Greetings, all!

This is Iberian, not Italian, but, there has been some cross cultural conversations in the past. Recently, I located a manuscript on fencing by the General Diogo Gomes de Figueiredo, fencing master to the crown prince of Portugal, hero of the Portuguese revolution, and author of the work on the Portuguese great sword (montante) that has been the subject of mine and some others work for the last 4 or 5 years. This former was a private lesson to the crown prince; the missing manuscript is his more general text on the theory of right and proper fencing. This work is cited in most of the major sources, e.g., Thimm, Baron Leguina, etc. as the Destreza das Armas, but otherwise was thought to be lost. This was most confusing as it had been given a prompta (permission to be printed), and there were extant a number of eulogies written to praise the author and preface the work. The clever ploy by the author to hide his major work in plain sight was to translate the title from the Portuguese into a title in ancient Greek, and so it has rested likely unread the intervening 350 or so years. The work is both a technical manual of fencing and an ethical and social discussion of the role of the arts of war for the courtier and exponent (destro) of fencing. It also refutes the work of “la verdadeira destreza” (the true art or skill), most likely of Don Luis Pacheco who wrote at the same time, in Spain, referring often to "those who teach the false destreza”. The manuscript was never actually lost, and has been the subject of a paper by a Brazilian academic, whose paper found the manuscript for me; the academic paper focuses on the social, political and courtly aspects of the work.
The manuscript of over 100 folios, about 8 x 11.5, is supposedly dated to 1630, but given information about Dom Diogo Gomes’s life, it is likely somewhat later, as his first military service was in 1626, and he died in 1685. However, due to a theory of why it was not published presented in the paper mentioned above; its discussion was perhaps too focused on the Spanish court and life, whereas with the restoration, there was a look towards the past glories of Portugal; therefore, a date of no later than 1640, when the revolution began, is most likely. It does not appear to be illustrated, that information is unclear on this point.
As usual, I have been aided and abetted by my fellow researcher Matt Galas, and as well by Eric Myers. Obtaining and analyzing this work will be done by a small group of international researchers with whom I have worked on the works of Dom Diogo Gomes and other non- mainstream Portuguese and Spanish works.
Regards,

Steve Hick

This is great news and I can't wait to see the material you extract from it.

Steve