Ridolfo Capoferro's Gran Simulacro dell'Arte e dell'Uso della Scherma¹

Very little is known about the life of Ridolfo Capoferro of Cagli outside of what can be found inside the pages of his fencing treatise, Gran Simulacro dell'Arte e dell'Uso della Scherma, published first in 1610; what can be found therein is not especially edifying. The text names him as being a master of the German nation, though his city of origin, Cagli, the city in which the text was printed, Siena, and the man to whom the text is dedicated, Federigo Feltrio della Rovere, Prince of the State of Urbino, all reside firmly within the Italian peninsula. Furthermore, Capoferro's style of rapier is clearly in the Italian tradition of fence, possessing many similarities with his fellows. In fact, his treatise is largely derivative of the other manuals at the time; his modern fame stems mainly from his work being translated into English recently, and largely undeserved acclaim as the pinnacle of Renaissance rapier by two heavily biased and deficiently informed Victorian authors, Jacopo Gelli and Edgerton Castle.