Rocco Bonetti

BONETTI, ROCCO

An Italian fencing master teaching in London during the late 16th century.

Master of a school of fence at Blackfriars in London during the late 1500's. He was critically injured by Austen Bagger, an Englishman, outside of the school. ... He set up a school in London in 1576, calling it a "colledge". His students were typically "Noblemen & Gentlemen of the Court", and his colledge reflected this. It was decorated with the devices of his students and there was a writing desk with stationary and even a clock, clearly reflecting a clientelle beyond the hopes of the London Masters. [36] Bonetti's patrons included Sir Walter Raleigh, and one of the Queen's best swordsmen, Lord Peregrin Willoughby, both men of high stature. [37]

notes

From Will of Oliver St. John

proved 15 April 1571, whose widow, Eleanor Burbage (d 1574), married the Italian master of fence, Rocco Bonetti (d 1587), alluded to in Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet ('the very butcher of a silk button.'). Eleanor was the widow of Hugh Partridge, brother of Sir Miles Partridge, who was executed for treason in 1552.
It appears from the Burbage pedigree that Eleanor Burbage had no children by any of her four husbands, and at her death in 1574, the house and goods in which she had been left a life estate in the testator’s will below were seized by the testator’s overseer, John Vavasour, and Eleanor’s brother, Robert Burbage. Rocco Bonetti complained of this to the Privy Council. See Dasent, John Roche, ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England, New Series, Vol. IX (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1894), p. 41

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