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Italian Swordplay Wiki
NEW BOOKS IN PRINT: Get your copies NOW!
Ridolfo Capoferro's "The Art and Practice of Fencing", translated by Tom Leoni, is available at Freelance Academy Press
"The Art of the Dueling Sabre", by Christopher Holzman - a translation of Cav. Settimo Del Frate's "Instruction for Sabre and Sword Fencing", the textbook for the Scuola Magistrale at Milano, under Maestro Giuseppe Radaelli is available at Swordplay Books To see a review of the book, by Fencing Classics' Christoph Amberger, click here!
Benvenuto al Wiki di Scherma Italiana!
Welcome to the Italian Swordplay Wiki!
The Italian Swordplay Wiki is an expertise driven knowledge base covering a wide range of Italian martial traditions. (See who we are.) While it will be focused primarily on swordplay, it will include grappling, dagger work, and other weapons from earlier traditions presented as a continually expanding resource and guide to other fencers working with the same material.
In addition to providing information about the Italian martial traditions the Wiki will offer :
- Collections of lessons and class notes from classical and historically-focused fencing instructors.
- Biographical information about the Italian Masters, their works, and their relationships to each other
- Explanations of notation, terminology, and theory
How to Browse the Site?
The site has been organized to make navigation possible using:
- A historical timeline of Maestri and their works
- A loose categorization of fencing traditions
- Search by topic or keyword
- Featured Sections
Why ViaHup.Com?
The Italian Swordplay Wiki is a resource to those practicing the living Italian tradition. During a Classical Italian fencing lesson, the instructor will call "Via" to initiate the action and "Hup" to draw the final attack. We have found that each instructor seems to have their own particular intonation of the "Via! Hup!" and to us it represents the organic and personal nature of the larger family of Italian fencing.
Featured Article
Featured articles represent new and interesting content. We currently recommend the Books in Print article.
Traditions
- Classical Italian Fencing
- Baroque Rapier
- Italian Rapier
- Bolognese school
- Florentine school
- Transitional Weapons
- Italian Longsword
- Other Weapons
Timeline
Note: Classical fencing has evolved from earlier forms of swordplay, but should not be seen as superior to them. All swordplay had a context for which it was used, and swordplay changed to match the changing contexts of its use. You can see the relationships between some of these people here.
- 1997 - William Gaugler (Classical)
- 1970 - Giorgio Pessina and Ugo Pignotti (Classical)
- 1959 - Leonardo Terrone, published posthumously, likely written much earlier. (Classical)
- 1943 - Aldo Nadi (Classical)
- 1936 - Luigi Barbasetti (Classical)
- 1927 - Leon Bertrand (Classical)
- 1910 - Salvatore Pecoraro and Carlo Pessina (Classical)
- 1904 - Generoso Pavese (Classical)
- 1890 - Jacopo Gelli (who while not appearing to be a Maestro di Scherma, authored a fencing bibliography and biography in this year, and was a supporter of Radaelli and a vitriolic opponent of Parise)
- 1889 - Col. Francis Vere Wright was not a fencing master himself, but a student of Masiello and Ciullini, and published a book of broadsword in their style.
- 1887 - Ferdinando Masiello (Classical)
- 1885 - Giordano Rossi (Classical)
- 1884 - Masaniello Parise (Classical)
- 1876 - Giovanni Gandolfi (Classical)
- 1871 - Cesare Enrichetti (Classical)
- 1869 - Giuseppe Radaelli (Written by Cav. Settimo Del Frate) (Classical)
- 1861 - Giuseppe Cerri (Classical)
- 1847 - Alberto Marchionni (Classical)
- 1837 - Conte Michele Gambogi, he was perhaps not a fencing master himself, but wrote and published an interesting fencing book, which Cav. Gelli says it is better in losing it than acquiring it. (Classical)
- 1803 - Rosaroll Scorza and Pietro Grisetti (Classical)
- 1800 - Paolo Bertelli (Classical)
- 1696 - Bondì di Mazo (Baroque Rapier)
- 1686 - Francesco Antonio Marcelli who wrote concerning the fencing of his father and uncle Lelio Marcelli and Titta Marcelli (Baroque Rapier)
- 1670 - Giuseppe Morsicato-Pallavicini (Baroque Rapier)
- 1660 - Alessandro Senese (Baroque Rapier)
- 1640 - Francesco Alfieri
- 1610 - Ridolfo Capoferro
- 1606 - Nicoletto Giganti
- 1606 - Salvator Fabris
- 1601 - Marco Docciolini (Florentine school)
- 1595 - Vincentio Saviolo
- 1587 - Federico Ghisliero
- c.1575 - Acamillo Palladini
- 1575 - Angelo Viggiani (Bolognese school)
- 1572 - Giovanni dall'Agocchie (Bolognese school)
- 1570 - Giacomo di Grassi
- 1553 - Camillo Agrippa
- c.1550 - Anonimo Bolognese (Bolognese school)
- c.1550 - Francesco Altoni (Florentine school)
- 1536 - Achille Marozzo (Bolognese school)
- 1531 - Antonio Manciolino (Bolognese school)
- 1509 - Monte
- 1482-1487 - Filippo Vadi
- 1410 - Fiore dei Liberi
Note: these dates are based primarily on the publication dates of known treatises by the listed persons.
Italian and Italo-Hungarian Fencing Book List
This section is a work in progress, and will endeavor to list Italian and Italo-Hungarian fencing books that are in print and available for sale, available via ILL, or accessible online. It may contain books in English or Italian, and may contain books that cover mixed systems, for example, Julio Castello's Theory and Practice of Fencing, which includes French foil, Italian sabre, and Italian epee. Ideally, as other contributors add to the list, it should grow to cover a wider time period, but for now it will be heavily slanted toward the classical period.
Books in Print (Or otherwise easily available for purchase new or used for reasonable prices.)
