Dardi School Bolognese
The oldest documented layer of the Bolognese fencing tradition. Dardi taught both geometry and fencing at Bologna, and that geometric cast still shows.
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About Dardi School Bolognese
The school of Filippo Dardi is the oldest documented layer of the Bolognese fencing tradition, the current that in the sixteenth century produced more printed manuals than any other in Europe. Dardi, in full Filippo di Bartolomeo Dardi, died in 1464 and from 1413 held a post at the university of Bologna both as a teacher of geometry and as a fencing master. That combination is no accident: the Bolognese system works with angles, with lines and with precisely named positions, and it is this geometrical character that sets it apart from the older German sources. The basic weapon is the spada da lato, the sword worn at the side, trained alone and in combination with a buckler, with the small shield called targa, with a dagger or with a cloak. The teaching rests on a set of named guards, the guardie, and on a fixed vocabulary of cuts — mandritto, riverso, fendente, tondo, ridoppio — and thrusts such as imbroccata and stoccata. Sequences of transitions between guards, called assalti, serve the role of forms. It must be said openly that Dardi''s own texts have not survived. The Bolognese school is reconstructed from the printed manuals of his successors — Marozzo, Manciolino and dall''Agocchie — and Dardi''s share in it is known only through them.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.