A trademark of the Italian styles of fence is the emphasis on the point over cutting, which has been stressed since the time of the Roman legions: the legionaries used to laugh at enemies who cut or slashed with their swords. The base of most Italian Systems is fencing and many methods of stick fighting use the same techniques and movements used when fencing with swords. Therefore, if a practitioner trains with the stick or baton, he would also become proficient with the sword. Examples of this are Canne Italiana and Bastone da Passeggio (walking stick), which uses the moves and techniques of the duelling sabre (sciabola da terreno) and Bastone Italiano, where the moves comes from fencing with the two-handed sword (Spadone a Due Mani). Most methods have one thing in common: practitioners don protective sport fencing masks and padded clothing and practice with blunt training blades, since live sparring is of critical importance in the training routine. A very important characteristics of Italian Martial Arts is that they originated from battlefield or gladiatorial combat experience.  (source - Wikipedia).