#Ridolfo Capoferro

[myxineye]

oooo if ur asking for pitty requests maybe like….one of your favorite companions?

ridolfo + iago are my favorites!!! the first thing i did when i got enough crowns was get ridolfo for my witchdoctor, and a big reason why i picked privateer as my second pirate to run through the story is because i could get iago lol

[stormbreaker101]

[dogesterone]

infodumping about my swords and my sword girls

I use my longsword/brunhilde for both italian and german longsword fencing in the styles of fiore dei liberi and johannes liechtenauer. my longsword training is probably the most intense and physical, and i wanted that to be reflected in brunhilde's design. unlike camilla and alexandria, brunhilde's name isn't a reference to anything related to historical fencing; it's a reference to brunhild, a warrior-queen from the volsunga saga and the nibelungenlied. "brunhilde" was actually a name that i considered for myself when i was still figuring out who i wanted to be as a trans woman, but i worried a little bit that it would sound too awkward and outdated.

I use my longer rapier/camilla for italian rapier fencing in the style of camillo agrippa, salvator fabris, and ridolfo capoferro. camilla is actually named after camillo agrippa! camilla is the tallest of the three sword girls because she actually has the longest blade, even slightly longer than my longsword's blade. rapiers used in the italian tradition tend to be extremely long; the one i use is actually a little shorter than average by comparison. capoferro suggests that one use a blade that reaches from the ground to the armpit when positioned upright relative to the wielder's body, as opposed to the likes of george silver and gerard thibault, who explicitly make arguments in favor of shorter blades.

I use my shorter rapier/alexandria for gerard thibault's style of la verdadera destreza (spanish) rapier fencing. alexandria is named after alexander, the character in thibault's book who is always used to demonstrate the "right" way of fencing, according to the author. I wasn't sure if I wanted alexandria to have a more spanish sounding name in reference to destreza, a more french sounding name in reference to the language that thibault's book was written in, or a more dutch sounding name because of thibault's nationality. i ended up settling on something that wasn't any of these things.

[radwolf76]

If you’ve ever wanted the context and history behind the banter traded between Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black during the swordfight upon the Cliffs of Insanity

[bowl-of-wyrms]

The Spiral Animals #1: Unicorns

Guidelines here

I know I said I wasn’t doing any mythical creatures, but I felt that the unicorn NPCs were too important to leave out in this. I’m also biased because I’m Italian and Valencia is one of my favorite worlds. Anyway, here’s the facts:

World of Origin: Valencia

Group Name in Game: N/A

Culture in Real Life: Italian, Spanish

Approximate Time Period: 14th-16th century C.E. Basically during the Italian Renaissance and the Age of Exploration (when Spain and Italy sent explorers to the new world). I based this approximation off of the characters’ clothing and their interactions with Skull Island. 

In-Game Examples: 

Ridolfo Capoferro in Pirate101

Diego the Duelmaster in Wizard101

[dhgfashe]

Come to think of it, swordfighting fans, this is an excellent opportunity to share some nerdery I picked up in the last week or so. Buckle up, because these past two weeks I *have* studied my Agrippa! [BIG ASS THREAD] In the story, a spectacular duel is fought atop the Cliffs of Insanity between a man in black (we will later know him as the Dread Pirate Roberts, and still later as Buttercup's beloved farm boy, Wesley) and Inigo Montoya, the Spaniard (and only known living Wizard of the sword). During the duel, delightfully, the two masters (two Wizards, presumably, since Wesley proves Montoya's equal) actually *talk shop*, cheerfully discussing techniques, gambits and schools as they to and fro across the cliffs. It's one of the most quotable exchanges in film history.  But did you know the terms are grounded in real fencing history? That the terms are, in fact, used correctly and contextually? 

WELL, I'M ABOUT TO LEARN YA.

[SCRIPT] "I see you are using Bonetti's Defence against me," says Montoya, grinning fiercely. 

"I thought it fitting," rejoins the man in black, "given the rocky terrain."

Rocco Bonetti (d. 1587) was an Italian instructor who moved to London sometime in the 1580s to open a "School of English Arms."* Little is known about his origins (genealogical records put him as anywhere between 20 and 90 at his death!), save that he claimed to be a gentleman.

*SHAKESPEARE FACT: The school, in Blackfriars, was later repurposed as the Blackfriars Theatre. Bonetti was married to Eleanor Burbage, whose family owned the building; Richard Burbage, the actor who brought so many of Shakespeare's leads to life, was likely her grandnephew.

At the time, the English gentry were absolutely mad for Italian swordsmanship. Not because it was especially superior to English "defence," but because it was Italian, and in fighting as in music, poetry, science and food, we were looking to Mediterranean fashions. Now, we had English masters (or "maisters," in the writings of the time), instructors who'd travelled to Italy and Spain to learn from the source and returned to open up their own schools and teach the sons of gentlemen, but they were without exception themselves commoners.

Aristocrats who learned in Italy would return and publish, of course, but they didn't teach, as it would have been working for a living, and beneath them. Now here's an actual, bona fide Italian gentleman willing to teach. Bonetti commanded fees up to FIFTY times his peers.

And his peers... did not think well of him. George Silver wrote a scathing attack on him in his Paradoxes of Defence, he was challenged to several duels (which he usually refused), and there were popular (possibly apocryphal) stories of him being beaten by peasants in the street.

Now, we don't actually know anything about Bonetti's style; he never published and there are no contemporary accounts of his techniques. But scholars have speculated about his most notorious fight, the "Waterman's Duel," in which he was thrashed by a boatman wielding an oar. To keep out of reach of the boatman's longer weapon, it's thought, Bonetti would have had to slip (backstep) often; but since he was fighting on the uncertain ground of a riverbank he would have kept his steps small. "Bonetti's Defence," then, is repeated small backsteps. Fitting, as the man in black observes, given the rocky terrain.

[SCRIPT] "Of course, you must expect me to attack with Capoferro, huh?"

Ridolfo Capoferro - that's "Rudolph Ironhead" to you and me - was a late-sixteenth-century master who wrote what's considered the definitive rapier manual. He represents, to many scholars, the culmination of the transition from "swordplay" to "fencing."  15th-century swordplay, with the sidesword, used a wide stance, with a buckler or dagger in the offhand and the sword hand held out from the body. It made much use of cuts, and of sidestepping to dodge and counterattack. Duels thus described a slow circle as fighters manoeuvred.

By contrast, 17th-century fencing, with the longer rapier, used a much narrower stance, with the sword hand straight out in front, sometimes not using the offhand at all. It kept largely to thrusts, and saw sidestepping as extremely vulnerable. Duels were more to-and-fro. Capoferro, in his book Gran Simulacro dell'Arte e dell'Uso della Scherma, cemented this trend, eschewing sidestep techniques for an extremely linear approach. He paid particular attention to the lunge, a deep, heavily-committed thrust; one of the first writers to do so. A lunge, of course, would be an extremely effective tactic for dealing with an opponent who was shuffling backwards all the time.

[SCRIPT] "Naturally, although I find Thibault cancels out Capoferro, don't you?"

Gérard Thibault d'Anvers was a Dutch fencing master schooled in the Spanish style, Verdadera Destreza ("the true Art"). Verdadera emphasized a rounded, humanist education: a student was expected to study Classical authors, mathematics and philosophy alongside the blade.

Thibault was himself a mathematician, and his own system,  "the mysterious circle," was based on geometries and proportions. He wrote on the length of the weapon, the exact positioning of the fingers, the angle the weapon should describe with his body.  His signature move, "subjection," was a mathematically-inspired defence against a thrust in which the defender's blade, angled properly, pushes the attacker's blade to one side, setting up the counterattack. Thibault didn't teach the lunge, which he thought too easy to counter.  Hence, Thibault's subjection cancels out Capoferro's great lunge.

[SCRIPT] "Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. Which I have!"

Camillo Agrippa is by a tidy margin the earliest of the four masters referred to in this exchange. An architect and engineer living in Rome in the mid-sixteenth century, Agrippa was one of the first instructors to apply geometric principles to the challenges of swordplay.  His work set out largely to respond to Achille Marozzo, whose earlier work on swordplay was probably the most influential work of the 16th century. Agrippa saw Marozzo as too ornate and inefficient; famously, he whittled Marozzo's eleven guards down to a "necessary four."

Like Thibault, he used mathematics to work out his techniques, considering angles, posture and leverage. Like Thibault, his defences and counterattacks were extremely efficient. Crucially, Jerónimo de Carranza, the Spanish master who established Verdadera Destreza, was most likely working from Agrippa's work (a contemporary letter by one of Carranza's students makes the claim), so Thibault was essentially Agrippa's heir.

Thus, if there's any way to get around Thibault's brutal subjection, it's probably in Agrippa's equally brutal counters. 

So there you go. Something to remember next time you watch that scene.   [BIGASS THREAD ENDS]

[recoiloperated]

Fun fact- every single fencing master they mentioned is a real master.

Wiktenauer doesn't have anything more than a placeholder for Bonetti though.

365 Movies Challenge #307; The Princess Bride (1987) dir. Rob Reiner: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.“

[pterminiello]

"How to become a complete fencer To become a complete fencer, taking lessons from a Master does not suffice. Instead you should seek to play daily, with various fencers, always if possible practising with those who know more than you. This is because a fencer with great practical ability becomes perfect in this craft.” Ridolfo Capoferro (1610)

[historicalfightingguide]

From  Rui Ferreira Art

‘’ Portrait of Italian renaissance fencing master Ridolfo Capoferro Based on the frontispiece of his fencing treatise "Gran Simulacro dell'Arte e dell'Uso della Scherma" (c.1610)’’

Also check out the artist’s Patreon.

[stormneedle]

Unless, of course, you find that Thibalt cancels out Capoferro.