Ridolfo Capo Ferro

Ridolfo Capo Ferro da Cagli (Ridolfo Capoferro, Rodulphus Capoferrus) was an Italian fencing master in the city of Siena, best known for his rapier fencing treatise published in 1610.

He seems to have been born in the town of Cagli in the Duchy of Urbino (nowadays Province of Pesaro e Urbino), but was active as a fencing master in Siena, Tuscany. Little else is known about his life, though the dedication to Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, the young son of Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere, may indicate that he was associated with the court at Urbino in some capacity. The statement at the beginning of Capo Ferro's treatise describing him as a "master of the great German nation" likely signifies that he was faculty at the University of Siena, either holding a position analogous to dean of all German students, or perhaps merely the fencing master who taught the German students.

Capo Ferro's treatise Gran Simulacro dell'Arte e dell'Uso della Scherma ("Great Representation of the Art and Use of Fencing") was printed by Salvestro Marchetti and Camillo Turi in Siena, with illustrations by Rafael Schiamirossi, and is divided into two parts: Art and Practice.

In the first part, he gives the general principles of swordsmanship and fencing, with the second part of his book covering actual techniques, described in text with accompanying illustrations. His work is interesting in that some methods that he denigrates in his theory he uses in his actions; most notably, he dismisses feints as dangerous or useless (depending upon the situation) and then uses them liberally in various actions in the second part of his book.

The sword that Capo Ferro recommends should be "twice as long as the arm, and as much as my extraordinary pace (i.e., the lunge), which length corresponds equally to that which is from my armpit down to the sole of my foot." For a 6' tall man, this would equate to a 4 1/2' long sword.

The book covers the use of the single rapier, including basic sword grappling, as well as rapier and dagger, rapier and cloak, and rapier and rotella, a most unusual combination for the period, though far more common in the tradition of swordsmanship of the 16th century, which preceded it. The rotella is a medium-sized concave round shield of approximately 60 cm in diameter with two straps to hold it. Similar metal shields survive, particularly from Spain in this period, though very few from Italy, implying that these shields were made of a perishable material such as wood or leather or a composite of such materials. The manual also includes techniques for fighting against a left-handed opponent.

While many modern reference books state that rapiers were either blunt on their edges or only had sharp edges in order to discourage blade grabs because they were not suitable for the cut, nearly 30% of the techniques included in Capoferro's treatise use the cut as a primary or secondary option.

Capoferro's book was reprinted in Siena in 1629 by Ercole Gori, who had the plain backgrounds in twenty-seven of Schiamirossi's original illustrations replaced with intricate depictions of scenes from the Bible and Greek mythology; this version was reprinted in Bologna in 1652 by G. Longo. A third Siena printing was made in 1632 by Bernardino Capitelli, who omitted all of the introductory material and truncated the descriptions of the plays; he also commissioned new illustrations based on those of the first edition but scaled down to half size.