High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Italian Martial Arts focus on the use of weapons (swords, daggers, walking stick and staff). Each weapon is the product of a specific historical era. The swords used in Italian Martial Arts range from the gladius of the roman legionaries to swords which were developed during the renaissance, the baroque era and later. Short blades range from medieval daggers to the liccasapuni Sicilian dueling knife. Only Greek martial arts are more ancient than Italian Martial arts. The Shaolin monastery in China was founded in 497 AD (after the fall of the Western Roman Empire) and there are no written records of kung-fu until the 16th century AD. The Takenouchi-ryu school of Japanese jiu-jitsu was founded in 1532 AD (by which time firearms had already been employed on several battlefields in Europe). With over 120,000 practitioners worldwide, Italian Martial arts are being practiced in Italy, the United States of America, The United Kingdom, Australia,...