Author’s Note – I’m in the process of opening a
fencing academy and I’m writing a syllabus and text to complement the lessons. Time is, unfortunately, limited and sometimes
I don’t have time to get all the writing I want done, to meet deadlines. Hopefully, even though this is not part of my
core focus for this blog, you will find it at least amusing, if not
interesting.
“Nails
up” ... “Palms down” ... Quarte or is it Carte? ... First,
Second, Third and Fourth Position? ... What does it all mean?!
Fencing
masters of the late 18th through the 19th centuries often
assumed that you knew what they were speaking of, and if you didn’t, it can be hard
to decipher their writings and understand the correct position that your hand
must take when attacking or defending with a sword. But when I first started exploring historic
sword fighting of the late 18th and early 19th centuries,
pre-internet, some forty some years ago, questions like these were hard to
answer. It took me months, and quite a
few inter-library loan requests from collections world-wide, to answer these
questions.
There
are between six and eight hand positions possible in sword fighting, whether
you are using a foil, a rapier or a broadsword.
These positions are all defined by the positions of your fingernails,
palms and forearms.
The
early Italian system, taught by Camillo Agrippa, of Milan, and the later system
taught by Maestro Luigi Barbasetti, both had four primary hand positions and
two intermediate hand positions.
The
four hand positions move in a circle from First
Position to Fourth Positions as you turn your fingernails, palm and forearm
to face upward (supinate), or you turn your palm and forearm to face downward (pronate).
Hand Positions Two, Three and Four
Positions Two, Three and Four
are used to make cuts or to form the Outside, Inside or Medium Guard.
In the Second Position
your sword hand is pronated and to the outside, with the
palm of the sword hand down. In this
hand position the blade’s “true edge”, or cutting edge, faces to the
outside line.
In
the Third Position your sword hand is neutral, neither in a pronated or
supinated position and below. The third
hand position was called “terza” and is made with a knuckles-down
position of the sword hand, the true edge facing downwards. This is a hand position half-way between the Second
and the Forth position and is the least tiring of the positions.
In
the fourth position or “quarta”, your sword hand is supinated, and to
the outside, with the palm of the sword hand up.
Don’t forget to come back next week and read part two where discuss Hand
Positions One, Five and Six.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Sources
Barbasetti,
Luigi; La Scherma di Spada, [Milano, Tipografia Alessandro Gattinoni,
1902], https://drive.google.com/file/d/16bQcbQ1jND0EDbKTS1jSPpaLK0UEth1H/view,
accessed October 11, 2025
Barbasetti,
Luigi; The Art of the Sabre and Épeé, [Ithaca, New York, The Cayuga
Press, 1936], https://medievalswordmanship.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/the-art-of-the-sabre-and-the-epee.pdf,
accessed October 11, 2025
Leoni, Tom; “A Brief
Glossary of Italian Rapier Concepts”, [©2002], https://www.thearma.org/rapierglossary.htm#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cperspective%E2%80%9D).-,Prima%20(First).,is%20particularly%20effective%20against%20cuts,
accessed October 11, 2025
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