Italian Neaples High School is often mentioned for his cruelty, and it was; but you have to consider that those were very cruel times in general. If you read carefully the three masterpieces of such period (by Grisone, Corte and Fiaschi) you'll find something very interesting: the deep roots of Classical High School, then developed in France by Pluvinel and other French Masters.
The problem is, that they are written in ancient Italian and in exotic characters...
I am trascribing them literally, but with modern characters and with many interesting hyperlinks, into Italian wikisource, as I told you. I could too "translate" them into modern Italian (a difficult task, dealing sometimes with very confusing ancient tecnical words... but I could do something about with the help of experts as col. Paolo Angioni), but I can't do the last step, t.i. translating them into English. I'd need the help of some of you, who can read, more or less, modern Italian and who can write English fluently... any volunteer here?
nevertheless, drawings speak an universal language. Here some drawings from Corte's book, 1562, about basic training exercises; Corte speaks a lot about the significance and effectiveness of the "roteggiare", t.i. circling, and gives very detailed schemas and schedules about (from walk, slowly going on into faster gaits).
Three "large" circles, three "small" circles and very detailed notices about their use.
A large circle who slowly shrinks, named "snail" [lumaca]
Serpentine [serpeggiare].
See:
http://it.wikisource.it/wiki/Il cavallarizzo
Here an ancient drawing about an indoor arena from Fiaschi's book:
And here from the same book something really surprising: music of dressage!
Trascription work in progress, here:
http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Fiaschi.djvu
Register
Login
FAQ
Search