At the origin of an error

Among the many commonplaces that pepper the story of equestrian history, particularly that of the Italian Renaissance tradition, one of the most persistent and widespread is that relating to the existence, in the 16th century, of an alleged Academy in Naples, where the art of horsemanship was supposedly taught. According to the different versions, not only would the two most famous masters of the Kingdom of Naples, namely Federico Grisone and Giovan Battista Pignatelli, have taught riding at this Academy, but Cesare Fiaschi from Ferrara would also have trained there (and, according to some, would even have taught there). What is curious is that, although the existence of this Neapolitan academy is taken for granted and affirmed in practically all the reconstructions of the history of Italian horsemanship, at least from the 18th century until 2013 [1], no trace of it can be found in any source from the period.

On the frontispiece of his famous treatise, Ordini di cavalcare (1550), the first printed work on the art of training horses for war, Grisone simply refers to himself as “Gentil'Huomo Napoletano” (Neapolitan Gentleman), without any mention of his membership of an Academy. Given the prestige of such institutions at the time, it is difficult to believe that the omission of such a title could have been due to a form of modesty, which was not very fashionable at that time. Similarly, none of the numerous accounts of the time, which tell us about Giovan Battista Pignatelli first in Rome, in the service of the Orsini family and then of the Grand Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, then in Naples, where he is said to have retired at an advanced age to teach equestrian art to numerous pupils - including his most illustrious French pupils, Salomon de La Broue and Antoine de Pluvinel - makes no mention of him having taught in an academy. Finally, if we consult the monumental Storia delle accademie d' Italia by Michele Maylander [2] – the most extensive and documented directory on the subject, listing no fewer than 2,050 academies from the 15th to the 19th century – we discover that none of the 177 Neapolitan academies mentioned can in any way be linked to the figures of Pignatelli or Grisone, nor to the teaching of horsemanship in Naples in the 16th century.

So where does this certainty shared by so many authors come from?

So far, my attempts to trace the earliest mention of this alleged Neapolitan academy have led me to identify it in the text of an important foreign author, born in the last decade of the 16th century and author of a famous equestrian treatise. This is William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. Having sided with Charles 1st Stuart during the first English Civil War, after the defeat of the royalist troops by the parliamentary forces at Marston Moor on July 2, 1644, the Marquis of Newcastle left England for Hamburg, in Germany, accompanied by his two sons and his brother Charles. In April 1645, the family settled in Paris. Then, in 1648, Cavendish left France for Rotterdam with the intention of joining the Prince of Wales, who was seeking to form a rebel fleet, but he ended up settling in Antwerp, where he remained until the Restoration in 1660.

Although he no longer had the immense wealth he had enjoyed in England, the marquis, who had always been interested in horse breeding and riding, bought several Spanish and Barb horses and devoted himself to training them in a riding school that attracted the attention of many princes and great lords passing through the Catholic Netherlands. It was at this time that he wrote and had translated into French his Methode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux (Method and New Invention for Training Horses), which was printed in Antwerp in 1657 by Jacques van Meurs. This first edition of the work, decorated with magnificent engravings, is extremely rare because it was published in a fairly limited print run, further reduced by a fire in the bookseller's warehouse [3].

After returning to England, Newcastle, who was made a duke in 1665, withdrew from public life and continued to devote himself to his passion for horses. Yielding to the insistence of his compatriots, in 1667 he published an English edition of his work in London: A New Method, and Extraordinary Invention, to Dress Horses. Although it had the same title, this work was very different from the one published in 1657. In the notice To the readers, the author himself explained that this new text took into account the reflections and experiences he had accumulated since the publication of the first treatise and that it should therefore be considered neither as a translation nor as a supplement, but as a distinct work. This new book was then translated and published in French in London by Thomas Milburn in 1671. According to the publisher himself, who points this out in a short “Avertissement”, this translation contains numerous errors, as the translator was not a horseman and the printer did not know French. We do not know who the translator was, but these circumstances are particularly relevant to our investigation.

The first major difference between the first edition (1657) and the second, in English (1667), of Newcastle's treatise is that, in the latter, the author begins the first part of the treatise with a historical excursus entitled Of the several Authors that have Written of Horsemanship, either Italians, French and English (Des divers auteurs qui ont écrit sur l'équitation, qu'ils soient italiens, français ou anglais).

The work opens with a (rather exaggerated) tribute to the primacy of the Italian masters:

This Noble Art was first begun and Invented in Italy, and all the French and other Nations went thither to learn; the seat of Horsemanship being at Naples [4].

He then lists the Italian authors, starting with Grisone and citing a series of Italian riders who practised their art in England. This brief overview ends with a mention of the Italian master whose teaching has been immortalised by the recognition of his illustrious foreign pupils: Giovanni Battista Pignatelli. Of him, Newcastle writes:

“But the most famous man that ever was in Italy, was at Naples, a Neapolitan, call'd Signior Pignatel; but he never writ: Monsieur La Broue Rid under him five years: Monsieur De Pluvinel nine years: And Monsieur St. Anthoine many years. The Liberty, which is the best for Bitts, at this Day, we call A La Pignatel.” [5]

So far, so good. The duke's judgements are a little harsh and, in fact, in his book Pluvinel claims to have studied under Pignatelli for six years and not nine [6], but Newcastle's summary remains fairly accurate. However, in the French translation of the work, published four years later, there is a significant variation:

“This Noble and Excellent Art was first begun and invented in Italy, where all the French and many other nations went to learn it: This was in Naples, where the first academy for horse riding was established, and Frederic Grison Neapolitan was the first to write about it, which he did as a true horseman and as a great master of an art that was then in its infancy.” [7]

In the French translation, there is mention of an Academy of Naples, which did not appear in the English version (which was probably faithful to the author's text). And not just any academy: nothing less than the first Equestrian Academy! Moreover, if Naples was described by the author as the “centre” of the art of cavalry, it was easy to imagine that this was where the first academy to teach it had been founded. Especially at a time, in the second half of the 17th century, when academies, inspired by 16th-century Italian models, were already fairly widespread institutions in Europe.

Newcastle's authority and the novelty of his succinct initial historical excursus became a model for subsequent treatises. The fact that knowledge of French was much more widespread at the time than knowledge of English and that the first edition of 1657 was very rare favoured the wide distribution of the translation of his treatise of 1671. A historical summary similar to the mistakenly translated Newcastle one can be found, for example, in the 1733 École de cavalerie by François Robichon de La Guérinière, which is clearly inspired by his illustrious English predecessor. He too, in retracing the history of the authors who preceded him, writes:

“M. de La Broue lived during the reign of Henri IV. He composed a folio work containing the principles of Jean-Baptiste Pignatel, his master, who ran an academy in Naples. This school was so highly regarded that it was considered the best in the world. All the nobility of France and Germany who wanted to improve their cavalry skills were obliged to take lessons from this illustrious master.” [8]

The authority of La Guérinière lends an additional seal of approval to the presumed historicity of the Neapolitan academy, where Pignatelli is said to have taught, which, thanks to the great success of the French master's book, became widely known. It is cited, for example, in the splendid treatise by Manoel Carlos de Andrade, Luz da liberal e nobre arte da cavallaria (1790) – a true monument of Portuguese equestrian art – whose initial historical excursus is an almost literal translation of that of La Guérinière:

“La Broue composed a folio volume containing the main maxims of Giovanni Battista Pignatelli, his Master, and of the Academy of Naples. This school achieved such renown in its day that it was considered the best in the world, so much so that all the nobility of Italy, Naples, France and Germany boasted of having taken lessons from such an excellent master.Pluvinel travelled from France to Naples and was also a disciple of Pignatelli, and when, in 1589, Henry IV the Great, King of Navarre, was called upon to succeed to the Crown of France, he accompanied him and became his squire and the Master of Louis XIII, the Just.” [9]

After La Guérinière, moreover, even Italian authors began to mention the Academy of Naples and to praise its primacy. It would therefore seem that this famous institution is the result of a translation error, passed on by word of mouth and established thanks to the authority of foreign authors, almost a century after the supposed time of its existence. However, the question remains as to what inspired such a translation error, and to answer this, it is necessary to clarify what the academies originally were and how they changed over time.

 

To be continued...