I’ve been doing a lot of research regarding feints in fencing – both historical and classical lately.  Here’s a section that I wrote on the feints described by Capoferro.  This is still a work in progress – please excuse the use of modern terminology in my interpretations of the text.

Capoferro writes that feints are “those deceitful gestures of the sword” that “strike directly at the opposite of that which they gesture.  He writes that feints can be made with the cut, the thrust, to the outside, or inside of the sword, high, low, forward and back,  circularly as well as in direct or indirect lines.   He includes covering the sword as a kind of feint, which is done by “covering the point of the adversary’s sword with the debole of your sword, when one happens to be in low quarta, and needs to be done in a straight line.”

Given his earlier words on the vulnerability of the feint to the counterattack, it comes as no surprise that the majority of feints in his book are intended to draw, and defeat the opponent’s counterattack.  In plate 7, Capoferro describes what would now be referred to as the first form of countertime.  Plates 9, 18, and 17 demonstrate the second form of countertime with an inquartata in countertime, and a scannatura in countertime.  Only in plate 11, does he describe the opponent parrying rather than counterattacking, and he directs the final thrust to the flank with a pass.  Each of the feints that Capoferro describes is initiated with a disengagement, and like Giganti, Capoferro recommends that the feint be executed while keeping the body somewhat held back.