Interesting book covering 1300-1800 boxing in Venice

[Marchegiano]

The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice

It's focus is stick fighting over a bridge, not boxing, but there is a lot of boxing in it.

It's very interesting because there's quite a lot established in Italian boxing history that seems to be accredited to English boxers today.

Stuff like gloves for example.

If you want some well respected authority to tell you Broughton looked at statues of Greeks to re-invent the modern boxing glove just read his page on CBZ.

However Broughton was a guy trained by Figg and Figg's first star pupil was a fella named Bob Whittaker who fought a Venetian boxer in the first international fight a decade before Jack is champion.

I find it pretty suspect myself. How on earth could Broughton be ignorant to the gloves used by Italians in his own time but not ignorant to the gloves used by Greeks thousands of years before his own time?

I'm not far enough in the book to compare the Venetian side of the Whittaker fight to the English story so I don't know if it is addressed or not, but that's just one example anyway.

I could be wrong, but, my eyes caught 25ish times the word boxing was used. I'm sure there's even more times when the author is talking about boxing but doesn't need to use the word.

If you're interested in where **** came from it is a really good book. Not a lot of answers, but, it did show me my questions were wrong in the first place. I'm going to do less digging in the bare knuckle guys and more into the duelists of the knights' era.

[Zonkmeister]

Good find.

Not a bad idea to look into general dueling culture pre-19th Century, or perhaps even the spread of the rapier as the weapon of choice. According to this medieval-reenactment nerd guy I talked to at a party recently, knights did also engage in fist-fights according to the chivalric dueling rules (the choice of weapon was usually left to an adjudicator of some sort/the wealthier duelist with higher status), although I'm not quite certain whether they did it bare-knuckle (I doubt it) and they most probably wore armor of some sort while going at it (most probably leather).

[QueensburyRules]

- -In short, our boxing ain't their boxing...next!

[Marchegiano]

- -In short, our boxing ain't their boxing...next!

Human culture tends to not follow this mindset

[Marchegiano]

Good find.

Not a bad idea to look into general dueling culture pre-19th Century, or perhaps even the spread of the rapier as the weapon of choice. According to this medieval-reenactment nerd guy I talked to at a party recently, knights did also engage in fist-fights according to the chivalric dueling rules (the choice of weapon was usually left to an adjudicator of some sort/the wealthier duelist with higher status), although I'm not quite certain whether they did it bare-knuckle (I doubt it) and they most probably wore armor of some sort while going at it (most probably leather).

Oh, yes, of what I can find fist-fighting duels are extremely interesting.

I can't say why I just though to look into Veneto recently but in the past I had tried to follow Rome to the UK, so to speak, and found myself in Russia.

To make a long story short, the best kept records I could find the first go I had at post roman-pre english boxing was found in Orthodox states because Christendom had banned boxing.

That's some interesting stuff too.

[billeau2]

The War of the Fists: Popular Culture and Public Violence in Late Renaissance Venice

It's focus is stick fighting over a bridge, not boxing, but there is a lot of boxing in it.

It's very interesting because there's quite a lot established in Italian boxing history that seems to be accredited to English boxers today.

Stuff like gloves for example.

If you want some well respected authority to tell you Broughton looked at statues of Greeks to re-invent the modern boxing glove just read his page on CBZ.

However Broughton was a guy trained by Figg and Figg's first star pupil was a fella named Bob Whittaker who fought a Venetian boxer in the first international fight a decade before Jack is champion.

I find it pretty suspect myself. How on earth could Broughton be ignorant to the gloves used by Italians in his own time but not ignorant to the gloves used by Greeks thousands of years before his own time?

I'm not far enough in the book to compare the Venetian side of the Whittaker fight to the English story so I don't know if it is addressed or not, but that's just one example anyway.

I could be wrong, but, my eyes caught 25ish times the word boxing was used. I'm sure there's even more times when the author is talking about boxing but doesn't need to use the word.

If you're interested in where **** came from it is a really good book. Not a lot of answers, but, it did show me my questions were wrong in the first place. I'm going to do less digging in the bare knuckle guys and more into the duelists of the knights' era.

I have been convinced of this relationship for a long time. You see it in the technique, the distance, and we have Figg...

[ShoulderRoll]

I stumbled across this Venetian bridge fighting some time ago and was intrigued.

Recently several living traditions of Italian knife fighting have been brought out of obscurity by researchers. In a similar vein, might there be more "boxing" in Italy that predated Figg and England? That we never knew about or overlooked?

[billeau2]

The three traditions

keep in mind that in Europe there were three main schools of the sword. You had the German fencing, Italian fencing and Spanish fencing. I say "main" because we have records of the teachers, the style, and techniques past down.

The Schools had some main attributes: Spanish, Iberian fencing, perhaps the most immanently useful, emphasized natural, walking movements while using the blade. This tradition also developed knife fighting schools using a long thin blade. The school also had a cross pollination with Japanese schools during the Portuguese Japanese meetings. Stick fighting was also part of this tradition "Jogo do pau" used short staff and medium staff primarily.

The German school: emphasized fighting lines... the theory used the circle with is 360 degrees to emphasize the way to secure a line into the opponent. This school emphasized medium to long bladed weapons, also incorporating sticks and grappling. Lichenstein was a teacher that left a record of teachings, and there are drawings, etchings showing the positioning of fencers attempting to cut over, at the right angle, at at opponent.

The Italian school, which was a comprehensive fighting tradition, emphasized using a variety of sword lengths, and was probably the main influence on figg. italian sword work was ubiquitious in renaisance England. One of the problems faced by the schools were the use of impractically long swords, which were often defeated by the "B a stard" sword, an ugly short weapon with a grip the lenghth of the blade, and that could be weilded with one, or two hands.

These traditions all had grappling, fist fighting, etc... Like Figg's conception of boxing, they all applied blade theory to the use of other weapons... It is worth noting that England, and other European designated areas, had staff fignting, and sword work that was independent of the sword schools, probably influenced by Roman fighting theory originally. Also, German military theory was somewhat seperate from the sword fighting school (unlike the Iberian sword schools)... Germany being the last foothold of Feudalism in Europe, employed many weapons of distance, such
as the pike, etc. Northern Europe as well, had military traditions that were independent of the sword schools.