But over the last couple of years, things have changed. Not only has the volume and quality of current titles increased, but there are now mainstream book publishers who are bringing some of the classics back onto the market.

Barnes and Noble certainly is as mainstream as it gets. And the very fact that they have reprinted the 1932 fencing classic, Barbasetti's The Art of the Foil is an indication that fencing literature is making its cyclical centennial comeback....

Barbasetti is one of the most important figures in 20th-century Central European fencing history. He is one of the most instrumental men to spread the new Radaelli method of saber fencing beyond Italy, and into one of the last bastions of traditional broadsword fencing-the "reactionary" Vienna of Hergsell.

Born at Cividale (Friaul), Italy, in 1859, Barbasetti taught fencing at the renowned Scuola Magistrale at Rome from 1885 to 1891. He then became instructor at a fencing club in Trieste, where he was invited to participate in a tournament by Count Sordina in 1894. Viennese fencers at that tournament were so impressed by his abilities that they invited him to come to Vienna to head a spanking new fencing establishment.

On January 1, 1895, Barbasetti opened his salle at St. Annahof in Vienna. Like Bonnetti 300 years before, his digs boasted revolutionary luxuries... electric light-and a bathroom! On January 18, the statutes of the Union Club were approved. Barbasetti became the accredited fencing master of the club, at the handsome salary of 1,200 guilders.

The Union Club was not just any club. An initiation fee of 20 guilders and annual fees of 100 guilders made sure the riffraff stayed out. When in March of 1895, the club's leadership decided to change the name to Union Fencing Club (UFC), they also voted a true blue blood into the presidency: Alexander Prince von Thurn und Taxis...who was to remain in office until 1938.

Out of the 45 members registered by 1896, the majority belonged to the Austrian, Hungarian, and German high nobility, court functionaries and foreign ambassadors... a membership exclusive and influential enough to make Emperor Franz Joseph himself allow the club to carry the distinguishing acronym k.u.k. in its name in 1912, and allowed the club to add the Imperial eagle to its coat of arms in 1913.

Much like his compatriot Saviolo in Elizabethan London, Barbasetti made good use of his connections, publishing his Das S\'8abelfechten (1899), Das Sto\'a7fechten (1900) and his Ehrenkodex(1898 and 1901) to add both to his revenues and reputation, while creating a continuing demand for his services. In 1904, he founded the Akademie der Fechtkunst in Wien, modeled on the Academia nazionale di scherma in Rome. He became president, systematically expanding his influence internationally until he retired from this office in 1910. When World War I broke out-pitched the Austro-Hungarian Empire against Italy-Barbasetti returned to Italy.

By then, most of civilized Central Europe was fencing according to the Radaelli method...

The Art of the Foil is Barbasetti's longest lasting legacy, more so than his work on saber and épée. Like Nadi's On Fencing, it represents one of the purest expressions of the 19th-century Italian school of fencing. As such, it should be part of every fencer's library, along with Nadi and Gaugler's The Science of Fencing.

It has become fashionable among those who prefer the "martial" approach to swordplay to the arduous life-long process of working toward a status of mastery that can only be bestowed on by other masters to discount or patronize the masters of the foil...and their take on fencing history.

Barbasetti, trained in the military and civilian uses of foils, duelling sword, and saber, was steeped in the rigid traditions of honor and satisfaction as practiced by Austro-German bluebloods. (In fact, his expertise was accepted so widely, that his 1898 Ehrencodex (Code of Honor) was the leading guide through matters of honor until World War I.) He probably attended more saber Mensuren, saber and pistol duels than any other non-German fencing master. And his observation as to what kind of cut typically terminated a cut-and-thrust duel indicates that he had a pretty good idea about the psychological mechanisms that come to bear in a life-and-death encounter. Which, in my opinion, elevates him and his judgment far above those Johnny-Come-Latelies who so loudly proclaim to be practicing The Killing Arts with Padded Steel.

A product of his tradition, Barbasetti is more interested in the lore and literature of the sword than in critically examining the medieval and traditional Renaissance schools. Which is privilege. And which does not detract at all from his position as one of the Illuminati of Fencing in the 20th century.