Nicoletto Giganti
Italian rapier fencing master whose treatise Scola, overo Teatro (Venice, 1606) also appeared in French and German, with a second book surfacing only centuries later.
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Nicoletto Giganti was an Italian rapier fencing master of the 17th century. His family probably came from Fossombrone in the Marche region and later moved to Venice; it held a lower noble status and served the Venetian Republic in military roles. We have not been able to verify the dates of his birth and death.
In 1606 he declared himself a master with 27 years of practice. That same year he published in Venice the treatise Scola, overo Teatro, dedicated to Cosimo II de' Medici. It was reissued in Italian in 1628 in Padua and was translated into French and German (Frankfurt editions of 1619, 1622 and 1644).
In the treatise Giganti repeatedly promised a second book, which, however, was never officially published in his lifetime. The first mention of it comes only from a treatise by Alberto Marchionni of 1847, according to which it was published in Pisa in 1608 by Giovanni Fontani. An English translation of the second book was confirmed and published by Terminiello and Pendragon in November 2013.
Johann Joachim Hynitzsch accused Giganti of plagiarising the work of Salvator Fabris; this accusation is considered probably unfounded.