Crisol de la Verdadera Destreza y Filosofía Matemática de las Armas

Francisco Lorenz de Rada (1660 – 1713) is the last great author — and perhaps the greatest — of the Verdadera Destreza, correcting and elaborating on the works of Carranza, Pacheco and Ettenhard. He was a soldier, a Knight of the Order of Santiago, Governor of Veracruz and, eventually, named Marquis of Torres de Rada. He studied Verdadera Destreza from the age of fourteen and was a fencing master and a prolific and exhaustive author. His magnum opus, Nobleza de la Espada (1705), is a compendium in three books of more than 1,300 pages where he constructs, starting from mathematical and theological elements, a geometric and rationalist system for the use of the rapier.

This work, Crisol, is to a certain extent a precedent of Nobleza, and also a previous stage in the theoretical and practical evolution of its author, in transit from Pachequism to his own expression. There are many parts that are reproduced almost verbatim in Nobleza, but in Crisol a more conventional scheme is followed, similar to other works of Destreza, in which the atajo is described in a generic way (although distinctions are established between one side and the other) and then the Tretas Generales as operating procedures to practice Destreza, ending with a section dedicated to countering Italian fencing (which is notably increased in his great final work).

This edition is of great value, since the only two copies of Crisol that are preserved are incomplete. The text that we present here uses both sources to reconstruct the work as it must have existed.

We have also carefully replicated and (in some cases, following Rada’s own instructions) corrected the 25 diagrams that accompany the text, which we present in our edition as fold-out plates.

And, as an added value, we include an A3 copy of the second diagram, the famous «Universal Demonstration» on which the author’s spatial work is based, only for the first 50 orders.

Overall, this title is a fundamental piece for any student of Verdadera Destreza, who will hardly find a more exhaustive or precise work in a modern edition.