Table of Contents

Acknowledgments


Foreword


Introduction


Making Capoferro Accessible to the Modern Rapier Student


A Personal Journey


Who Was Ridolfo Capoferro?


The Two Faces of Capoferro: Period Literature Versus Victorian Scholarship


Jacopo Gelli: The Main 19th-Century Source on Capoferro


Capoferro, His Treatise and Its Importance to the Modern Student


Language, Translation, and Editorial Decisions


What You Need to Know to Tackle Capoferro


Additional Resources


Great Representation of the Art and Practice of Fencing


To the Most Serene Lord Don Francesco Maria Feltrio della Rovere, Sixth Duke of Urbino


To the Kind Reader


General Table of the Art of Fencing


Here Follows the Great Representation of the Practice of Fencing.


Beginning with the Explanation of the Difference Between Art and Practice


A Few Recommendations about Fencing


Explanation of Some Practical Fencing Terms


The Plates and Practical Synopses


Some Principles Regarding the Cut


A Failsafe Way to Defend Against Any Attack by Parrying with a Riverso and Always Striking with an Imbroccata


Glossary of Common and Useful Italian Rapier Fencing Terms

About the Author

Tom Leoni was born in Switzerland and grew up in Northern Italy. Since an early age, he developed a passion for antique arms and armour and Renaissance-Baroque culture. His meticulous research of Italian swordsmanship treatises helped him become an internationally-known teacher specialising in the Italian styles of the 1500s and 1600s. In 2005, Tom published an English translation of Master Salvator Fabris' 1606 rapier treatise Scienza d'Armi, one the of the most important fencing works of the late Renaissance. In 2009, he published a translation of Italy's earliest extant martial-arts treatise, Fiore de' Liberi's Fio di Battaglia (circa 1409).

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