Tom Leoni has produced an excellent and readable translation of one of the most celebrated Italian rapier treatises. Praised by both later masters and his contemparies, Fabris provided a detailed description of tempo, misura, guards, counterguards, feints and cavazione (as well as many other concepts vital to an understanding of rapier combat of the period). Mr. Leoni has successfully rendered the original Italian text into an English translation that is both faithful to the original work and easily understandable by the modern reader. The book is handsomely presented in a large hardcover edition with excellent reproductions of the original illustrations; not only is it essential reading for any student of the rapier, but it also deserves a place on the shelf of anyone with even a passing interest in Renaissance swordsmanship.
The elegant, deadly rapier is weapon whose memory has survived the centuries through romantic notions of musketeers and duels at dawn. Yet in the days of its use (the late 16th and 17th centuries), it was an efficient tool of self-defence, whose study married the Renaissance love of geometry, proportion and grace to pragmatic, martial efficiency.
Salvator Fabris was one of the seminal masters of this period, the master of a king, and his fencing manual is a perfect mirror of these sensibilities, as well as an open door to those who wish to take up the sword for themselves. In plain, no-nonsense language, he meticulously details the theory of fencing - its immutable laws - and then step-by-step proceeds to teach footwork, guards, attacks and defenses in a series of sample scenarios married to carefuly rendered, detailed illustrations. All of this constantly references back to the theoretical framework, and where event the slightest contradiction is explained by Fabris and the reasons for the seeming "exception", made clear.
Just this section on the sword, sword and dagger and sword and cloak is longer and more detailed than the works of Capo Ferro or Giganti, Fabris' contemporaries, but he presents an entire second half that is essentially a "black-belt" course of advanced techniques unlike any other surviving rapier text. There is a lifetime of material to master in here.
This work was Fabris' opus, and rendering it into modern English has been Tom Leoni's. The raw passion for this master and his book is evident in the way Mr. Leoni has carefully translated Fabris' plain-spoken, yet elegant words into equally plain-spoken and elegant English. This does not read like a Babblefish translation, it reads like well-crafted prose. Married to this is a pair of excellent essays, describing Fabris, his world and the place of his art within that world, and a detailed, illustrated, thematic gloosary. The inclusion of the forword to a German edition of Fabris, published two generations after his death, adds more historical detail, and shows the long arm of his tradition.
Finally, the book itself is stunning, with high-quality scans of illustrations from an original manuscript, a leatherite binding and an evocative dustjacket of the author's own devising. Taken as whole, Salvator Fabris has left us a complete curriculum of rapier fencing - literally the only text you may ever need - and Tom Leoni's modern edition has set a new standard for researchers and translators in the realm of historical European swordsmanship.
