My birthday’s on the seventh, so in the spirit of gift-giving, I’m releasing my translation of the dagger section (and the short subsequent buckler and rotella secion) from Pedro Texedo Sicilia de Teruel’s Escuela de Principiantes, y Promptuario de Cuestiones en la filosofia de la verdadera destreza de las armas (Primer and summary of questions in the philsosphy of the true skill at arms). The dual-language format book was published in Naples in 1678: Spanish on the left, Italian on the right. Naples was under Spanish rule from the early 1500s through the early 1700s.
I ended up poking around in this book because of conversations I had with folks at the 2019 Western Martial Arts Workshop (more at wmaw.us, but the website isn’t working at the moment), and just went ahead and translated that particular section.
I was prepping a workshop around LVD sword and dagger; Figueiredo calls out Viedma’s method of using the dagger, as does Texedo, but for different reasons. And all three authors defend their particular methods of using the dagger, as different as they are, with destreza precepts that work, and make sense. Pacheco says little to nothing about how to hold and use the dagger. Rada’s dagger positioning matches Texedo. So much stuff to dig into….
Anyway! Happy birthday to me! Here’s an updated translation of Texedo sword and dagger that includes a correction made by Tim Rivera. Thanks, Tim!