Dardi's, dall'Agocchie's and Manzolino's—Oh my!
Research Updates
Introduction:
Greetings friends, I’m on another research bender, which means lots of new and exciting findings that help provide context for the history of Bolognese fencing. I’ve been digging through the digital archival records of the city of Bologna and Imola, so there is a lot to share. This article is going to be divided in two parts, the first half for our free subscribers, and an exclusive look ahead for our paid subscribers. We don’t really do a great job of providing exclusive content—we’re generous like that—but I figured this would be a nice way to reward our financial patrons.
Right now, I’m working on building a comprehensive history of the Manzolino family. In, the Siege of Bologna, Death before Dishonor installment, Stephen alluded to the fact that Antonio Manciolino’s house was destroyed by the Spanish. How do we know that? Well, we have some intriguing new information to share. That article will be out eventually, but before it sees the light of day for everyone’s enjoyment, I wanted to give some inside baseball, as to what the research process looks like for our paying cohort. So far, I’ve collected 217 specific citations from roughly 20 sources, with over 80 unique figures from 1250 to 1550. The Manciolino/Manzolino story is rich and complex.
But, before I slap a paywall on this puppy, let’s take a look at some relevant and exciting new things I’ve uncovered in the last few weeks.
Dardi:
We’ve been hot on the trail of Filippo di Bartolomeo Dardi for some time. Starting with Dardi Deeds: Part 1 which allowed us to really get close to the good professor in Dardi Deeds: Part 2. Well, while looking for my glut of Manzolino’s, I happened upon this note in a list of registered Notai in the city of Bologna.
This came up in a second sweep of, Indice dei notai bolognesi dal 13. al 19. secolo, by Angelo Ridolfi. That would be Filippo Dardi’s son, Giorgio, who it seems became a registered Notai in Bologna while his old man was teaching at the Università di Bologna. Notai served a number of different roles in the civic structure of the city: they were lawyers, officiants of deeds, politicians, advisors, etc. To become a Notai, you would have to study law, specifically Roman law, at the Università. The Società dei Notai were a powerful guild, and notably one of the ‘noble’ professions in Bologna—which lends credence to the notion we floated in the Dardi Deeds installments, that Dardi’s appointment as a professor was in many ways an act of political transcendence.
Speaking of Lippo Dardi, while paroozing through {deep breath}, Il fondo speciale Instrumenti nella Bibiloteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio; Riordinamento e regestrazione dei documenti dei secoli XIII-XV, I found the good Doctor! Listed in the index as: ‘Dardi, Lippus Bartolomei, maestro, dottore in arti e medicina’. Document 72, which is a transcription of Busta n. 3, n. 9, dated 23 June and 29, 31 August 1444, is a payment order from the Anziani and Gonfaloniere di Giustizia ordering the Despoitory of the Duties and Goods, Virgilio Malvezzi to pay the salaries of the following Doctors of the Studio—the Università di Bologna—for the current year, for a sum of 14,000-15,000 bolognese lire. Under the heading, Arti e medicina; or the Art of Medicine, there is one Lippus Bartolomei Dardi earning, 1. 100.
In Dardi Deeds part one, I highlighted the assessment of Serafino Mazzetti in his {deep breath}, Repertorio di tutti I professori antichi, e moderni della famosa universita, e del celebre Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna, that the Spanish Lippo and Bolognese Lippo Dardi were not one in the same. He also notes that Dardi started teaching Astrology in 1444, and in my assessment, that’s likely in reference to the citation above, as astrology was an integral part of medicine in the mid-15th century. Of course, as we pointed out in the Dark Arts of Bologna, it also had some deep ties to the underground practice of the Occult, and there were more than a few nefarious scandals that originated from the Università di Bologna’s Astrology, and Medical departments.
1030. DARDI Lippo, or Filippo son of Bartolomeo Bolognese. He was lecturer in Arithmetic and Geometry from the year 1443 to the whole of 1463. In the same year 1444, he also professed Astrology. Alidosis was mistaken by the solitary reader.
If we were to compare that to the tables found in Alessandro Battistini and Niki Corradetti’s, Income and working time of a Fencing Master in Bologna in the 15th and early 16th century, we can see that it was certainly more profitable for Dardi to teach fencing than it was for him to teach students at the university:
With a self-prescribed maximum class size of 20 students, he could make almost three times the annual salary with his fencing school. Interestingly, the correspondence with Caccialupi and Manfredi: Archivio di Stato, Bologna, Comune, Governo, envelope N°318, “Riformagioni e provvigioni”, Miscellaneous series, envelope N°5., indicates that his salary started as 200 lire, and was negotiated down to 150, but here in Malvezzi’s release of funds, he’s only earning 100 lire.
Historically there are a number of possible explanations for this further reduction. One, Bologna was under significant external pressure from the Visconti at this time, and it’s possible that Dardi wasn’t lecturing as much as he intended because he was too busy training the city’s youth. Alternatively, he could’ve sucked as a professor. The Università di Bologna was a meritocratic institution, and if the students felt like a professor wasn’t up to the task they could control said lecturers’ salary with poor attendance or negative feedback. Similarly, if Dardi didn’t meet the expected number of lectures or hours teaching, his salary could’ve been reduced.
Either way, fascinating little finds that really shed some further light on the life of Lippo Dardi. At this point—I believe—we know more about Dardi’s life than any other fencing master in Bologna—unless…
Giovanni Giorgio dall’Agocchie:
In case you missed it, I did a deep dive on the Agocchie or dall’Agocchie families in Bologna all the way back in November, called Giovanni dall’Agocchie: Part 1, as a follow-up I detailed the history of pedagogical marital institutions in Bologna, in an article titled, the Knights of Viola: Giovanni dall’Agocchie Part 2. In the first article I identified two potential candidates for the fencing author Giovanni dall’Agocchie: Giovanni Giorgio and Giovanni Paolo. I know, most of you {if not all of you} are rooting for the bad-boy, Giovanni Paolo—convicted heretic, who's dating a witch, and goes on the run to Geneva. I get it—I do. But let’s talk about the alternative for a moment.
While looking through, ATTI DEI NOTAI DEL DISTRETTO DI BOLOGNA Indice Alfabetico Dei Notai Secc. XV- Inizio XX. VI_406, a document preserved by the State Archives of Bologna, listing the career span of a number of registered Notai, preserved by the Società dei Notai {all of this Notai business will make sense later, I promise}, I happened across a note on our prospect Giovanni Giorgio dall’Agocchie. Interestingly, it lists his career as a Notai over the course of a forty-six-year period from 1540-1586.
If we presume that Giovanni Giorgio would’ve had to acquire—at minimum—a basic law degree to take up work as a Notai, we can estimate a date of birth sometime around 1520 or even the late 1510’s (an important note for later research). That would mean his formative years learning fencing would presumably fall in the 1530-1550 range. This would put him in the wheelhouse of learning fencing from Marozzo in his prime or even Achillini (depending on the structure of Academia Viridario). It’s also worth noting that this would mean Giovanni was roughly 18 years older than his patron Fabio Pepoli, who was born in 1538. A dedication that reads:
TO THE VERY ILLUSTRIOUS LORD,
The Lord Count Fabio Pepoli, Count of Castiglione, my Lord and always very observant patron.
The knowledge that since your tender years your illustrious Lordship has greatly delighted in the virtue that pertains to an honored Knight, and the spirit that I have always had to serve you and do you gracious things, have often made me desire to be able to make some sign thereof unto you. Accordingly, having now decided to publish the present work, I have determined that it will carry with it the honored name of your Illustrious Lordship. I present it to you thus, not in order to even with you via this humble gift the debt that I owe you, which is so far beyond the reach of my feeble abilities, but to leave you with some testimony of my adoring servitude. Whence I entreat your Illustrious Lordship to accept it kindly and with the unique courtesy that I have always recognized in the singular goodness of your soul, so that I may place this debt alongside the infinite others that I owe you. And with reverent kisses to the hand of your Illustrious Lady, I pray unto our Lord God that He deigns to grant you the fullness of all your wishes.
Your Illustrious Lordship’s Very dear servant,
Giovanni dall’Agocchie.
With this context, when you read, “(t)he knowledge that since your tender years your illustrious Lordship has greatly delighted in the virtue that pertains to an honored Knight,” it begins to read with a sense of familiarity to his patron in his youth. Further admonished with, “but to leave you with some testimony of my adoring servitude.”
Perhaps Giovanni was hired by the great Girolamo Pepoli, Fabio's father, to train the boy in his youth sometime in the 1540’s. Whereby he used his experience over the intervening 30-odd-years to compose his fencing manual, Dell'Arte di Scrima Libri Tre—a work composed in the setting of the magnificent Palazzo of Girolamo Martimenghi, a friend and confidant of aforementioned Girolamo Pepoli when he was a Governor in Verona and Vicenza on behalf of the Venetian Republic.
This is certainly an intriguing prospect and affords us a span of years to narrow our focus to see if we can learn more about this prospective relationship. We will have an article out soon, part 3 of our dall’Agocchie series, focused on the crazy life of Fabio Pepoli, so keep your eyes peeled for that in the coming months.
Here are some sources for both Dardi and dall’Agocchie, before we get into the paid content:
Works Cited:
Ridolfi, Angelo Calisto, and Grandi Venturi, Graziella. Indice dei notai bolognesi dal 13. al 19. secolo. Italy, n.p, 1990. LINK.
Mazzetti, Serafino. Repertorio di tutti i professori antichi, e moderni, della famosa università, e del celebre istituto delle scienze di Bologna: con in fine Alcune aggiunte e correzioni alle opere dell'Alidosi, del Cavazza, del Sarti, del Fantuzzi, e del Tiraboschi. Italy, Tip. di S. Tommaso d'Aquino, 1847. Link.
Foschi, Paola. Il fondo speciale Istrumenti nella Bibiloteca comunale dell’Archiginnasio. Riordinamento e registrazione dei documenti dei secoli XII-XV. Comune di Bologna. Digital.
Battistini, Alessandro, and Niki Corradetti. “Income and Working Time of a Fencing Master in Bologna in the 15th and Early 16th Century”. Acta Periodica Duellatorum, vol. 4, no. 1, May 2016, pp. 153–176, https://doi.org/10.36950/apd-2016-005.
Tirelli, R., et al. “ATTI DEI NOTAI DEL DISTRETTO DI BOLOGNA Indice Alfabetico Dei Notai Secc. XV- Inizio XX. VI_406” Archivio Di Stato Di Bologna, 2025.
Swanger, Jherek. Giovanni dall’Agocchie, Dell’Arte di Scrimia, “The Art of Defense: on Fencing, the Joust, and Battle Formation”, lulu press, May 5, 2018. PDF.
Real Quick Road Ahead:
We’ve got some awesome stuff coming up:
Podcasts:
Alexander Fürgut: The Shielhau in Detail
Martin Fabian: Fechtbook Fabian
Jeff Tsay: Paulus Hector Mair
Christian Cameron: The Venetian Heretic
We’re turning into the coolest book club in the world—deal with it!
—Someone somewhere
Articles:
Death before Dishonor: Were getting closer to the duel now, tensions are starting to rise!
Fabio Pepoli Article (Final source acquired! Thank you Aaron Miedma!)
Virtues of Fencing Article
Manzolino Family Article
Baldassare Cossa Series: I decided to turn it into a series, it’s 25,000 words and I’m only halfway done, it’s practically a novel at this point. Look for this when Stephen wraps up Death before Dishonor.
Now on to the crazy world of Manzolino’s!
Antonio Manciolino:
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