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Italian Rapier Combat: Capo Ferro's 'Gran Simalco' Kindle Edition

by Ridolfo Capo Ferro (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 66 ratings
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The classic treatise on the art of fencing by the seventeenth-century master, in a fresh translation featuring more than forty beautiful illustrations.

The Italian fencer Ridolfo Capo Ferro was a legend in his own lifetime. His grace and style were emulated throughout a Europe, and his detailed instruction offers a window into his mastery of swordsmanship. This new translation is faithful to the original text while making it accessible to modern readers. It also includes a new introduction and a revised glossary with many newly translated technical terms.

Capo Ferro begins by examining the rapier in detail—its component parts and their suitability—before discussing their actual use. He details the timing and distance needed to control one’s adversary, the importance of quick footwork, and defensive tactics such as guards and parries. He also covers using the rapier with auxiliary weapons such as the dagger, cloak, and shield.

Presented by fencing master Jared Kirby, Italian Rapier Combat is both a vital historical record and an essential guide for any student of fencing.

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  1. Print length
    183 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Frontline Books
  5. Publication date
    June 30, 2012
  6. File size
    34776 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

RIDOLFO CAPO FERRO of Cagli was a fencing master in the city of Siena, best-known for his rapier fencing manual published in 1610.

Jared Kirby has been involved in Western Martial Arts and Combat for Stage & Screen for 25 years. He teaches in New York City (and the metro area), and has choreographed fights Off-Broadway, nationally, and internationally in London and Sydney. As a Fight Coordinator, Jared has worked with stars such as Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Guttenberg, Cameron Douglas, and has trained performers who are working on hit shows. Jared is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA. Jared has an ongoing Combat for Screen & Stage class in New York City, and teaches at the prestigious Tom Todoroff Conservatory as well as the NY Conservatory for Dramatic Arts. www.jaredkirby.com

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KYVDPNO
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Frontline Books (June 30, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 30, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 34776 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 183 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 66 ratings

About the author

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Jared Kirby

Jared Kirby

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Jared Kirby has been involved in Combat for Screen & Stage and Western Martial Arts for 25 years. He teaches in New York City (and the metro area) and has choreographed fights Off-Broadway, Nationally, in London and Sydney.

As a Fight Coordinator, Jared has worked with stars such as Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Guttenberg, Cameron Douglas and has trained performers who are working on hit shows. Jared is a member of Actor’s Equity and SAG/AFTRA.

He is the president of Combat Con in Las Vegas, past president of Art of Combat, and served for six years on the board of the International Order of the Sword & Pen.

Jared currently teaches fencing at SUNY Purchase, Sarah Lawrence College and is a Master of Arms (Maestro d’Armi) through the Martinez Academy of Arms. Jared has an ongoing Combat for Screen & Stage class in New York City and teaches at the prestigious Tom Todoroff Conservatory as well as the NY Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.

He teaches a variety of workshops across the US and around the world including Canada, England, Scotland, Finland, Italy and Australia. He has taught at the Paddy Crean International Art of the Sword Workshop, the International Swordfighting and Martial Arts Convention (ISMAC), Rapier Camp and the Western Washington WMA Workshop just to name a few.

Jared is the editor and one of the translators of “Italian Rapier Combat”, the first complete, professional translation of Capo Ferro. He is also the editor and wrote the introduction for “The School of Fencing” by Domenico Angelo and annotated by Maestro Jeannette Acosta-Martínez. His third book is “The Gentleman’s Guide to Duelling,” and fourth is a reprint of Donald McBane’s "The Expert Swordsman’s Companion." Most recently he is the co-author of "Staging Shakespeare’s Violence, Vol. 1."

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
66 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars I've been waiting for this
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2022
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I am extremely happy that a second edition of Capo Ferro's 'Gran Simulacro" has been published. I've looked through the original many times, but could never find a cheap enough copy to buy for myself since it was out of print. I am extremely pleased by the changes of this edition: mainly clearing up some of the language describing the plates. These changes make using the treatise in practice to be way more... practical! Well done to the author(s), and thank you.
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Jonathan
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Starting Place
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2020
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Anyone truly interested in the art of hisgorical fencing will start with Capo Ferro. Even in translated and archaic wording, it is simple to understand with depictions, so each descrjption can be said and acted as you read.

Having a kindle edition js good for actually practicing as you read and for quick reference
One person found this helpful
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Physical Science Guy
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic text presented by a classy writer
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2013
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The works of Ridolfo Capo Ferro, or CapoFerro if you prefer, is a cornerstone of modern historical fencing. Jared Kirby's insightful and detailed presentation of CapoFerro is masterful. I recommend that a copy of Tom Leoni's interpretation of CapoFerro also be included as an insightful addition and another detailed source for the student or instructor of this most rewarding martial art.
5 people found this helpful
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Mark Pearson
5.0 out of 5 stars As a translation it's very good. To take it from book to form
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2017
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As a translation it's very good. To take it from book to form, it would help to have a modern study guide to go along with it,
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good English translation of Capo Ferro's Gran Simalcro
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2019
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Easy to read and follow translation, including illustrations
One person found this helpful
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Rob Dorsey
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2017
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Capo Ferro - what else need be said. Oh, could say, very nicely produced volume. Spendy but an heirloom book.
One person found this helpful
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Algesan
2.0 out of 5 stars Too Much Unnecessary Jargon
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2015
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For the Kindle. Pretty much it stinks. Info looks nice, but waaaay too jargony with Italian words supposedly to 'capture' the essence of a 'hard to translate' original word. Instead you have to spend your time memorizing your location, jumping back to the glossary, find the correct word, then jump back to where the location. Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Combined with the not so great formatting it isn't worth it. It would be better in hardcopy, but not much. Sorry 75%+ of these 'hard to translate' words have EXACT English words or short phrases to explain the concepts involved. IMO, too much Oriental MA influence with use of the foreign language, which is the other place you see a lot of this.

On the subject matter & the rest of the translation, great stuff, lots of good info, I'd love to recommend it, but not when I'm thinking that it would be great if I had a hardcopy of the glossary to read a book on my e-reader.
4 people found this helpful
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Daisy
1.0 out of 5 stars Could have translated more words
Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2017
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"From quinta, solely with raising the arm and turning the hand into quarta and increasing the passo, he will proceed to guadagnar the sword on the inside of the adversary. The enemy cavando, by rotating under his enemy’s sword, and will throw a dritto fendente to the same figure, but the same figure solely by turning the hand into seconda with the point high and putting the dagger inside of the forte of his sword, will be able to strike the adversary securely in two places, with a thrust in the face and with a cut in the leg."

That's not really a translation, is it? Most of the "untranslatable words" have obvious English equivalents. "Finta" is a feignt, "falso" is the false edge etc. It's annoying to the point where it's unreadable.
7 people found this helpful
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Plotinus
5.0 out of 5 stars All Historical Fencers Need This!
Reviewed in Canada on January 17, 2022
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This is a beautiful book and has been admired for its artwork for centuries without being translated into English for its wisdom. The wisdom is just as beautiful, even moreso! We are very lucky for the excellent work of the translators in making this wisdom available for us to train in the correct way with the rapier, according to Capo Ferro, one of the world's greatest fencing masters.

Some things you might not know, what I have found to be revelations over my journey with Historical European Martial Arts are:
1. As Capo Ferro writes in this book, what he teaches is nothing other than the age-old science and art of the sword. What he teaches was always known, more or less, to everyone everywhere who was serious about sword play. The 16th and 17th Centuries were the first time when it was possible to mass-publish books due to the invention and propagation of the printing press. Thus, the universial truths known to all warriors came to be written down and published for the first time. It is modern misconception that anything about the rapier or Capo Ferro is an "evolution" or "revolutionary". In these more literate times of printing, masters could and did start to write down things which ancient Assyrians would have written down had there been the mass-printing technology to make it worthwhile. Capo Ferro traces the lineage of his fencing style back to the Ancient Assyrians through the Romans and Greeks.
2. The universal art of the sword is based on several things including controlling timing, distancing, and the placement of your sword vis a vis the opponent's. Many manuals don't even bother to mention these since they are so universal. But to people with no idea, like many modern people today, laying these all out clearly in writing with pictures, as does Capo Ferro, is very helpful! To dominate the sword you have three advantages you should aim for: your true edge facing against his false or flat, the part of your sword closer to your hilt facing the part of his sword further away from his hilt which is for leverage, and a true crossing, which is where your sword is placed crossing over top of his. If you attack with your sword placed with these advantages or at least two of them against your opponent whether with blow or thrust, you can attack without him being able to stop it nor to counterstrike you at the same time resulting in a double kill, which would be bad for both of you.
3. The reason it may not be immediately apparent that these universal truths are in all good historical fencing manuals has a lot to do with the specific kind of fighting anticipated. In Capo Ferro's time, a lot of fencing was done indoors in a martial arts club called a "Salle". While the thrust is generally speaking a more direct and more deadly way to attack someone, and this has always been acknowledged even in Medieval and Ancient works, better never meant "only". In the days of the Fencing Salle, since whacking someone with a cutting blow hurt, and could lead to hurt feelings too (Joseph Swetnam even mentions students killing their fencing masters out of rage for getting hit too hard) we can see how the poking play of thrust-centred fencing was going to start to take precedence. In earlier times when you were training more for real warfare (Capo Ferro even says that the sword is a lot less useful in his time compared with artillery and the arquebus) you had to put up with the pain and take the hits. Being poked with a bendy blunt blade with a ball over the tip just doesn't hurt, and the force of a thrust can be much better managed to be kept light. In any case, we see the same 3 advantages in virtually all earlier fencing treatises. For instance, although we might see certain withdrawn un-Capo-Ferro-like guards in places in authors like Macniolino and DiGrassi, when they whirl their bodies and swords into the kind of closer range primarily treated by Capo Ferro, we see the domination of the blade in 4th or 2nd Guards coming into play and the rest being quite congruent with Capo Ferro from there. This is just as true for masters like George Silver (with his inside and outside forehand wards, for example), who was not impressed with what he saw in the apparently diluted and oversimplified kind of rapier instruction being taught around him at second or third hand by "masters" who were not all that good and were teaching what we call "sniping" today where you try to win without dominating the opponent's sword first. Comparing Capo Ferro and the one generation earlier DiGrassi, for example, DiGrassi has his plays starting quite out of range with a withdrawn guard, looking very different from Capo Ferro's central (and in fact only "real") Guard (as he puts it). But then with a provocatory thrust, DiGrassi comes into range with his blade extended and the rest sure looks similar to what Capo Ferro teaches from there! Researchers on the 14th Century I.33 treatise are saying more or less the same thing.
4. This book is highly recommended by the fight coordinator for the justly celebrated Vikings TV series. My interest in swordplay was piqued by this series, but I was initially dismayed thinking incorrectly that we could not reconstruct Viking Age swordplay. This is patently wrong. The scientific use of arms in Capo Ferro's time was the same as in all ages and all cultures. And, given that the Vikings were shield-wielders, it was a very happy revelation for me when I discovered the hsitorical masters saying that the left hand dagger that they taught extensively in their systems is used virtually identically to a shield. Capo Ferro and Giganti (and many others) provide some specific lessons on sword and shield to give you a taste. So, absolutely we can use Capo Ferro to help us reconstruct Viking Age sword and shield play.
A word of warning though is that the gifted exteme intelligence of Capo Ferro comes across in his very complicated style of writing. I personally love his writing as it makes reading a pleasure and quite enriching! However, you might find this style difficult to handle if you don't already know how to fence or are unfamiliar with historical fencing terminology! Just be aware of this. Giganti's works are easier to understand and cover essentially exactly the same universal art of the sword.
5. The rapier is the best place to start to understand all historical fencing, since it cuts the art down to its essentials. It is easy to build on these later to include shields, daggers, cuts, wrestlings etc, but if you start with more complicated weapons or weapon combinations, you'll find it a lot harder to actually understand fencing as the core principles lie in rapier. So, even if you want to learn Viking sword and shield, you should still start with rapier.
6. Speaking again of cuts and how the rapier is often seen as a big step away from them towards thrust-only sword play, this is yet again another oversimplification and exaggeration of history that we see with every kind of superficial study of history. Capo Ferro is quite clear that in a perfect world you do not need any cuts. If you have perfect control of the fight, you will use the thrust alone since it is the more direct blow. He is equally clear, however, that the real world is not perfect and that cuts matter. His plays mostly involve and include them. So, if you love your George Silver, your Bolognese, your Kendo, your Sabre, whatever, you need not feel that Capo Ferro is any kind of blashphemer.
7. This book is neither to short nor too long. Its first half is theory, which is beautifully written and worth many rereadings. Its second half is specific plays that you can instantly start training either on your own or in the Salle with your fencing mates. The images are a wonder to behold and have dream-worlds as backgrounds. There is no doubt but that if you memorize and master all the plays, you will be a very good fencer indeed!
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Javier Hugo
5.0 out of 5 stars Libro imprescindible
Reviewed in Spain on February 17, 2024
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Un libro perfecto para los estudiantes de esgrima, el único problema es que no está escrito en español
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Timo Ryttäri
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice hardcover edition of Capo Ferro's work
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2018
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Don't really have much to comment. Book is hardcover version of Capo Ferro's fencing manual translated to english. As far as I can tell it is quality work and separate glossary of Italian fencing terms is nice addition.
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Thibault
5.0 out of 5 stars Italian Rapier Combat
Reviewed in France on November 1, 2015
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Instructeur AMHE (Arts Martiaux Historiques Européens) au sein de Militia Genavae, je me sers presque la moité de l'année de cet ouvrage qui fut longtemps épuisé: achetez-le vite! Beau et terriblement efficace.
On peut juste regretter que toutes les planches n'y soient pas.
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Chihab Kraiem
4.0 out of 5 stars Empfehlenswert
Reviewed in Germany on December 6, 2013
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Dieses Buch ist keine Interpretation, sondern eine einfache Übersetzung von Ridolfo Capo Ferros bekannten Fechtbuch.
Die Übersetzung ist ganz ordentlich, der Glossar am Anfang ist äußerst Hilfreich und das Format, Layout und Hardcover Einband geben optisch einiges her.
Für jemanden, der sich für das Italienische Rapierfechten interessiert definitiv empfehlenswert.
Der Übersetzung des alten Textes ist es jedoch verschuldet, das man nicht unbedingt alles beim ersten Mal lesen versteht.
Das der Autor hier von einer eigenen Interpretation absieht, ist für eine Übersetzung löblich, ein paar mehr Fußnoten wären jedoch nicht schlecht gewesen.
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