[Danny Grigg]

Can anyone provide information on the term "Pugnale Bolognese"?

Is this just a generic Italian term for a Left Hand Dagger (Parrying Dagger / Main Gauche) or does it mean a specific type of Left Hand dagger?

I know Pugnale means dagger in Italian.

There's a picture of one at the following link. The dagger in the link has a wavy blade, perhaps Pugnale Bolognese is a left hand dagger with a wavy blade?

Are there any books or references I can check out regarding this? Harold Peterson's "Daggers and Fighting Knives of the Western World" doesn't shed any light on the subject.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/decw/ho_26.145.94.htm

Thanks

[Peter Johnsson]

"Bolognese" means "from Bologna" (the city).

Left hand daggers of this general style (with straight or vawy blades) would have been made in most arms producing towns/cities in Italy at the time.
Why it is connected to Bologna, I cannot say. Perhaps these is something in the style of decoration, or simply a makers mark that tells of its place of manufacture.

[Daniel Parry]

The pugnale bolognese if often associated with Marozzo and his period of Italian fencing and is often larger than the normal main gauche having a straight or flamberge blade, and used by the Bologna school of fencing. Examples I've seen can exceed 18 inches.

See websites on

alliancemartialarts.com
achillemarozzo.it
arti-marziali.com



Daniel

[Daniel Parry]

Tried to find more info for you but not much I can dig up. As far as I have seen it's a term for left hand daggers generally of the 16th century in Italy and quite large. There are some plates you can see on those websites of Marozzo and contemporaries showing use of the dagger with sword or with cloak (indicating I would think that the pugnale bolognese was large enough to be used as a primary weapon). Certainly the ones I've seen in the flesh were quite large. But as you suggest it may have come to be used more generically, without any particular association with Bologna, size or period.


Daniel

[Peter Johnsson]

Thanks David!

I did not know that.
Sorry to spread possible desinformation.

[David Black Mastro]

As already mentioned, pugnale means "dagger" (compare with the Latin pugio and the Spanish punal), and Bolognese means from Bologna. In the early 16th century, Bologna was a major center for fencing (under Achille Marozzo), and spada e pugnale (sword-and-dagger) was a traditional Bolognese method of swordplay. I imagine that the daggers used by Bolognese swordsmen simply got their name from the city of those who used them.