Frederico Ghisliero
Fredrico Fabio Ghisliero was an Italian fencer and soldier who wrote his text Regole di molte cavagliereschi essercitii in 1587.[1]
Career
Ghisliero was from an upper class Bolognese family. He listed his profession as "soldier," not master-at-arms. He died at Turin in 1619 after a distinguished military career. Ghisliero apparently wrote other material besides Regole and was a mathematician. His other works on siege warfare, fortification, and artillery were unfortunately lost in a 1904 fire in Italy. Dr. Sydney Anglo recounts that Galileo himself appears to have spent an evening at Ghisliero's home.
Theories by Ghisliero
The geometrical concepts in Ghisliero's treatise are explained by the use of a series of concentric circles, with the center being the duelist's back foot (which was usually the foot on which the majority of one's weight rested in most of the systems of the time). Each concentric circle expanded out from the center by the length of one pace. There were also crossing lines, which shared their common midpoint with the central point of the concentric circles. These crossing lines pointed forward, backward, right, and left, relative to the fencer.
Some fencing historians have hypothesized that Ghisliero's use of geometry evidences the influence of the Spanish school (La Verdadera Destreza). However, though the use of geometry is common to both systems, The Spanish School conceived of a single circle between both fencers. Also,
Like the other systems of swordsmanship prevalent in