencing was part of an elite education. In the age of
courts and courtliness, Italian (and afterwards, French) fencing masters came
to be the arbiters of taste. Italian masters taught a skill that was valuable to
those who wished to fit into the habitus of this new world, and printers and
masters alike recognized that fencing-books could be a profitable venture.
(This is why the German written fencing tradition is by and large a manuscript
traditionit was an orally transmitted culture and a martial method that was
not as fashionable in the age of print.) The sanguineous illustrations therein
must not be taken literally; they served not only to educate the reader, but, as
with the statistically rare self-defense and home-invasion scenarios so often
cited by American firearms-rights advocates, also titillate him with the spectacle of idealized combatsa sort of martial pornography.35
3
Terms of Art
Though the following discussion is intended for the non-specialist, fencing literature, like all bodies of technical knowledge, has its own vocabulary intended
to explain in a few words what would ordinarily take many. Therefore, before
proceeding, it is necessary to explain a few terms of art necessary to the discussion. Rather than explaining the various disparate terminologies used by master
of the medieval and early modern periodswhich all explain the same phenomena in slightly different terms, all similarly derived from AristotleI will
use the unified language of modern fencing, which, besides being descended
from the early modern Italian terms, explains the same physical realities in a
convenient shorthand.36
Tempo is the way in which the duration of fencing actions are compared.
One discrete action of the body or weapon, whether circular or rectilinear, is
one tempo. Obviously, one tempo may be shorter or longer than anotherfor
instance, making a large, slow circle with the point will be a larger tempo than
a small, fast semicircle. The term is, of course, derived from the Aristotelian
35 For instance, the rapier through the eye in Capoferro Plate 7 or the transfixed fencer in
Fabris Plate 178.
36 A full account of the technical development of the Italian school (albeit one much geared
towards the bias implied by its subtitle) may be gleaned from Gauglers History of Fencing.
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dictum of time being the number of the motion with respect to the before and
the after in his Physics.37
An attack is the initial offensive movement made by one or the other of the
fencers, and is defined by the extension of the weapon towards the adversary.
An attack made in one movement is a simple attack. A simple attack may be
directin a straight lineor indirectthat is, moving around the adversarys
weapon (termed a cavazione in the literature).38 The attack may be preceded
by one or several preparatory actions. Chief amongst these in post-Agrippa,
thrust-oriented fencing are the stringere in early modern works or legamento
(engagement) in modern works, which place ones own blade in such a manner
that the adversary is simultaneously threatened and obliged to move his own
blade, thus creating a tempo in which he may be hit. As a preparatory action,
one can also make one or more feints, drawing a parry or parries, followed by
the attack itself. This is termed a compound attack and is perforce made in two
or more movements, and thus two or more tempi.
A parry (parata) is the act of defending oneself by diverting the opposing
steel with ones own weapon or weapons. A riposte (riposta) is the defenders
offensive action following their parry. A response by parry and riposte is thus
two tempi. A counterattack (known as controtempo or contratempo in early
modern fencing literature)39 is to respond to an attack with an offensive action
of ones ownhopefully in such a manner that either the adversarys steel is
simultaneously diverted, or by moving so that his attack misses entirely. Finally,
measure is the relative distance between the two opponents, These terms are
the sum total of the fencing knowledge the reader will require to follow the
discussion.
4
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in his 1953 Die Entwicklungsphasen der europischen Fechtkunst.40 Ada BruhnHoffmeyer, in her 1979 essay From Medieval Sword to Renaissance Rapier,
likewise makes reference to a del Serpente writing a book in 1295.41 David
Nicolle, in the text of French Medieval Armies 10001300 (1991), part of the
popular-audience Osprey series on military history, claims that this was written before 1280, and that it showed the Italian habit of using a lighter weapon
and hooking one finger over the quillonclearly an influence from BruhnHoffmeyers racialist ideas of martial practice being cognate with ethnic
identity.42 The ur-source of the del Serpente citation is the Italian fencing
master Blengini di Torricellas 1907 Handbook of Fencing with the Foil, who
claimed that Franois (Francesco) Novati and [Paolo] Gaffuri, Director of the
Instituto Grafico in in Bergamo, published in 1904 a description of the career of
brothers Guillaume, Jacques, Thomas and Phillipe del Serpente, who supposedly taught fighting on horseback and on foot with sword, dagger, and lance
in Milan in 1292 and then in Paris from 1293 to 1296, later moving to Iberia.
Guillaume del Serpente supposedly wrote a book in 1295 whose title Blengini
reported as Fencing Rules, Rules concerning ways to attack and defend oneself with white arms.43 However, no such article, chapter, or book by Novati is
known, and nothing in Cochins complete bibliography of Novatis work suggests a candidate.44 Sydney Anglo has suggested the misapprehension may
come from the mention of Phelippe, a fencing master living on the rue de la
Serpente in Paris in the 1292 tax-roll of Phillip IV,45 Following Anglo, we must
40 Lochner, Die Entwicklungsphasen der europischen Fechtkunst, p. 14: Es hat sicherlich
bereits frher Handschriften gegeben, die sich mit dem Probleme der Blankwaffenfhrung
befaten, wie beispielsweise jene Dal Serpentes aus dem Jahre 1295, doch sind wir nicht
im Stande, aus der Existenz solcher Versuche auf irgend ein tatschliches System, eine
wenn auch noch so drftige Volkstmlichkeit wie irgend einen Zusammenhang mit
bleibenden Erkenntnissen oder Fortschritten zu schlieen, Zu dauerhaften Fortschritten
auf diesem engeren Gebiete waren ja auch noch die primitivsten Voraussetzungen nicht
gegeben und der Mangel einer verstndnisvollen wie begabtesten Neuerungsbestrebungen
zum Scheitern verurteilen.
41 Bruhn Hoffmeyer, From Medieval Sword to Renaissance Rapier: The Evolution of Straight
Bladed Thrusting Weapons, pp. 5279.
42 Nicolle, French Medieval Armies 10001300, p. 40.
43 Fagteregler, Regler angaaende Maadet at angribe og forsvare sig med blanke Vaaben.
Quoted in Torricella, Haandbog i Fgtning med Floret, Kaarde, Sabel, Forsvar med Sabel
mod Bajonet og Sabelhugning tilhest, Med forklarende Tegninger og en Oversigt over
Fgtekunstens Historie og Udvikling, p. 28. The book was also published in German in
1909, though Blengini was himself Italian.
44 Cochin, Bibliografia degli scritti di Francesco Novati, 18781908.
45 Anglo, Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe, p. 322 n. 64.
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take this tradition as spurious, perhaps a conflation of the French Phelippe and
Novatis edition of the Pisani-Dossi manuscript of Fiore dei Liberi, which was
published in 1902 by the Instituto Grafico.
Thus, pride of place for writing the first Italian fencing treatise to survive
must go to the Friulian master Fiore dei Liberi, who taught a versatile art that
included wrestling, self-defense against the dagger, sword, polearms, and
fighting in armor on foot and on horseback with various weapons. Fiores
work comes down to us in four contemporary manuscriptsMorgan Library
MS M.383, Getty MS Ludwig XV 13, and the copy privately held by the PisaniDossi family and one posthumous Latin translation, Bibliothque National de
France MS Latin 11269.46 Two other Fiore manuscripts attested in the Estense
library from 1436 to 1508, MS LXXXIV and MS CX, are currently unknown and
presumed lost.47 Fiore has been a major fixture in Italian fencing scholarship, beginning with Novatis 1902 edition of the Pisani-Dossi manuscript and
Luigi Zanuttos 1907 Fiore dei Liberi da Premariacco e i ludi e le festi marziali
in Friuli nel Medio-evo.48 There have also been several recent editions and
translations.49
Most of our information on Fiore comes from his own writings. Judging from
the length of time he claims to have studying arms in the introductions to his
manuscripts, and the average age at which such study would have begun, Fiore
was probably born c. 1350; he died sometime between 1409 and the 1420s. His
father was a knight named Benedetto, lord of the town of Premariacco, which
46 On my discovery of this in the BnF, see my article, Notes on Bibliothque Nationale MS
Lat, 11269, Florius de Arte Lutandi. There is also the poet and librettist Apostolo Zenos
copy of the introduction to Ms XV 13 in San Daniele del Friuli, Biblioteca Guarneriana
Ms XXIV ff. 8384.
47 Novati, Flos duellatorum, pp. 2930.
48 Novati, Flos duellatorum; Zanutto, Fiore dei Liberi da Premariacco e i ludi e le festi marziali
in Friuli nel Medio-evo.
49 Malipiero has published the Getty manuscript as Il Fior di battaglia di Fiore dei Liberi
da Cividale: Il Codice Ludwig XV 13 del J. Paul Getty Museum, while an edition of all three
Italian manuscripts was published by Rubboli and Cesari as Flos Duellatorum: Manuale di
Arte del Combattimento del XV secolo. Leoni has also published a translation of the Getty
as Fior di Battaglia. The Pisani-Dossi was republished by Rapisardi as Flos Duellatorum
in armis, sine armis, equester et pedester. Synthetic treatments by recreationists include
Galvani, Girlanda, and Enricos Flos Duellatorum 14092002: La pietra miliare della scuola
marziale Italiana (Rome, Libri del Circolo, 2002), See also my Knightly Art of Battle (Los
Angeles, Getty Publications, 2011) and Martinez, La Fleur des guerriers: mtier des
armes et art martial chez Fiore dei Liberi in Jaquet (ed.), Lart chevaleresque, pp. 6380.
Francesco Lod and I both have forthcoming translations of the Florius into our respective native tongues.
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system. His techniques begin with the swords already crossed at long or short
measure, but he does not tell us how to arrive there safely, or which figure was
the initial attacker and which the defender. Techniques are cross-referenced
back and forth in a manner that requires several readings to fully appreciate,
with the same movements reoccurring in dagger, sword, and pole weapons.
(See figures 11.13.)
This organization is fitting with the pedagogy of Fiores time. Since the audience of a manuscript is by nature more limited than that of a printed book, we
must see these works more as aide-mmoires than as instructional texts; the
reader would have already have received physical instruction in the pattern
of movement that was to be replicated. This instruction would presumably be
given by Fiore himself or by one of his successors. Fiore, realizing the transitory nature of this sort of knowledge, explicitly says in his prologues that he
wishes to be remembered for his art, and so (despite having taught in secrecy
in his lifetime), he is setting down his knowledge in a book.54
Other works derived from the Fiore manuscript tradition exist, including several German manuscripts and Filippo Vadis De Arte Gladiatoria
Dimicandi.55 The manuscripts in the so-called Blume des Kampfs group
the anonymous, textless sterreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 5278
(after 1428), Ludwig VI von Eybs Kriegsbuch (c. 1500),56 and sterreichische
Nationalbibliothek Cod. 10799 (composed 1623)all contain considerable stylistic and technical overlap with Fiores manuscripts. The first two of
these manuscripts also contain Konrad Kyesers treatise on siege warfare
Bellifortis (composed c, 1405). There are several possibilities here. First, Fiore,
who mentions studying with a master Johannes Suveno (the Swabian), student of Nicholai de Toblem, may have drawn on German models; in other
words Fiores own work may represent a now-lost transalpine literary and martial tradition. Second, one of Fiores books may have served as a template for
Cod. 5278, which seems to be the ur-text in the Blume des Kampfs tradition.
Third, these may represent derivative works stemming from one of Fiores
54 Morgan MS M.383 folio 2r: Considerando io preditto che in questa arte pochi al mondo sen
trovano magistri e vogliando che de mi sia fatta memoria in questa arte io far uno libro...;
Getty MS Ludwig XV 13 folio 1v: Considerando io predetto fiore che in questarte pochi al
mondo sen trovano magistri e vogliando che di mi sia fatta memoria in ella io far un libro in
tuta larte e de tutte chose...
55 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma Ms 1342, Filippo Vadi, Liber de Arte gladiatoria
dimicandi; translated by Porzio and Mele as Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: 15th Century
Swordsmanship of Master Fillipo Vadi.
56 Nrnberg, Universittsbibliothek Erlangen-Nrnberg Ms B.26.
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figure 11.1 Dagger masters from Getty MS Ludwig XV 13 fol. 10r. Each has a
mnemonic device to show the sequence of actions when defending
oneself from a dagger attack: Take away the dagger, break the arm,
put them in a joint lock (the key), and cast them down. Also notice that
the ages of the masters increases as one progresses in the sequence of
actions.
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figure 11.2 The master of the seven swords from Getty folio 32r. Besides naming the
directions of sword cuts, the diagram shows the four qualities a good fencer
should possessed personified as animals: A lynx with dividers for vision and
judgment; a tiger with an arrow for speed; a lion with a heart for courage; and
an elephant with a tower on its back for strength.
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students. In any case, the Blume des Kampfs manuscripts show that martial
teaching on the Italian peninsula was not by any means a hermetically closed
vessel.
Vadi, who identifies himself as Pisan, might be the same Filippo Vadi who
served Leonello dEste as governor of Reggio and, later, as counselor to Borso
dEstewhich would have given him ample opportunity to become familiar with Fiores manuscripts in the Estense library. However, though De Arte
Gladiatoria Dimicandi was clearly modeled on one of the manuscripts of
Fiore dei Liberi, and the organization of its longsword, poleax, armored fighting, staff weapons, dagger-defense, and wrestling are similar to BnF MS Latin
11269, it is not solely a Ferrarese creationit was originally owned by Duke
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, to whom it is dedicated, and thus reflects the
milieu of the influential court of Urbino. Accordingly, it develops its subject
matter in new directions. Further, though the structure by which Vadi composed his book may borrow from Fiores organizational schema, his fencing is
not the same: He uses a longer sword, and changes some guards, as well much
of the footwork. Like their modern counterparts, medieval and early modern
masters were always aware that swordsmanship is not a static thing or that the
methods of an idealized past might not be the most suited to today, but rather
that fencing changed in response to a dynamic social, cultural, and material
environment.
Quite aptly for the milieu of Urbino, which hosted luminaries such as
Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Luca Pacioli, Vadi is notable for including
a verse introduction presenting an overall theorization of fencing that incorporates a number of scientific ideas. For instance, Vadi presents the argument
that fencing, like music, is a science, since the sword is subject to Euclidian
geometry:
Geometry divides and separates
with infinite numbers and measures
that fill pages with knowledge.
The sword is under its purview
since it is useful to measure blows and steps
in order to make the science more secure,
Fencing is born from geometry
[...]
Music adorns this subject
song and sound together in art
to make it more perfect by science,
Geometry and music together
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else, by unifying the intellectual and the martial, the Court of Urbino pointed
the way forwards in fashion.
Besides the Fiore/Vadi tradition, two other manuscripts must be included in
any accounting of fifteenth-century Italian fencing works. The first is an anonymous, undated, French work on poleax fighting known as Le Jeu de la Hache,
which may be a record of the teachings of a Milanese master named Ambrose.62
In 1440, Phillip the Good of Burgundy paid 12 livres to Ambrose, who had been
his master of sword and axe for at least six years (calculating from a stated pay
rate of 40 deniers per month).63 This would make sense, as there was apparently a literary-martial tradition in northern Italy, whereas we have no other
surviving French documents and, to judge from the fine presentation of the
manuscript, Le Jeu was a de luxe copy prepared for a wealthy patron to commemorate his masters tuition.64
The final fifteenth-century Italian manuscript on fencing is a short text
contained on folio 105r of the University of Torontos Thomas Fisher Rare
Book Room MS 1020, known by its incipit Hec Sunt Guardiae in Dimicatione
Videlicet. This work gives a series of wards and counter-wards for master
and student similar to those in Royal Armouries MS I.33though whether
the weapon is sword and buckler, or sword alone, is impossible to tell from
context.65 Judging by the calendar on folio 6r of the manuscript, this work
dates to c. 1424. This is the only fencing work from Italy in hausbuch form,66
the only solely in Latin, and the only to possibly concern itself with sword and
buckler, a weapons form that, to judge from depictions in art, was common
in medieval Italy as in the rest of Europe. The books other pages contain a
T-O map, a calendar, notabilia from the Bible arranged according to occasion,
psalms, lists of unlucky Egyptian days, and forms of addressing the nobility.
The book was probably the property of a notary or scribe from Florence, as
there are mentions of the Albizzi family and a Florentine church canon.67
62 Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France Ms franais 1996, translated by Anglo in his article
Le jeu de la hache.
63 Archives historiques et littraires du Nord de la France et du Midi de la Belgique Vol. 3, p. 186.
64 See also Olivier Dupuis contribution in this volume.
65 Toronto, University of Toronto Ms 1020. On Leeds, Ms I.33, see Forgeng, ed. and trans., The
Medieval Art of Swordsmanship: A Facsimile and Translation of Europes Oldest Personal
Combat Treatise.
66 A hausbuch, or commonplace book, is a personal notebook, as opposed to a presentation
manuscript.
67
Les Enluminures (corporate author), http://www.textmanuscripts.com/manuscript_
description.php?id=2999&%20cat=p2&, accessed March 21, 2014.
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with sword alone, sword used with cape and dagger, pike, and two-handed
sword (spadone). It also contains excerpts from Francesco Guicciardinis
History of Italy, which would tend to point towards a Florentine origin. We may
also tentatively add British Library Add. MS 23223 to this group; Piermarco
Terminiello has noted some similarities with Altoni, pointing to a Tuscan, or
at least central Italian, origin.79 (A fourth author, Marco Docciolini, definitely
hailed from Florence, but his printed treatise of 1601 is clearly a rapier work,
and thus does not belong to this transitional period.)80
The last transitional work needing discussion is the Neapolitan Marcantonio
Pagano, who published his Narratione di Marcantonio Pagano sovra le Tre
Giornate della Disciplina delArme in 1553. This, as the title implies, is a
dialogue not just on fencing, but on the art of arms in general, taking place
in the home of a nobleman. It is not really a fencing treatise in the proper
sense, as it is as much literary as technical and more conforms to Montes early
work. The action, as it were, takes place in a series of breathlessly described
fencing matches that take place every evening between Mutio and Gerolamo.
(Cesare Pagano, a relative of Marcantonios who described himself as a
Neapolitan knight, wrote a similarly literary work in 1592, which was dedicated to Ferdinand, Archduke of Tuscany, and survives in the National Library
of Florence.)81
However, despite the use of print, the rhetoric of instruction in the books of
this transitional period is not much different from medieval models. Fencing,
to Marozzo, Viggiani, and others of this tradition, is taught through forms and
mock combats. While the context has changed to a civilian form of defense,
the pedagogical model is still firmly rooted in medieval traditions of patterncopying. To learn to fence from Achille Marozzo, for instance, was similar to
being inducted into a craft-guild or mestiero, involving swearing oaths to God,
the Virgin, and St. George. After the swearing-in, Marozzo has his students run
through a series of guards with mnemonic names, such as the guard of the
long and extended tail, head guard, face guard, and iron door guard of the
boar, and then put them together into a series of one- or two-person lessons
or assalti.82 His book, which gives only the students role in these assalti and
the barest hint of the masters part, is very much written for the teacher who
already knows his art.
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To be sure, the term rapier is an anachronism when applied to Italian fencing: the weapon was always known as the spada (or spada da filo for a sharpedged sword; spada di marra was used for a practice sword. The more recent
terms, spada da lato, or sidesword, and striscia, a long and narrow sword, are
neologisms that should be avoided, as must the antiquated curatorial tendency
to apply the term rapier to any weapon with a complex hilt). Nonetheless,
it cannot be denied that transformation of both weapons and the method of
their employ took place in the mid-sixteenth century.
Alongside this, Agrippa represented a sea change in how fencing was
expressed. His reader is not the student known personally to the master and
in receipt of his teachings, but a consumer unknown to the author who has
purchased this book because of a will to knowledge. Thus, while Agrippas
system of fencewhich was intended for the duel and self-defense as
much as for sportwas not much of an innovation over previous masters
(Altoni, for instance, also held with the primacy of the point), his method of
83 For a full discussion of the social context of Agrippas writing, please see the introduction
to my translation of Camillo Agrippa, Fencing: A Renaissance Treatise, ed. and trans. Ken
Mondschein.
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figure 11.3 Agrippa disputing with the philosophers. The author holds a dividers and an
armillary sphere, suggesting his mastery of both practical and theoretical
knowledge of the natural world. He is dressed fashionably and wears a sword.
The globe is under his foot; near it are a geometrical diagram and a sword. The
dagger on the table is pointing at the ludicrously dressed philosophers who are
able to support their statements only with books. Measuring devicesa divider
and squareare placed over Agrippa; dusty tomes over the proponents of
traditional knowledge. Between the two is an hourglass representing the
measurement of time.
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figure 11.4 Agrippas geometrical diagram demonstrating the superiority of the lunge. The
more the knee is bent, and the straighter the arm is extended, the further the
swordss point reaches. Taking the Vitruvian scheme for building a temple
according to the dimensions of the human body and turning it into a technology
that can be used for any purpose, Agrippa has decomposed the human body into
its geometrical possibilities and then used these ideas to show how best to achieve
the practical end of skewering ones adversary.
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figure 11.5 The significance of the geometrical diagram, Agrippa tells us, is that just as a
forked stick taken straight from a tree can be used as a compass to draw any
number of figuresan action that mirrors the divine power of creationso, too,
can the human body, by its own nature, perform all the actions necessary to
fencing. The human body is not only a metric, but a microcosm.
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What the rapier masters of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
including the luminaries Capoferro, Giganti, and Fabrisall shared in
common with Agrippa are, first, the organization of their works; and, second,
93 Paris, Bibliothque National Ms Italien 959.
94 The 1597 edition is titled Traict ou instruction pour tirer des armes; the 1609 Le Guidon
des Captaines; the 1612 Neues Kunstliches Fechtbuch (Leipzig, H, Grossii, 1612). See Anglo,
Martial Arts of Renaissanc Europe p. 336, n. 86.
95 Fabris work was translated and printed in German four times by his students and others;
reprinted in Italian twice; one Italian-German parallel text edition in 1676; and translated
into English by Leoni as Art of Dueling: Salvator Fabris Rapier Fencing Treatise of 1606.
See trans. Leoni pp. xiiixiv for a full bibliography. The manuscript Scientia e Prattica
dellArme, Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek GKS 1868.4040 is a richly produced early version intended as a presentation copy; La Scientia della Spada, Koninklijke Bibliotheek
MS KB.73.J.38, is either a manuscript version or an abridged copy.
96 Vienna, sterreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 10784.
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the realization of a fully theorized mode of fencing, with a technical vocabulary readily available to explain their tactical choices. An introductory section
first explains principlestempo, measure, blade opposition, etc., as well as
philosophical concerns, such as if fencing is an art or a science.97 These examples are then applied in illustrated plays, which both delight the reader with
its many, varied, and bloody techniques and show the application of Art to
Science in an elegant Mannerist gestural language. Even those such as Fabris,
who disdained such ideas, were nonetheless beholden to their audiences
expectations.98
The basic scenario is this: The fencers begin out of measure. One fencer
seeks to close the measure, positioning his blade (stringere or guardagnare di
spada) relative to the others without touching it in such a way that the second
fencer is both threatened and unable to perform any action without first freeing his blade with a movement (a cavazione) that will create a tempo. The first
fencer then uses the tempo of this cavazione to strike the second. From here,
infinite variations suggest themselves: The second fencer may counterattack;
he may attack the first fencer as he steps into distance; we may add different
sorts of footwork (and associated elegant and athletic bodily contortions) on
attack, defense, or counteroffense, etc.
While all masters following Agrippa would agree as to the superiority of the
attack on preparation and the counterattack (as opposed to the parry-riposte,
which makes a tempo in which the adversary can renew his attack), and most
97 Giganti, Scola, overo, teatro, nel qual sono rappresentate diverse maniere, e modi di parare
et di ferire di spada sola, e di spada e pugnale, printed in Venice by Giovanni Antonio and
Giacomo de Franceschi in 1606, reprinted at Padua in 1628 and French and German parallel translations at Frankfort in 1619, 1622, and 1644, translated by Leoni as Venetian Rapier:
The School, or Salle; Capoferro, Gran Simulacro dellArte e dellUso della Scherma, printed
by Salvestro Marchetti e Camillo Turi in Sienca in 1610 and translated by Leoni as Ridolfo
Capoferros The Art and Practice of Fencing; Gigantis second book, aptly titled the Libro
Secondo and dealing with the use of auxiliary weapons, long considered lost, was published by Giovanni Fontani in Pisa in 1608; though mentioned by Alberto Marchionni in
his 1847 fencing treatise, it was not brought to light until a copy was discovered in the holdings of the Vigeant/De Walden Library at the Wallace and published by Terminiello and
Pendragon as The Lost Second Book of Nicoletto Giganti: A Rapier Treatise Rediscovered
and Translated. Note that in his 1676 German-Italian parallel text edition of Fabris, the
formers student Johann Joachim Hynitzsch claimed Giganti plagiarized Fabris in the 1622
German edition and demanded the works recall, but it is more likely that the publisher,
De Zetter, included the extra material on his own volition.
98 Joachim Koppe, in his 1619 Newer Discurs der Rittermeigen und Weitbermbten Knst des
Fechtens quotes Salvator Fabris as spurning those who fence with ink and chalk lines.
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used Agrippas system for numbering guards and hand positions (Giganti,
notably, did not), different masters still had distinct technical, tactical, and
aesthetic variations. Some (such as Giganti) include compound actions such
as feints, some (such as Capoferro) warned against themthough both made
use of them; all preferred thrusts over cuts, though some (such as Capoferro)
discuss cuts more extensively than others; some showed more athletic movement, such as Fabris low evasions, while others (such as Giganti) kept to what
would be more easily accomplished by the average fencer. This also suited different sorts of play: Feints, spectacular dodges, and athletic contortions work
much better in a conventional bout, while a serious encounter would likely
have more conservative play, and cuts, especially to the hands, are better suited
to an encounter in earnest or dealing with an unskilled and brutish opponent than to a polite fencing match. (Interestingly, this debate is mirrored in
nineteenth-century French works on the dueling sword, brought about in part
by the encounter with the Italian school, which had retained much of the
technical approach of the dueling ground.)99
Table 11.1 Classifications of Concluding Actions in Single-Rapier Exempla in Treatises by
Notable Rapier Masters
Agrippa (1553) Giganti (1606) Fabris (1606)a Capoferro (1610)
Simple Attack
Direct
Indirect
Feint Attack
Riposte (cut or thrust)
Counterattack
Time Thrust
Stop-Hit
Countertime
Feint in Time
Renewed Attack
Total
3
2
1
2
3
2
4
1
7
1
5
2
1
5
4
4
6
1
2
1
18
8
1
2
1
22
23
6
1
45
10
1
8
2
35
a Book 1 only, which forms the basis for Fabris art while omitting some of his more spectacular techniques.
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In the following table, I have classified the concluding actions in the singlerapier sequences given as exempla by some early rapier masters according to
modern fencing theory. Note that the number of actions exceeds the number
of illustrations, as the authors often explain more one possible action for a
given illustration. It shows, by sheer weight of numbers, a clear preference for
actions executed in a single tempo, such as simple indirect attacks and counterattacks. While these exempla are, of course, idealized depictions, they do
give us an idea of the tactical emphases of rapier masters.
These suited the sorts of fencing performance then in vogue. The early
Bolognese rules as recorded by Manciolino in 1531 describe fencing for points,
with rules for grappling (one lifted off his feet is defeated), different points for
hitting different targets (three for the head, and two for the foot, as it is the
hardest to hit), and blows to the hands not admitted,100 and allowing for a sort
of after-blow: After first attempting unsuccessfully to defend himself (considered a characteristic of good fencing), a fencer who has been struck is allowed
to show his undiminished valor to strike a blow in reply and recoup honor,
so long as it can be done with a single step.101 (Marozzo also gives some rules
in the first chapters of his first book, though his have more of the air of safety
regulations such as prohibiting new students from fencing and grappling.)
Compare this to the rules of fencing as a courtly phenomenon as described
by the master and scholar in Battista Gaianis dialogue of 1619.102 Gaianis
master states that a master always works to one of two endsutility (that
is, to teach his students), or to defend his honorand describes several
sorts of assalto dhonore in this latter case: First, there is the courteous bout,
undertaken before a ruler, to show his skill and honor. Second, there is the
courteous bout to satisfy a gentleman who wishes to test himself (in which
case the master must use all his knowledge and ingenuity, since it would not
be seemly for the master to be overcome by the non-master). Finally, there is
100 This fencing convention of not allowing hand hits as too easy is also mentioned by
Giovanni Battista della Valle in the section on dueling (specifically on whether someone wounded in the head should be considered the victor over someone wounded in the
hand) in his Il Vallo, Libro continente appertinente Capitanij, retenere etfortificare una
Citt con bastioni, con novi artificij de fuoco aggionti, come nella Tabola appare, et de diverse
sorte polvere, et de espugnare una Citt con ponti, scale, argani, trombe, trenciere, artigliarie, cave, dare avisamenti senza messo allo amico, fare ordinanze, battaglioni, et ponti de
disfida con lo pingere, opera molto utile con la esperientia del arte militare, first published
prior to 1521 and reprinted in Venice nine times (here citing the fourth edition of 1535,
p. 58).
101 [R]icuperar lhonore. Manciolino, Opera Nova, pp. 36 at 6v.
102 Battista Gaiani, Arte di Maneggiar la Spada a Piedi et a Cavallo, pp. 58. See also Terminello,
Giovanni Battista Gaiani (1619)An Italian Perspective on Competitive Fencing.
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the third and gravest sort of assalto dhonore, which takes almost the form of
a duel, with an assigned time and place and chosen seconds. It also has conventional rules: Only the first attack and riposte or counterattack (riposta di
quel tempo) are admissible; only thrusts may be made; and all hits must land
on the body above the belt, since these are most conducive to the principles of
stringere and cavazione. The seconds are to separate the fencers if they come
too close, since this can lead to grappling, and is extraneous what the fencers are trying to accomplish. All of these assume a skilled and polite adversary; against someone who does not treat the master respectfully, but seeks
to defeat him in any way possible, all bets were off. Gaiani also says that cuts
were not suited to a polite match, since, unlike thrusting with foils, they can
cause injury.
While there is a difference of context hereManciolino is speaking of students, Gaiani the conduct of teachersI wish to call intention to the subtext:
Manciolino democratically allows his fencer to strike after being struck to
recoup honor, while Gaiani is foremost about maintenance of unequal status. The master is elevated by being the client of princes and sought out by
well-heeled amateurs; he must maintain his reputation, and thus his income,
above all else. Accordingly, Gaianis contest is more abstracted and genteel;
it disallows wrestling, and the first thrust landed ends the pass. This mirrors
the class structure of the absolutist society of early modern Europe in which
Gaianis master operated. Both provide for a somewhat conventional contest,
but Gaianis is far more controlled.
In short, rapier fencing gave its adherents a form of martial training and
performance that was both realistic preparation for armed conflict and wholly
in keeping with contemporary ideas of art, science, and etiquette. (Giganti
even calls his book The School, or Theatre.) From an urban pastime played
between equals, fencing had become a courtly act, on par with dancing or riding, all the while maintaining at least a pretense of training for actual fighting.
At least a passing familiarity with its tenets was an expected part of a young
mans education, not just in Italy, but also throughout Europe.
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