He worked as a fencing master in Italy as well as in Northern Europe. The French master Henry de Sainct-Didier in 1573 mentions a meeting with a young fencer by the name of "Fabrice" while he was in the process of writing his own treatise, though there is nothing to prove that Fabris and Fabrice are the same man. But we are on sure footing when we find Fabris in the service in Johan Frederik of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, archbishop of Bremen and cousin to the King of Denmark, in the 1590s.