Memoria sobre Esgrima

Portuguese Treatise on Fencing and Jogo do Pau (1888)

Presentation

Published in Lisbon in 1888 by the master-at-arms Manuel Cid, Memoir on Fencing is one of the rarest known documents on the teaching of fencing and the Portuguese Jogo do Pau in the nineteenth century.

Written during a transitional period between traditional popular martial practice and the modern pedagogy of European physical culture, the treatise presents an innovative vision of the art of arms as an integrated system of bodily education, technique, and discipline.

Trained between Lisbon and Paris, and a disciple of the French master Henri Petit, Manuel Cid combined influences from French fencing, military sabre, academic foil, and the Portuguese practice of the iron-tipped staff, proposing a rare hybrid method within European martial literature of the period.

This edition includes:

✔ Revised and annotated historical text

✔ Introductory study and historical framework

✔ Biographical profile of the author

✔ Editorial notes and technical contextualisation

✔ Complete facsimile reproduction of the original 1888 manuscript

✔ Historical iconography and period documents

The original title page — designed by Manuel Cid himself — combines sabre, foil, and staff in a symbolic composition expressing the synthesis between French tradition and Portuguese practice, adopted as the graphic foundation of this edition.

More than a technical manual, this work stands as a fundamental testimony to the circulation of martial knowledge in nineteenth-century Europe and to the forgotten history of combat arts in Portugal.

Contents (summary)

• Introduction;
• Autobiography;
• Fencing weapons;
• Conditions of the fencer;
• Fencing with either hand;
• Useful gymnastics;
• Method adopted by the author;
• Conclusion;
• Facsimile of the original manuscript.

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