Vincentio Saviolo
Italian fencing teacher from Padua who ran a school in London near Ludgate Hill and in 1595 published the treatise Vincentio Saviolo, his practise, on the rapier and duels.
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Vincentio Saviolo was an Italian fencing teacher born in Padua who worked in London. He died in 1598 or 1599. He is first mentioned in England in 1589, when Richard Jones obtained a licence to publish his Book of Honour; another source dates his arrival in London to 1590 and states that he took over a school previously run by Rocco Bonetti. In 1591 his fencing school is documented "in the lane where the well is... at the sign of the red lion" near Ludgate Hill.
In his teaching he stressed circular movement around the opponent, did not teach the lunge and drew on the Spanish rapier school of his time. He began instruction with the rapier alone and only then moved on to other weapons.
In 1595 he published the treatise Vincentio Saviolo, his practise with the printer John Wolfe. The first part deals with fighting with rapier and dagger and is written as a dialogue between Saviolo and a fictional pupil, the second with the etiquette of duels and draws on a text by Girolamo Muzio from 1558. The scholar John Florio probably helped him with the book, possibly with the translation into English.
In his book of 1599 George Silver sharply attacked Saviolo's system and defended traditional English fencing against Italian rapier methods. Silver described how Saviolo's partner Jeronimo was killed by an Englishman named Cheese, but withheld details of Saviolo's death, which suggests that Saviolo did not die in a duel. Today's reconstructors of historical fencing prefer the systems of Fabris, Giganti and Capo Ferro.