Filippo Vadi
Italian fencing master and official from Pisa, author of the illuminated manuscript De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi (1482–1487), focused on the longsword.
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Filippo Vadi was an Italian fencing master, born in 1425 in Pisa and died in 1501 in Urbino. He is known as the author of the richly illuminated manuscript De Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi, which he wrote between 1482 and 1487 and dedicated to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino.
Besides fencing, he worked as a civil official: he was governor of Reggio under Marquis Leonello d'Este, and from 1452 to 1470 advisor to Duke Borso d'Este. In 1457 the medalist Giovanni Boldù struck a commemorative medal on which Vadi surpasses the mythical centaur Chiron. We have not been able to verify who his teacher was in the sources.
The treatise deals with knightly weapons — the sword, dagger, spear and halberd — with the main emphasis on the longsword. In the opening sixteen chapters Vadi claims that "fencing is born of geometry" and treats it as a science, not merely an art. The work was influenced by the treatise Flos Duellatorum by master Fiore dei Liberi, though Vadi's footwork and technique differ from Fiore's. Vadi probably came across Fiore's work through the family of his employers.
The manuscript is kept today in the National Central Library in Rome under shelf mark MS Vitt. Em. 1324.