Seeing the forest, or studying the trees?
Happy 2026 everyone! I hope your winter has been good and you’ve found some peace and rest over these last few weeks.
My new IRL gig(s) will have me traveling a lot these next several months, so this newsletter may become a little more inconsistent for a bit. I will do my best to keep new content coming as often as I can, as I find my footing and pacing with my new reality.
I owe you all an “all subscribers” post, so here I’ll revisit something some friends and I tossed about some time back on a video chat during COVID shut ins. Mainly this is an observation I’ve made while digging into old fencing manuals and watching others do the same. I welcome thoughts, though, if anything seems interesting to you!
The next post will be breaking down another play from Giganti’s manual.
Patterns patterns, everywhere!
An interesting view that I’ve not seen discussed, but has become more prevalent to me as I’ve organized and worked through manuals and built my classes, is a comparison between a collective vs. selective approach to the corpus of historical fencing manuals. Some might also view it as the difference between a ‘big picture’ approach and a ‘detail oriented’ one, but I kindof reject that framing, since the way I view this, the collective, or ‘big picture’ approach can be every bit as detail oriented, but in possibly a different way.
So maybe none of my phrasing is correct for what I’m trying to get across, but to spell it out - in general, some people spend a lot of time focusing on the textual and pictorial minutia and see clear differences between, say, Capo Ferro and Giganti, where I take the view that, having looked closely at many of them, they are in effect the same thing, and any variation can be written up as “the system allows for variation.”
And to be clear, neither approach is better or worse than the other. Some people just enjoy focusing on the individualities of the different trees, where I and some of my colleagues are more taken by the patterns that make up the forest. And in point of fact, I’m likely describing a sliding scale with these two approaches on either end, where most people sit somewhere in the middle, or they move along the scale depending on the context of their study or with whom they’re speaking.
I see this manifest in a few different ways.
A continual focus on the minute details of every play
I’ve watched as fencers work diligently on getting the hand or the foot in what they interpret as exactly the right place in system X, and I’ve seen passionate arguments over how to implement a play, when by my reading both sides had viable interpretations.
And related, I kindof marvel at those who dedicate themselves to going through every single play from, say, the Bolognese Anonymous, or the Mscr.Dresd.C.13 and Add MS 17533.
Viewing each manual as a unique system
When talking to some practitioners, and reading comments on the internet, I get the idea that some believe that the manuals’ differences are profound enough to make them unique systems. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that stated so blatantly, but I have seen people argue that Giganti’s system is “better” than Capoferro’s, for instance.
Viewing the manuals as related and as variations on the same system
For me, and for several colleagues I’ve known and fenced with for decades, it has become difficult to read all the way through most ‘newly discovered’ manuals, because it’s like reading variations on the exact same short story. I’ll skim them to compare how the authors describe the fundamental things, and when I’m writing about specific techniques I may pull the related manuals out and compare key aspects - as I did at the beginning of this newsletter with the postures. But reading cover to cover can be somewhat tedious for me, now.
And I could even make a broader argument about late 16th and early 17th century swordplay that the Spanish authors, the Italian authors, and the German authors are all teaching the same thing, just variations on the same core principles. Certainly in the way I view and teach swordplay they are all bound by the same fundamentals, and the techniques simply reveal their efforts or tactics for getting those fundamentals to align.
There are of course variations in application - some are more aggressive and some are more manipulative. But once you understand the purpose for the techniques, you then see those same techniques again and again, but with variations driven by the system’s posture or the context of the particular exchange.
Explaining the psychology behind my ‘forest’ approach
To try to explain how I now view the plays in the manuals, let’s use the example of a military tactic that may be taught in a classroom.
Two units in two different battles want to draw an enemy’s attention one direction so they can then attack with their cavalry from the flank. That is the summation of the tactic. But due to the physical battlefields, one has to attack the left flank, and the other the right flank, so that would mean a difference in where they want the enemy’s attention to be drawn.
Going further, one example unit has to separate to get around a small hill, so they’re actually hitting two points of the enemy’s flank, and need to adjust a little. The other unit has flat terrain.
Finally, the enemy in one case has a unit of muskets on the flank under attack, vs the other enemy has only infantry (swordsmen).
The commander in each case has to improvise somewhat under the situations given, and it would not be helpful to teach “you must divide your unit to attack two parts of the flank and attack fast to minimize the muskets” as the core tactic. Loading this detail into the example is good to demonstrate that the commanders may need to improvise due to variations, but to drill down and practice those two examples semi-religiously overlooks that the context of different battles you will face will be even more different. Going around the hill and accommodating for muskets weren’t the main points of the tactic. They were barriers that called for a variation.
Similarly, variations in how far out the foot goes in a posture or a lunge are often, to me, largely irrelevant and simply show the physical preference of that author, or even of the artist. My lunge from one exchange to the next can vary quite a lot, but I can still consider them the same technique.
Sticking dogmatically to one perfect approach means you can’t translate that lesson for someone who is built differently, or less flexible, for instance. And as I’ve pointed out before, the illustrations that Giganti want you to reference are not drawn to any known human scale. So it makes zero sense to try to exactly mimic those illustrations, unless you are willing and able to stretch your legs beyond human porportions.
And compare, for instance, the various versions of Fabris’ postures from his 1601 and 1606 manuals. And that’s one author.
Variations are a must
When you advance in your fencing technique, you MUST be able to riff on the directions given, e.g. on the tactics themselves, in order to fit your context. If you marry yourself too closely with one detailed approach over another, you’ve limited your options and flexibility in actually accomplishing the purpose of the tactic.
So other examples to consider - understanding how the manuals differ can point out what details aren’t important to do the thing. If Capoferro sets his feet at 120degrees and Giganti sets his at 130degrees, but in most other ways their actions are the same, then in my view the variation of how you spread your feet is of minor importance.
To use a non-sword example, if the two most respected troubadour manuals differ on their approach to tuning a lute, but both are emphatic about not strumming, then clearly the thing to take away is that it is fundamental to the troubadour style that you don’t strum the lute. The system, however, allows for variations in how to tune the lute. You may find that you have a preference between the two tuning variations, and that’s great. But someone who takes the other variation, or even someone who makes up their own variation, isn’t necessarily doing it wrong if they are otherwise following the parts that the authors agree on.
I actually started a project wherein I was listing the primary points of four Bolognese manuals with the idea that where they overlap is the core of the system, and where they vary it means that was a personal preference of that particular author. The idea was to see if I could get down on paper the core elements and techniques that unify the Bolognese system, and what variations would make it “Manciolino’s preferences” or “dall’Agocchie’s tweaks.” But that project is on hold for now.
Conclusion
Anyway - these are just some macro-thoughts on approaches to studying historical swordplay. Again - neither approach is more right than the other. I’m just explaining my own view and how I’ve gone about getting there.
I’ll wrap with a joke about missing the big picture by being absorbed with details. Also, in this case, there’s an inability to let go of expectations:
A customs officer at the Mexican border noticed a man coming across one day on a bicycle with two small sacks tied to the handlebars. He naturally got suspicious and asked him to open the sacks, but when he did he found nothing but sand, This went on every day for the next month. Each day he’d stop the bicycle and open the sacks, and find only sand.
A few years later he ran into the biker in a restaurant in Tijuana. After some small talk he said, “Come on. I knew you were smuggling something all that time. I won’t tell. I’m just curious. What was it?” The man replied, “Bicycles!”