Gio. Pietro Gorio's Art of using the Sword

Gorio’s Arte di Adoprar la Spada is a concise work, providing a practically-minded description of a thrust-based style of fencing, that is easy to understand and put into practice. Published in Milan, in 1682, it is also one of only a few treatises to be published in Northern Italy in the last decades of the 17th century. While a number of treatises were published in this period describing the style of fencing taught in Naples and on Sicily, Gorio’s Arte describes a style of fencing that is differs in key ways, and is more similar to the style of fencing seen in (later) French treatises dealing with the use of what is commonly called the smallsword. In this book, the reader will find a modern English translation of Gorio’s Arte di Adoprar la Spada. The rare view into how fencing was practiced in Northern Italy in the late 17th century seen through this text should be of interest to any student of historical fencing.