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| THE PROPER METHOD OF GOING TO BIND THE ENEMY AND STRIKE HIM while he disengages the sword
 
| THE PROPER METHOD OF GOING TO BIND THE ENEMY AND STRIKE HIM while he disengages the sword
  
From this figure you learn that if your enemy is in a guard with the sword on the left side, high or low, you approach him to bind him outside of his sword outside of measure, with your sword over his so that it barely touches it, with a just and strong pace, with your sword ready to parry and wound, with lively eyes, as you see in the second figure of the guards and counterguards., You being accommodated in this way, your enemy will not be able to wound you with a thrust if he does not disengage the sword. While he disengages, turn your wrist and in the same tempo throw a stoccata at him as the fourth figure teaches you. Having thrown this stoccata, immediately in the same tempo return backward outside of measure, resting your sword over his so that if he wants to disengage anew, you will return to throw to him the same stoccata, turning your wrist as above, returning outside of measure. As many times as he disengages, that many times you will use the same method of turning your wrist and throwing the stoccata at him. To perform this game well much practice is necessary, since from this one learns to parry and wound with skill and great speed. Take care to always be balanced with your vita and to parry strongly with the forte of your sword because if your enemy throws strongly at you, parrying strongly will make him disconcerted and you will be able to wound him where he is uncovered. This must be the first lesson that one learns with the single sword, since all the others that I have placed in this book arise from it. Knowing how to do this in the tempo teaches you to parry all the cuts and resolute thrusts that can come for the head, which I will teach hand in hand in the subsequent lessons.
+
From this figure you learn that if your enemy is in a guard with the sword on the left side, high or low, you approach him to bind him outside of his sword outside of measure, with your sword over his so that it barely touches it, with a just and strong pace, with your sword ready to parry and wound, with lively eyes, as you see in the second figure of the guards and counterguards. You being accommodated in this way, your enemy will not be able to wound you with a thrust if he does not disengage the sword. While he disengages, turn your wrist and in the same tempo throw a stoccata at him as the fourth figure teaches you. Having thrown this stoccata, immediately in the same tempo return backward outside of measure, resting your sword over his so that if he wants to disengage anew, you will return to throw to him the same stoccata, turning your wrist as above, returning outside of measure. As many times as he disengages, that many times you will use the same method of turning your wrist and throwing the stoccata at him. To perform this game well much practice is necessary, since from this one learns to parry and wound with skill and great speed. Take care to always be balanced with your vita and to parry strongly with the forte of your sword because if your enemy throws strongly at you, parrying strongly will make him disconcerted and you will be able to wound him where he is uncovered. This must be the first lesson that one learns with the single sword, since all the others that I have placed in this book arise from it. Knowing how to do this in the tempo teaches you to parry all the cuts and resolute thrusts that can come for the head, which I will teach hand in hand in the subsequent lessons.
 
| IL VERO MODO D’ANDAR A STRINGER IL NEMICO, E DARGLI, mentre cava la Spada.
 
| IL VERO MODO D’ANDAR A STRINGER IL NEMICO, E DARGLI, mentre cava la Spada.
  

Revision as of 18:32, 26 April 2020

Nicoletto Giganti
Born 1550-1560
Fossombrone, Italy
Died after 1622
Venice, Italy (?)
Occupation
Nationality Italian
Citizenship Republic of Venice
Patron Cosimo II de Medici
Influenced Bondì di Mazo (?)
Genres Fencing manual
Language Italian
Notable work(s)

Nicoletto Giganti (Niccoletto, Nicolat; 1550s-after 1622[1]) was a 16th – 17th century Italian soldier and fencing master. He was likely born to a noble family in Fossombrone in central Italy,[2] and only later became a citizen of Venice as he stated on the title page of his 1606 treatise. Little is known of Giganti’s life, but in the dedication to his 1606 treatise he counts twenty seven years of professional experience (possibly referring to service in the Venetian military, a long tradition of the Giganti family).[3] The preface to his 1608 treatise describes him as a Mastro d'Arme of the Order of St. Stephen in Pisa, giving some further clues to his career.

In 1606, Giganti published a popular treatise on the use of the rapier (both single and with the dagger) titled Scola, overo teatro ("School or Fencing Hall"). This treatise is structured as a series of progressively more complex lessons, and Tom Leoni opines that this treatise is the best pedagogical work on rapier fencing of the early 17th century.[4] It is also the first treatise to fully articulate the principle of the lunge.

In 1608, Giganti made good the promise in his first book that he would publish a second volume.[5] Titled Libro secondo di Niccoletto Giganti Venetiano, it covers the same weapons as the first as well as rapier and buckler, rapier and cloak, rapier and shield, single dagger, and mixed weapon encounters. This text in turn promises two additional works, on the dagger and on cutting with the rapier, but there is no record of these books ever being published.

While Giganti's second book quickly disappeared from history, his first seems to have been quite popular: reprints, mostly unauthorized, sprang up many times over the subsequent decades, both in the original Italian and, beginning in 1619, in French and German translations. This unauthorized dual-language edition also included book 2 of Salvator Fabris' 1606 treatise Lo Schermo, overo Scienza d’Arme which, coupled with the loss of Giganti's true second book, is probably what has lead many later bibliographers to accuse Giganti himself of plagiarism.

Treatise

Research on Giganti's newly-rediscovered second book is still ongoing, and it is not currently included in the tables below.

Additional Resources

  • Giganti, Nicoletto; Pendragon, Joshua; Terminiello, Piermarco. The 'Lost' Second Book of Nicoletto Giganti (1608): A Rapier Fencing Treatise. Vulpes, 2013. ISBN 978-1909348318
  • Leoni, Tom. Venetian Rapier: The School, or Salle. Nicoletto Giganti's 1606 Rapier Fencing Curriculum. Wheaton, IL: Freelance Academy Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-9825911-2-3
  • Mediema, Aaron Taylor. Nicoletto Giganti's the School of the Sword: A New Translation by Aaron Taylor Miedema. Legacy Books Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1927537077

References

  1. Leoni, p xii.
  2. Lancellotti, Francesco Maria. Quadro letterario degli uomini illustri della città di Fossombrone. In Colucci, Giuseppe. Antichità picene, XXVIII. Fermo, 1796. p 33.
  3. Calcaterra, Francesco. Corti e cortigiani nella Roma barocca. Rome, 2012. p 76.
  4. Leoni, p xi.
  5. This treatise was considered lost for centuries, and as early as 1673 the Sicilian master Giuseppe Morsicato Pallavicini stated that this second book was never published at all. See La seconda parte della scherma illustrata. Palermo, 1673. p v.