The Sword of the People. Roberto Laura

1599

      ³⁴ His ego may have played a bit of a role in Silver’s viewpoint, given that in the England of his time, the Italian art of fencing had displaced the English traditional fencing methods; the marketing skills of the Italian Fencing Master was probably more mature and sophisticated. On the other hand, he was also probably – rightly! – disturbed by the increasing bad faith of dueling almost constantly because of so-called honor violations or contrived defamation.

      ³⁵ The Count here refers to Conte d'Agomonte.

      ³⁶ It should be noted that the named work of Aristotle, Physics, is one of the major works of the great philosopher. It’s a treatise consisting of several books. In books eight and nine, Aristotle devotes himself to emptiness and time. He defines time, tempo, as “the number of movements with respect to’ before’ and ’after’”.

      ³⁷ See Chapter 144 of his work.

      ³⁸ See Chapter 5

      ³⁹ See Chapter 6

      ⁴⁰ Agrippa writes of ease, commodità.

      ⁴¹ The natural representation of nudity was considered the highest manifestation of freedom in the Renaissance.

      ⁴² A few years later Capo Ferro went a step further; See Section 1.5.4.

      ⁴³ Depending on the region, called pose or piante.

      ⁴⁴ Turns, rotations; see Chapter 7

      ⁴⁵ See Chapter 5

      ⁴⁶ See Chapter 6

      ⁴⁷ See Chapter 5

      ⁴⁸ The Baroque, too, was an Italian development that evolved from the Late Renaissance and Mannerism. One speaks of the Early Baroque up until the year 1650. Architecturally it still shapes entire regions of Western Europe.

      ⁴⁹ Agrippa, Giganti, Fabris, and Capo Ferro

      ⁵⁰ An intellectual development, which was adopted by nearly all Italian knife schools: the adaptation and integration of foreign influences into a separate, “new” school.

      ⁵¹ Compare the art of the shepherd’s stick from Apulia and Sicily with the medieval sword fighting art of Fiore dei Liberi on certain tablets where there are illustrations, and you can see they are almost identical to those of the southern Italian stick traditions.

      ⁵² Marozzo

      ⁵³ For example, in Genoa or Sicily. See also Chapter 6, where some of these prohibitions, at least concerning Sicily, are mentioned.

      ⁵⁴ One was, for example, the Genoese model (circa 1750), from which the famous Vendetta corsa also developed.

      ⁵⁵ Ital. serramanico

      ⁵⁶ Armed dances or weapons dances.

      ⁵⁷ Conrado Tommasi Crudeli, La Sicilia nel 1871, Florenz ,1871

      ⁵⁸ about 47¼ – 59 inches (120 – 150 cms)

      ⁵⁹ approx. 35½ – 39½ inches (90 – 100 cms)

      ⁶⁰ about 15¾ – 27½ inches (40 – 70 cms)

      ⁶¹ And, compared to the knife fight, the stick fight is the true knightly art: while the knife is associated with taverns, gambling halls, the crime syndicates and/or prison, the shepherd’s stick is related to the peaceful life in the country, to freedom and thus to defens purposes only.

      ⁶² Methods of using stones were probably only used simultaneously with a knife.

      ⁶³ Here I refer to oral, but not historically verifiable, stories about the Sicilian stick fighting from the region of Catania.

      ⁶⁴ For example, the so-called Arditi del Popolo, a name that was later also used in resistance.

      ⁶⁵ Passing underneath the opponent’s attack.

      ⁶⁶ A sideway evasion of the line of attack.

      ⁶⁷ The Italian Art of Handling the Short Blades from 1350 to 1943. History and Technology.