One of the greatest swordsmen of an early era was Chevalier de Saint Georges, a half-breed from Guadalupe. Another was Italy’s fabulous Di Grassi. Chevalier de’Eon de Beaumont (1728-1810), peerless in his time, moved from France to England and there founded the family that has been illustrious in the fencing history of England.
The two greatest swordsmen of modern times are Nedo Nadi and Aldo Nadi of Italy. Aldo Nadi, began to fence when he was 4 years old and won his first championship at the age of 12.
Other great professional champions and masters have been: Louis Merignac, Kirchoffer, Louis Rondelle, Raoul Clery and Emile Gouspy of France; A.J. Corbesier, George Heintz and Clovis Deladrier of Belgium; Eugene Pini, Guiseppe (Beppo) Nadi, A. Greco and Italo Santelli of Italy; George Santelli of Hungary; Aurelio Garcia Campo and Julio Martinez Castello of Spain, and B. Bertrand, Leon Bertrand and Edgar Seligman of England. The professional today is almost exclusively a teacher of fencing-a fencing master or “maitre d’armes.” The list of great international amateur fencers includes Lucien Gaudin, E. Gravelotte, P. Cattiau, Georges Buchard, Roger Ducret and Christian d’Oriola of France; Paul Anspach of Belgium; G. Gaudini, 0. Puliti, A. Montano, Gustavo Marzi and Eduardo Mangiarotti of Italy; E. Fuchs, A. Gombos, G. Piller, E. Kabos, Aladar Gerevich, Rudolf Karpati and G. Kovacs of Hungary; Lord Derborough, Charles de Beaumont and Emrys Lloyd of England; R. L. Heide of Norway; A. E. W. de Jong of Holland; Ramon Fonst of Cuba, and George C. Calnan and Joseph L. Levis of the United States.