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Balthasaro Cramonio Pomerano

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Balthasaro Cramonio Pomerano
Influences Johannes Herbart von Würzburg
Influenced Heinrich von Gunterrodt
Genres Fencing manual
Language Early New High German
Notable work(s) Austeilunge oder Ordnunge des Zirckelfechtens
Translations Alternate English translation

Balthasaro Cramonio Pomerano was a 16th century Polish fencing master. What little is known about his life is recorded in the 1579 treatise of his associate (or possibly student) Heinrich von Gunterrodt. From this source, we know that he was a student of Johannes Herbart von Würzburg and was also a medical student at the time. Gunterrodt also states that he had been maimed in a fight with "criminals" and lost the use of his left arm (and then learned to fence with his right, implying that he had been left-handed).[1]

He is likely the author of a broadside titled Austeilunge oder Ordnunge des Zirckelfechtens ("Exposition or Ordering of the Circle-fencing"). It is written in German with scattered Latin words and phrases and signed B. C. P.; curiously, it includes many references to a diagram consisting of circles, triangles, and curved lines which is not present on the broadsheet but survives separately. The short Latin and German poems at the bottom also appear in Gunterrodt's works and he includes similar fencing teachings in his book, suggesting that the two sources are part of the same tradition.

It's unclear where or when these two documents were printed or distributed; the two known copies of the broadsheet and three known copies of the diagram were all inserted into copies of other fencing treatises. Both are glued into one surviving copy of Gunterrodt's book,[2] and copies of the diagram without the broadsheet are glued into another copy of Gunterrodt's book[3] and his 1579 manuscript. The other known copy of the broadsheet is glued into a copy of the 1570 treatise of Joachim Meyer.[4]

Treatise

Additional Resources

References

  1. Bert Gevaert. The True Principles of Combat: An underestimated martial arts treatise from the 16th century. Freelance Academy Press, 2020. pp 67-69.
  2. In the Bern University Library.
  3. In the National Library of Sweden.
  4. In the Vědecká knihovna v Olomouci in Olomouc, Czech Republic. https://aleph.vkol.cz:443/F?func=direct&doc_number=000668380&local_base=SVK01&format=999