La Scherma (Francesco Alfieri, 1640)

La Scherma is a printed Italian treatise on fighting with the rapier, published in 1640 by Francesco Fernando Alfieri. Alfieri was fencing master of the Paduan Accademia Delia, according to Wiktenauer probably from 1632 until the mid-fifties of the seventeenth century. The academy was founded in 1608 as an elite school for the Paduan nobility, and La Scherma is dedicated to its students in general, not to an individual patron. According to Wiktenauer the book was especially popular and went through a reprint, which Wiktenauer places in 1646 and English Wikipedia in 1645. In 1653 it was replaced by the expanded edition L'arte di ben maneggiare la spada. This takes over the whole text of 1640 and adds a closing part on the two-handed sword spadone, dedicated to Martin Vidman. Italian Wikipedia gives this part the title Lo Spadone, while Wiktenauer does not regard it as a separate treatise. English Wikipedia also mentions a reprint of the expanded edition from 1683. La Scherma belongs to a series of Alfieri's printed manuals. It was preceded by La Bandiera of 1638 on handling the banner, published in Padua by Sebastiano Sardi and dedicated to Alfieri's patron Lodovico Vidman, a wealthy merchant from a Carinthian family ennobled by the emperor and by the Venetian Senate. Martin Vidman was his brother. A year after La Scherma came La Picca, in which Alfieri reprinted the whole of La Bandiera. According to English Wikipedia the work was extensively quoted and praised by Francesco Antonio Marcelli.

Martial arts in this work

Origin

La Scherma arose in the milieu of the Paduan Accademia Delia, where Alfieri worked as fencing master. The academy was founded in 1608 and served as an elite school for the Paduan nobility. According to Wiktenauer, Alfieri probably taught there from 1632 until the mid-fifties of the seventeenth century. Unlike two other manuals, which carry a dedication to a specific patron, the treatise on the rapier is dedicated to the students of the academy as a whole. According to Wiktenauer, Lodovico Vidman, Alfieri's supporter, is the addressee of the dedication of La Bandiera and La Picca, not of La Scherma. Alfieri later dedicated to Lodovico's brother Martin the part on the spadone in the expanded edition of 1653.

Editions and translations

The first edition appeared in 1640. We have not been able to document its printer or publisher from the sources. A few years later a reprint followed, whose year differs in the sources: Wiktenauer gives 1646, English Wikipedia 1645. In 1653 the expanded edition L'arte di ben maneggiare la spada appeared in Padua with the complete text of 1640 and an added part on the spadone sword, and in 1683 it was reprinted, according to English Wikipedia. For modern readers Wiktenauer provided an Italian transcription and a working English translation of the edition of 1653, and the project labirinto.ca published another English translation. A Russian translation of the expanded edition appeared in 2017 in Dnipro.

People and martial arts

• Francesco AlfieriAuthor

Details

Form

Printed book

Editions

• 1640 · IT · La Scherma · first edition
• 1646 · IT · La Scherma
• 1653 · IT · L'arte di ben maneggiare la spada
• 1683 · IT · L'arte di ben maneggiare la spada
• 2017 · RU · translation