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P ARALLELS B ETWEEN F ENCING AND D ANCING

IN L ATE S IXTEENTH C ENTURY T REATISES *

Dr. Patri J. Pugliese

(Visiting Scholar, MIT)

April 2005

Dancing and fencing (or the “Art of Defense,”

as it was referred to in English manuals of the sixteenth

century) have much in common, but also much that dis-

tinguishes them. They both require disciplined study and

motor control to learn movements that may seem highly

thor was writing for a contemporary audience and could

reasonably presume that his readers had seen ﬁrst hand at

least some of what was being described. In reconstruct-

ing these movements, we can never be sure that our re-

construction is completely true to the original author’s

Figure 1. Fabritio Caroso. Il Ballarino (Venice, 1581), p. 3 verso;

Figure 2. Fabritio Caroso. Nobilta di Dame (Venetia, 1600), p. xxx.

Figure 3. Cesare Negri. Le Gratie d’Amore (Milan, 1602), p. 121.

Figure 4. Cesare Negri. Le Gratie d’Amore (Milan, 1602), p. 256.

unnatural to the beginning student, but which must nev-

ertheless be performed with near perfection to satisfy the

master. Each has associated with it a technical language

of terms representing individual movements which are

to be strung together to create movement sequences. On

the other hand, there are also distinct differences between

the activities: in dancing, you and your partner attempt

to accommodate your movements to each other; in fenc-

ing, you and your opponent are intent on discommoding

the actions of the other, or at least precluding his or her

intended ﬁnal action (be it cut or thrust). In many dances,

including those of the Renaissance period, there is an es-

tablished pattern of movements to be executed in order.

In fencing, while you may learn movements in a set pat-

tern, you must be sure not to execute them in a pattern

lest your opponent be able to anticipate your actions.

Outweighing the similarities between fencing and

dancing are the similarities in the challenges involved in

reconstructing each of these two activities from original

Renaissance sources. In each case, one is presented with

a verbal description which must be interpreted as a series

of physical movements, ideally the same movements in-

tended by the author. This is especially difﬁcult as the au-

intentions, but we can work towards that goal by consid-

ering whether we have satisﬁed the details of the written

description while producing a movement sequence which

satisﬁes whatever aesthetic and practical considerations

can be applied.

Given the requirement of disciplined movement

common to the two activities, as well as the fact that both

were expected accomplishments within the same strata

of society, it should not be surprising that dancing and

fencing have long been associated with each other. 1 In

many cases, a single person might serve as both dancing

master and fencing master. Cesare Negri provides us with

some Renaissance examples of this in his list of dancing

masters given in the opening section of Le Gratie d’Amore

(Milan, 1602): Gio. Ambrosio Valchiera, Milanese, was

master to the son of the Duke of Savoy, “to whom he

taught not only dancing ( ballare ) but also fencing ( scher-

mire ), and in that service he always lived with much fame.” 2

Gio. Battista Varade, Milanese, “ran a school of dancing

and fencing in Milan and Rome, and was worthy master

in the one and in the other profession.” 3 Unfortunately,

we have no writings by, or even other references to, either

of these masters and their activities in dancing or fenc-

ing.

There are at least three areas where one might

expect to gain insights from the juxtaposition of fenc-

ing manuals and dance manuals of the Renaissance era:

steps. This comes as no surprise to historical dancers who

are used to the idea of a double step consisting of three

steps, or three steps with a ﬁnal close. Nevertheless, the

strong argument for interpreting Meyer’s double step as

three steps comes, not from contemporary dance sources,

but from Meyer’s own treatise.

Another term that appears in both dancing and

fencing treatises of the Renaissance is “Contratempo.”

Salvator Fabris discusses this term in his treatise, De Lo

Schermo overo Scienza d’Arme (Copenhaven,1606). First, he

establishes the idea of a “tempo,” which he deﬁnes as “a

movement made by the adversary within distance.” 6 This

appears to correspond to what is sometimes referred to

today as a unit of “fencing time,” which is the time re-

quired for a direct, or single-action, attack. If your adver-

sary is within attacking distance and begins a movement

which you perceive as exposing some part of his body,

you can be assured of hitting him with a direct attack as

this requires only a single tempo , while for him to com-

plete his movement and also parry your attack requires

more than one tempo . Fabris warns his reader that “there

are some men who cunningly offer a time, that you may

attempt a hit, and at the same time they parry and hit,

which is called a hit in contratempo .” 7 A hit in contratempo

thus occurs when your opponent hits you while you are

in the act of extending your weapon in an effort to hit

him. 8 That is, two actions are in contratempo when they

Figure 5. Camillo Agrippa. Trattato di Scientia d’Arme

(Roma, 1553), p. ix(verso).

ﬁrst, in interpreting technical terms that cross over from

one activity to the other; second, in the identiﬁcation of

general styles of movement or other elements of style

present in both activities that characterize a particular cul-

ture or nation; and third, in gaining general insights into

the conventions of the day for describing movement. A

particular aspect of this third area which I will treat below

concerns the use of illustrations and pictorial notations.

The importance of juxtaposing dance and fencing

manuals would be fully demonstrated if one could point

to clear cases of technical terms that are common to both

activities and where ambiguities in one description are ex-

plicated by the other. In Joachim Meyer’s fencing manu-

al, Gründliche Beschreibung der ... Fechtens (Strasburg, 1570;

2nd ed. Augspurg, 1600), Meyer uses the term “double

step” (“ zwifachen trit ”) in his longsword, dusack and ra-

pier sections when he requires a greater displacement of

the attacker’s body than can be achieved by a single large

step. In the absence of early dance experience, one might

imagine that a double step is just a pair of steps. Only

after several references to this “double step” 4 does Meyer

ﬁnally give the reader a clear statement of its execution:

Do a double step thus: when you have stepped with your right

foot to his left, and your technique requires that you should step

yet further around, then step with your left foot after the right

one, outwards or past behind your right foot; then before you have

scarcely set the left down, you can step forth with the right, to

double the [step]. 5

Figure 6. Camillo Agrippa. Trattato di Scientia d’Arme (Roma, 1553), prior

to p. i.

That is, a “double step” is not two steps, but rather three

occur during the same brief unit of time. They are not,

however, precisely simultaneous: one action begins after

the other, but the difference must be distinctly less than

the time required to carry out either of the actions.

If we turn to the use of the term contratempo in

dancing, we ﬁnd it used repeatedly by

Cesare Negri in his treatise Le Gra-

tie d’Amore (1602). In the ninth sec-

tion of “Trattato Secondo,” Negri

addresses the four ways of dancing

the “Gagliarda.” The ﬁrst way is with

ﬁve-steps in one measure of music.

The second and third ways are with

four and three steps, respectively, the

steps being performed more slowly.

The fourth way is with six, seven,

eight or more steps; that is, with

more than one step performed within

each beat of the music. Negri refers

to these last cases as being in contra-

tempo . 9 It appears that in dancing, as

in fencing, a key element to actions

being in contratempo is that more than

one action is taken, though not necessarily completed, in

a single unit of time. Other instances of Negri’s use of

the term contratempo are consistent with this, but the com-

plexity of the cases where it is used suggests that there

may be additional implications to the term. 10

In John Essex’s 1710 trans-

lation of Feuillet’s For the Improve-

ment of Dancing , a symbol is given

with the legend “To walk one step

forward and stamp the ground with

the ﬂat of the foot as in fencing.” 11

One can then turn to the fencing

manuals of the day to learn more

about the precise movement in-

tended, making this a ﬁne example

of a cross beneﬁt obtained by look-

ing at a combination of fencing

and dancing manuals. On the other

hand, this reference occurs well

after the Renaissance period. In

general, one might expect cases of

terminology crossing from fencing

to dancing in dances with explicitly martial themes, but

the two obvious cases of this, Thoinot Arbeau’s “Buf-

fons” and Cesare Negri’s “La Battaglia,” are disappoint-

ing in this regard. The terminology used by Arbeau to

describe blows, Taille Haulte , Revers Hault , Taille Basse , Re-

vers bas , Feincte and Estocade (Thrust), is consistent with pe-

riod fencing terminology; but, as with Meyer’s use of the

double step, Arbeau’s own illustrations are sufﬁcient to

explain the intended movements, so little is to be gained

by consulting contemporary fencing manuals. 12 Negri’s

“La Battaglia” uses no fencing termi-

nology or movements, and so fenc-

ing sources are completely irrelevant

in this case. 13

A more general argument for the

parallel study of fencing and danc-

ing is that in many periods, the same

gentlemen who would be learning

the one activity, would also be receiv-

ing daily instruction in the other. If

the movement styles in these two ac-

tivities were grossly different, these

gentlemen would be faced with the

huge challenge of changing the ba-

sic kinesthetic elements of how they

move. It is difﬁcult to imagine that

the strength, sense of distance, tim-

ing, balance, overall posture and style

of movement acquired with sword in hand would not af-

fect the same gentleman’s posture and movement style

on the dance ﬂoor. The rapier was a new weapon of the

sixteenth century which, unlike the broadsword and other

traditional weapons of war, became an everyday symbol

of social status. It became an almost

indispensable adornment to gentle-

men’s dress on the street, in court

and even on the ballroom ﬂoor, as

evidenced by the illustrations in

the Dance Manuals of Caroso and

Negri (Figures 1-4). 14 The clear

implication of these ﬁgures is that

a gentleman was expected to be so

comfortable wearing a sword that

it was not a signiﬁcant impediment

to movement, presumably because

gentlemen would from habit com-

pensate for its presence in a myr-

iad of ways of which the wearer

was probably unconscious. Caroso

gives speciﬁc advice to dancers on

the manner of handling a sword while dancing, but this

could hardly have sufﬁced were the wearer not already

used to wearing one. 15

One of the earliest manuals of the rapier is the

Trattato di Scientia d’Arme, con un Dialogo di Filosoﬁa (Roma,

1553) of Camillo Agrippa. This manual includes many

illustrations of guard positions and of engagements be-

Figure 8. Giacomo Di Grassi. Ragione di Adoprar Si-

curamante l’Arme (Venetia, 1570), p. 14.

Figure 7. Fabritio Caroso. Nobilta di Dame (Vene-

tia, 1600), p. 241.

tween combatants. The former of these are each displayed

in conjunction with a geometrical ﬁgure representing the

angles and proportions proper to the posture (Figure 5).

This concern for

geometry as the

means of under-

standing nature and

perfecting art can

be associated with

the neoplatonic

philosophy that was

ﬁnding favor in the

second half of the

sixteenth century.

The importance of

philosophy to the

science of arms

is proclaimed not

only by the title of

the Agrippa’s trea-

tise, but also by the

opening illustra-

tion within the text

which shows a de-

bate between a phi-

losopher of the an-

cient school armed

with his books

and a modern phi-

losopher wearing

a sword and hold-

ing instruments of

mathematical learn-

ing (Figure 6). 16 A

corresponding con-

cern within dance

for the new math-

ematical philosophy

is to be seen in the

wonderful rosette

ﬁgure in Fabritio

Caroso’s Nobilta di

Dame (Venetia, 1600) which appears with the legend, “Il

Contrapasso fatto con vera mathematica” (Figure 7). 17

Among the best organized of the early manuals on

the use of the rapier is the Ragione di Adoprar Sicuramante

l’Arme si da Offesa, Come da Difessa of Giacomo di Grassi

(Venetia, 1570). Di Grassi begins his manual by deﬁn-

ing a limited number of movements and positions to be

used in this art (Figure 8); he then describes a variety of

sequences arrived at by stringing these elements together.

The parallel in structure to the dance manuals of Caroso

and Negri is clear, even though the speciﬁc movements

Di Grassi describes

are quite different.

The manual of Di

Grassi is uniquely

important in that

here we have the

original Italian man-

ual (of 1570) and a

nearly contempo-

rary English trans-

lation: Giacomo Di

Grassi His True Arte

of Defence (London,

1594). This illus-

trates a more gener-

al issue concerning

rapier instruction

in different nations

which parallels

dance practice. In

both areas, the Ital-

ians clearly led the

other European na-

tions in the quantity

of works produced

and in the subtlety

and complexity

of the activity de-

scribed in those

works. The English,

while maintaining

some traditional

elements, were par-

ticularly enamoured

of Italian practice

and technique. The

French appeared to

favor a somewhat

simpler style than

the Italians, though we have few sources in either area

on which to base such a generalization. The Germanic

nations also looked to the Italians, though German fenc-

ing maintained a fondness for cutting and a willingness to

grapple which the Italian school discouraged. The Span-

ish developed their own distinctive style which in both

arts was characterized by a ﬁrm, erect posture and crisp

motions. Dancers performing a choreography that is sup-

Figure 9. Gerard Thibault d’Anvers, Academie de l’Espee (Leyden, 1628), detail of Tabula IIII.

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