Giacomo di Grassi was a 16th century Italian fencing master. Little is known about the life of this master, but he seems to have been born in Modena, Italy and acquired some fame as a fencing master in his youth. He operated a fencing school in Trevino and apparently traveled around Italy observing the teachings of other schools and masters. Ultimately di Grassi seems to have developed his own method, which he laid out in great detail in his 1570 work Ragione di adoprar sicuramente l’Arme (“Explanation of Striving Safely with Arms”).

Toward the end of his life, di Grassi seems to have transplanted to England, where he opened a new school in London and spent the remainder of his days. In 1594, a new edition of his book was printed in London under the title His True Arte of Defence, translated by an admirer named Thomas Churchyard. While di Grassi’s teachings were arguably designed for the side sword, the English translation substitutes “rapier” for every mention of the sword.

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George Silver (ca.1560s – 1620s) was a 16th – 17th century British nobleman and fencing enthusiast. He was likely born in the 1560s, the eldest of four brothers; apparently at least one of them, Toby, was also an accomplished swordsman. Silver is described as a gentleman in his treatise, and was eleventh in descent from Sir Bartholomew Silver, who was knighted by Edward II. In 1580, he was married to Mary Haydon in London, England.

Silver’s martial lineage is unknown, but he was not affiliated with the London Company of Masters and does not seem to have been a fencing master himself. In spite of this, he was possessed of strong opinions about the proper method of fencing and was strongly opposed to the contemporary Continental fencing traditions. He was particularly critical of the Italian masters who had set up schools in London, including Rocco Bonetti and Vincentio Saviolo. He and Toby went so far as to challenge Saviolo to a public fencing match to demonstrate the superiority of his British arts, but even though they placarded London, Southwark, and Westminster with the challenge, no formal match seems to have ever occurred. It seems he did, however, have opportunity to fence with students of some of the Italian masters on a few occasions.

In 1599, Silver composed a treatise titled Paradoxes of Defence and dedicated it to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex and Saviolo’s patron. Silver uses “paradox” in the sense of heresy and in this work he speaks against the wildly popular rapier, detailing what he sees as its inherent flaws as well as those of the foreign fencing styles that emphasize it. A second volume, entitled Brief Instructions upon My Paradoxes of Defence and explaining his own British fencing style, was written in ca. 1605 but remained unpublished for unknown reasons.

Silver’s activities after the publication of his book are unclear, but he was still alive as late as 1622.

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Ridolfo Capo Ferro da Cagli (Ridolfo Capoferro, Rodulphus Capoferrus) was a 17th century Italian fencing master. He seems to have been born in the town of Cagli in Urbino and was a resident of Siena, Tuscany. Little is known about the life of this master, though the dedication to Federico Ubaldo della Roevere, the young son of Duke Francesco Maria Feltrio della Roevere, may indicate that he was associated with the court at Urbino in some capacity. The statement at the beginning of his treatise that he was a “master of the great German nation” likely signifies that he was faculty at the University of Siena, either the official overseeing the German student body or perhaps a fencing master who taught the German students.

Capo Ferro authored a fencing manual on the rapier entitled Gran Simulacro dell’Arte e dell’Uso della Scherma (“Great Representation of the Art and Use of Fencing”); it was published in Siena in 1610 and refers to Federico by the ducal title. Though this treatise is often praised by modern fencing historians, it was neither comprehensive nor particularly innovative and does not seem to have been terribly influential in its own time.

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Achille Marozzo (1484-1553) was a 16th century Italian fencing master. He was born in San Giovanni in Persiceto (a possession of Bologna) to Lodovico Marozzo in 1484. After moving to the city, he studied fencing after the Dardi style in the school of the great Bolognese master Guido Antonio di Luca, and may thus have been an acquaintance of fellow student—and later, fellow Bolognese master—Antonio Manciolino.

As a teacher, Marozzo maintained a fencing school in Bologna near the Abbey of Saints Naborre and Felice. In 1531 he received permission to construct a water wheel drawing water from the Rhine River, but the purpose of this water wheel is unclear. In addition to his school, Marozzo may have been attached to the court of the Count Guido Rangoni, another student of di Luca. In 1536, Marozzo authored a treatise on swordsmanship, dedicated to Rangoni and titled Opera Nova (“A New Work”); this treatise seems to have become the dominant work in the Dardi or “Bolognese” school of swordsmanship, reprinted several times well into the 17th century and translated into French in 1580.

Marozzo had a son named Sebastiano Marozzo who seems to have followed in his father’s footsteps as a fencing master. Achille Marozzo himself died in 1553 and is buried in Bologna at the military hospital.

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The Wiktenauer now features a comprehensive section on Paulus Hector Mair. Mair (1517 – 1579) was a 16th century German civil servant and fencing enthusiast. He was born in Augsburg in 1517 to a wealthy and influential family in the German middle class (Burghers). In his youth, he likely received training in fencing and grappling from the masters of Augsburg fencing guild, and early on developed a deep fascination with fencing manuals. He began his civil service as a secretary to the Augsburg City Council; by 1541, Mair was the Augsburg City Treasurer, and in 1545 he also took on the duty of Master of Rations.

Mair lead a lavish lifestyle and maintained his political influence with expensive parties and other entertainments for the burghers and city officials of Augsburg. Despite his personal wealth and ample income, Mair spent decades living far beyond his means and taking money from the Augsburg city coffers to cover his expenses. This embezzlement was not discovered until 1579, when a disgruntled assistant reported him to the Augsburg City Council and provoked an audit of his books. Mair was arrested and tried for his crimes, and hanged as a thief at the age of 62.

While Mair is not known to have ever certified as a fencing master, he was an avid collector of fencing manuals and a portion of his embezzlement went to fund these acquisitions. He purchased at least a dozen manuscripts over the course of his life, many of them from fellow collector Lienhart Sollinger (a Freifechter who lived in Augsburg for many years). Perhaps most significant of all of his acquisitions was the partially-completed manual of Antonius Rast, a Master of the Longsword and one-time captain of the Marxbrüder fencing guild. The venerable master died in 1549 without completing it, and Mair ultimately was able to produce the Reichsstadt Schätze Nr. 82 based on his notes. After Mair’s death, this collection was sold at auction as part of an attempt to recoup some of the funds Mair had appropriated.

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