Art Of Dueling 17th Century Rapier As Taught By Salvatore Fabris

The Fabris Method Is Not What You Think

Most people who come to Fabris have already spent time with Silver or Capoferro and assume they understand how Italian rapier works. They do not. Fabris is older than both of them, published in 1606, and his system runs on a completely different logic. The geometry is simpler on the surface but demands much stricter timing discipline. You will see this quickly if you actually try to spar with it instead of just reading the plates. I picked it up about three years ago because I was frustrated by how much theatrical movement modern stage combat had smuggled into HEMA. Fabris has none of that. He treats the rapier as a thrusting instrument first, period. Everything else is secondary. His guards are minimal. His actions are direct. There is very little feinting or drawing out. You commit, you move, you finish. That sounds clean but it is brutal to execute under pressure.

Art Of Dueling 17th Century Rapier As Taught By Salvatore Fabris

The core principle is tempi — what we might call temporal advantage or initiative. Fabris organizes everything around whether you can seize the opponent's tempo or whether you have to yield it. This is not abstract philosophy. It is a physical reality you feel in your wrists when someone hits your blade and moves in at the same time. If you do not understand tempi, you will spend months flailing without knowing why you keep getting hit. The four main guards are prima, seconda, terza, and quarta. Fabris also references quinta occasionally but treats it as a transition rather than a primary position. Each guard has a specific blade placement relative to your body. Prima is the guard of the inside line with the point aimed at the opponent's head or chest. Second is outside, usually low and wide. Third is again inside but higher, sometimes called forte. Fourth is outside and high. Your choice of guard is less about aesthetics and more about which line you are defending and which line you are threatening. Here is where beginners make the mistake. They think Fabris is simple because there are fewer guards than Capoferro's twelve. It is not simpler. The interactions between those four guards create a much tighter closure. There is nowhere to hide. Every action either wins the tempo immediately or loses it entirely. There is no middle ground where you can linger safely.

The most important concept is affondare, which roughly translates to driving forward or attacking with the point. This is Fabris's primary method of taking the tempo. You beat or disengage into the opening and you do not stop. You commit your weight forward while maintaining point control. The distance is usually close, closer than you would fight with a longer sword. Fabris assumes you are operating in a space about three to four feet from your opponent, maybe less. Cedere is the yielding technique. You give ground when you cannot win the tempo directly. This is not retreating in panic. It is a measured step backward while keeping your blade active, drawing the opponent forward into a counter. Fabris uses cedere constantly. He will beat your blade aside and then step back into a riposte rather than meeting force with force. Most students resist this instinctively because it feels passive. It is not passive. It is redirecting the opponent's energy into a disadvantageous position. The tempo guadagnato, or gained tempo, happens when you interrupt the opponent's action mid-motion. You strike their blade or body before they complete their own attack. This requires reading the opponent's intention a fraction of a second earlier than they expect you to. That reading comes from watching their shoulders and lead foot, not their sword tip. The sword tip lies. The body does not.

One of the things that trips everyone up is Fabris's treatment of the forte and debole of the blade. The forte is the strong part near your hilt. The debole is the weak part near the tip. Fabris insists on using your forte against the opponent's debole whenever you make contact. This means controlling the center line with the stronger portion of your blade while exposing only the weaker part when you need to beat or deflect. It sounds straightforward until you are in a bind and your deble is taking the impact instead. You will know immediately because your arm gets driven backward and your point drops. I spent six months trying to spar effectively with Fabris before I realized my problem was not footwork or guards. It was my left hand. Fabris spends significant time on what the off hand should do. He recommends using it to control the opponent's blade, to push, to pull, and occasionally to strike. I had been keeping it idle at my side, which made me asymmetrical and easy to read. Once I started engaging my left hand consistently, even just to manage their blade, my success rate doubled within two weeks. The off hand is not decorative. It is a third limb. Another counter-intuitive point is that Fabris actually prefers straight thrusts over cuts almost exclusively. His treatise includes very few cutting techniques and treats them as last resorts. The point is faster and requires less recovery time. A cut commits your blade into a longer arc. A thrust goes straight through. Under sparring conditions, this distinction matters enormously because you recover your guard position almost instantly after a thrust. After a cut, you are exposed for a critical moment.

The downside of Fabris is that it demands a very specific body type and temperament. It works best for someone who is patient, economical, and comfortable operating at close range. If you are tall with long arms, you might find that your reach advantage gets neutralized more easily because Fabris does not emphasize keeping distance. You will need to adapt some of the principles to your build, which means understanding the underlying mechanics rather than copying the forms. If you are impatient or like to mix it up with lots of activity, Fabris will feel suffocating. You might prefer a later Italian master like Capoferro who gives you more options and more room to create chaos. The line of the forte is probably the most practically useful geometric concept in Fabris. It is the diagonal line running from your hilt toward the opponent's body. Controlling this line means you are positioned to strike while also blocking the opponent's most direct attacks. Losing this line usually means you are compromised. I track it obsessively now. Before I started thinking about it in those terms, I was winning exchanges accidentally and losing them just as often for reasons I could not explain. The botte semplice, or simple blow, is Fabris's fundamental attack. You advance, you beat or step into the opening, and you thrust. There is no feint, no withdrawal, no second action. One movement. This is where most students fail because they add extra steps. They beat, then hesitate, then thrust. Fabris would say the hesitation lost the tempo. The beat and the thrust should be one continuous motion, almost like a single word rather than two separate ones.

I also want to flag a practical issue with training Fabris. Most available translations and DVD courses gloss over the timing sequences. They show the positions beautifully but do not make clear how fast these actions actually occur in a real exchange. Fabris describes actions that in practice take under a second from start to finish. If you drill slowly for months, you will develop muscle memory that is too slow for actual use. You need to eventually practice at near speed, even if you start with light resistance and controlled partners. The timing is part of the technique, not something you add later. Another nuance that rarely gets mentioned is how Fabris handles the immediato response. This is when both you and your opponent launch attacks at the same time. Fabris does not recommend meeting this with another simultaneous attack unless you are certain of your timing. Instead, he prefers to deflect the opponent's blade with your forte while your point continues forward. It is a parry-riposte hybrid executed in one fluid motion. The key is that your parry must be minimal. Large sweeping parries lose tempo. Small, sharp deflections preserve it. If you want to study this properly, Fabris's original text is available in public domain archives. The Lo Schermo, overo Scienza D'Arme has been scanned and digitized by various universities and historical sources. Look for the 1606 Padua edition or the 1611 edition. Some modern translations include commentary that helps bridge the gap between 17th century terminology and contemporary understanding. Reading the plates without understanding the accompanying text is not useful. The plates show the end positions. The text explains how you get there and why you should not deviate.

The biggest warning I can give is this. Fabris is not forgiving of hesitation or indecision. His system will punish you every single time you add an unnecessary motion or fail to commit. That is not a flaw. That is the point. The system is designed to train you into efficient, decisive action. If you are willing to put in the repetitive drilling required to internalize the timing, it will serve you well. If you want something that lets you dance around and hope for openings, look elsewhere.