Italo Santelli
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| Born |
August 15, 1866 Carrodano (La Spezia), Italy |
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| Died |
February 8, 1945 (aged 78) Livorno, Italy |
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Medal record
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Italo Santelli (August 15, 1866 – February 8, 1945) was an Italian fencer who is considered to be the "father of modern sabre fencing".
Italo Santelli was born in Carrodano (La Spezia), Italy in 1866. He studied at famous Italian schools, including the Scuola Magistrale of Rome (Scuola Magistrale Militare di Roma), where he graduated in 1889. In 1896 Santelli was considered an established fencing master, and Santelli moved to Budapest together with brother Otello, also a fencer, and his wife. Santelli had his son, Giorgio, in Hungary in 1897, who always kept his Italian citizenship, before leaving in the USA.
It was in Hungary that Italo Santelli began to create a new style of sabre fencing. The style involved a much more quick defense than classical training called for, and became known as the "modern style" of Santelli.
Santelli displayed this modern style at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris on the Italian team. He came in 6th at the foil competition, but took home a silver medal in sabre, his teammate Antonio Conte taking the gold.
At the 1924 Summer Olympics, Kovacs, a Hungarian judge, made a controversial call in a fencing match, siding with France over Italy. An Italian fencer, Aldo Boni, verbally attacked the judge for the ruling and refused to apologize when asked. Santelli was called in as a witness to Boni's outbreak, and the Italian team was forced to resign from the competition.
Once in Italy, the Italian team's captain, Adolfo Cotronei, accused Santelli of speaking out against Boni to remove them from the competition, supposedly fearing they would eliminate his adopted nation of Hungary, who would go on to take the bronze at the 1924 Games. Cotronei challenged Santelli, already past 60 years of age, to a duel. Giorgio Santelli, under the rules of the "code duello", took his father's place in the fight, and won the duel with a riposte to Cotronei's face. Santelli went on to coach numerous notable fencing students over the course of his career.
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