Vadi
Stable, Striking and Mutable: Fighting from the Guards of L’Arte dell’Armizare
“I am the sword and I am lethal against any weapon; lances, axes and dagger are worthless against me. I can become extended or withdrawn; when I get near the opponent I can enter into close play, perform disarms and abrazare. My art is to turn and to bind; I am expert in defense and […]
Memory and Performance: Visual and Rhetorical Strategies of Il Fior di Battaglia
(First presented at the Renaissance Society of America’s Venice conference in 2010. Presented also as part of an academic session followed by an armoured combat demonstration, organized by Dr. Regina Pskai, at the American Association for Italian Studies conference at University of Oregon, 2013) This paper is part of a larger study on medieval and Renaissance martial arts manuscripts, […]
The Role of Filippo Vadi in the dei Liberi Tradition, Pt. I
(c) 2010 Gregory Mele, Chicago Swordplay Guild When I teach at workshops and seminars, I am often told something along the lines of this: I’m surprised that the man who co-authored the reproduction on De arte gladiatoria dimicandi doesn’t work more with the hallmarks of Vadi. It’s a fair question, and suggests that in 2001, when I […]
