Aldo Nadi
Aldo Nadi, the son of a fencing master from Livorno, Italy and brother of Olympic record setting fencer Nedo, was a six foot tall rail-thin explosive dynamo of fencing. After winning three Gold and one Silver Olympic medal in 1920 (Nedo won 5 medals in 1920, all gold, a record unequalled for a single Olympics until Mark Spitz in 1972),
Aldo turned professional during a brief between-war period when fencers traveled Europe like prizefighters, competing in well attended matches for cash purses. In this world of travel, glamour, drinking, womanizing, gambling and fencing, Aldo Nadi reigned supreme, going nearly 8 years without a defeat.
READ MORE...When the time came that no one would any longer choose to meet him in a match, Nadi turned to teaching, first in Paris, then New York and eventually Los Angeles. He taught at various locations in the LA area from 1940 until his passing in 1965. An egoist on a grand scale, Nadi was nonetheless an excellent instructor. However, in his years of teaching in LA and Hollywood, his students never achieved anything like his own level of success.
He worked with some excellent talents, including Jan York Romary, but never developed on his own students who excelled on the national, much less the international, level. His book, “On Fencing”, is still widely read and includes a dramatic description of a somewhat bloody duel Nadi fought as a rash young man.
Articles
LA’s Greatest Hits, 1936
When I have the opportunity to visit someone who has fencing memorabilia that I can scan for my collection, I often don’t get a chance to thoroughly take in the significance of everything I’m working with.
The American Greco
It’s a common enough name. By searching the White Pages for Greco in San Mateo, CA, it returns 388 records. Widen it to the whole of the US and there’s over 36,000. In the fencing world though, one family has a lock on who you think of when putting the names “Greco” and “Fencing” together.
Mystery To Me
The mystery to me today is fencing master John Mckee from Southern California who trained hundreds and hundreds of fencers over decades. For all the people he taught and all the times he was in the paper, it’s his nature and character that I can’t get a handle on.
The Halberstadt Scrapbooks, Book One
As many times as I’ve mentioned the Halberstadt Scrapbooks on this website over the years, I was shocked to realize that I have not, until now, written a defining story about what they are and (to me, at least) their significance.
Never Enough Aldo Nadi
I can’t seem to get more than two or three entries along on this site before Aldo Nadi’s name pops up. Keeps happening.
The Mirror of Sport, 1922
I don’t seem to be able to escape the gravitational pull of Aldo Nadi. Every time I think, “Ok, I don’t need to buy another bit of Aldo Nadi memorabilia”, I find something irresistible and I can’t help myself.
The Superiority of the Individual
I’ve used The Fencer magazine as a source previously. It was a 2-plus year endeavor by a number of fencers from Northern and Southern California to share results and writings about their sport.
The Serial Acquisitionist
One of the terribly fun parts of running the WCFA is the constant hunting for stuff. I’m bringing things in on a fairly regular basis, but like to imagine myself a fairly careful and cautious buyer.
American Fencing Magazine, Issue No. 1
I thought I’d focus on another fencing publication, but this time, the granddaddy of them all; American Fencing Magazine. First published in November of 1949, the early issues give a fair rundown of the happenings across the nation.
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