Fencing is, for more than 160 years, the common thread of Musumeci Greco family, which keeps on passing this "baton" from generation to generation:

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• Salvatore Greco dei Chiaramonte (1835 – 1910)

• Agesilao Greco (1866 – 1963)

• Aurelio Greco (1879 – 1954)

• Enzo Musumeci Greco (1911 – 1994)

• Renzo Musumeci Greco (1952)

 

In 1878, the King's Fencing Master, Gaetano Emanuele dei Marchesi di Villabianca, handed over his Fencing Academy situated in via del Seminario 87, near the Pantheon. Since then, the Academy belongs to the same family: therefore, 1878 is considered the official year in which Accademia d'Armi Musumeci Greco was born.

 

In these 160 years, the Musumeci Greco family associated with the most disparate people, mere viewers or Fencing practitioners, which in common had only had a profound interest in this noble art: from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti to Gabriele D'Annunzio, from Felice Cavallotti to Benito Mussolini, from Trilussa to King Umberto, from Achille Campanile to Luigi Einaudi.

 

Therefore, the Academy is one of the world's most antique and prestigious fencing schools, always housed inside an antique aristocratic XV Century residence, once belonged to Bishop Diego De Valdes, Chamberlain of Pope Alexander VI Borgia (1492-1503). The Academy is considered the "Temple" of Fencing, and, as such, taken into account its priceless historicy and cultural heritage too, in 2015 Lazio Region elected the Academy as "House Museum", the only one in which a sport discipline is practiced; in addition, its artistic and organizational direction is under the guidance of Novella Calligaris, journalist, marketing manager and italian sport legend. The Academy’s President is Master Renzo Musumeci Greco, 4th Generation of Fencers, and its Honorary President is Emmanuele F. M. Emanuele, descendant of Marquis Gaetano Emanuele di Villabianca.

 

Accademia d’Armi Musumeci Greco offers fencing classes for both experts and beginners, from 5 years onward, no age limits. Moreover, among those who fenced inside our academy, there are olympic champions such as Aldo Montano, Valentina Vezzali, Giovanni Trillini, Mihai Covaliu, Aida Mohamed, Margherita Granbassi, Andrea Cassarà, Matteo Tagliariol, Paolo Pizzo, Valerio Aspromonte, Ilaria Salvatori and Daniele Garozzo. They also contributed in giving life to 13 edition (first one occurred in 2005) of a spectacular, and by now long-established, fencing and show business event, namely "A Fil di Spada - La Maratona di Scherma a Roma - Memorial Enzo Musumeci Greco" ("By the Edge of the Sword - Fencing Marathon in Rome - Memorial Enzo Musumeci Greco"), the most important italian event dedicated to modern fencing and its union with Arts and Show Business.

 

But, in order to explore the beginning of the relationship between Musumeci Grecos and show business, you have to go back in 1913, a year which is reputed to represent Musumeci Grecos' family "debut" in the world of entertainment. This thanks to Agesilao Greco and the fact that he obtained the role of the main character in the silent movie L'assalto fatale (The Fatal Assault), directed by italian filmmaker Gerolamo Lo Savio. The movie was moderately successful, also because of the fencer's status, which was, at the time, really great. Then, Enzo Musumeci Greco (and, later, his son Renzo Musumeci Greco, too) would collect the "scenic" legacy of this discipline, by granting to the show business his valuable consultation, hence becoming the first "master-at-arms" of italian cinema's history.

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From that moment on, the doors of filmmaking, theatre and television have been opened for the Musumeci Grecos, and their heirs were able to cooperate, for different stage requirements, with a bunch of eminent show business members. The names which notably stand out are those of Richard Burton, Errol Flynn, Vittorio Gassman, Charlton Heston, Burt Lancaster, Gina Lollobrigida, Tyrone Power, Carmelo Bene, Orson Welles, Giancarlo Giannini, Domenico Modugno, Walter Chiari, Jack Hawkins, Lou Ferrigno, Max Von Sydow, Jack Palance, Gino Cervi, Joseph Losey, Steve Reeves, Mario Monicelli, Christian De Sica, Abel Gance, Ruggero Raimondi, Roberto Rossellini, Jacques Perrin, Philippe Leroy, Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Yves Montand, Renato Rascel, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio Storaro, Valerio Zurlini, Riccardo Freda, Kim Rossi Stuart, Carlos Saura, Roberto Bolle, Alessio Boni, Alessandro Preziosi, Alessandro Gassman, the Taviani brothers, Monica Bellucci, Giò di Tonno, Massimo Ranieri, Gabriel Garko, Alba Rohrwacher, Carolina Crescentini, Tinto Brass, Silvana Pampanini, Alessandro Benvenuti, Glauco Mauri, Michele Placido, Luciano Pavarotti, Jonas Kaufmann, José Cura, Leo Nucci, Massimo Popolizio, Amedeo Nazzari, Placido Domingo, Mario Martone, Massimo Lopez, Paolo Bonolis, Franco Zeffirelli, Gigi Proietti, Lindsay Kemp, Liliana Cavani, Giuseppe Zeno, Mariano and Ruben Rigillo, Lino Guanciale, Edoardo Leo, Luca Ronconi, Hugo de Ana, Marco Bellocchio, Alberto Angela, Tony and Ridley Scott and many others.

 

The Academy is also a member of UNASCI (National Union of Centennial Italian Sports Associations) and ADSI (Association of Italian Historic Houses). In 1976 CONI awarded the Academy with the "Golden Star for Sport Credits"; in 2017 FIS assigned them the "Golden Shield of Honor"; and in 2019 CONI honoured again the Academy with the "Golden Collar", the highest sports award in Italy.

 

Lastly, in the early 1900s Duilio Cambellotti, one of the biggest proponents of italian art noveau, dedicated a logo with a puma to the Academy, which is called "The supremacy of the Sword", while Mimmo Paladino, chief exponent of Transavantgarde, in 2011 dedicated to them another logo, symbolizing the "Timeless Fencer".

In august 2023 the Academy signs a partnership with Museo Nazionale Romano for project “Fencing at the Museum”, by opening a fencing hall inside “Terme di Diocleziano” museum.