Francisco Román

Francisco Román
Born	date of birth unknown
Died	after 1532
Occupation	Fencing master
Nationality	Spanish
Movement	Esgrima común
Genres	Fencing manual Wrestling manual
Language	Spanish (?)
Notable work(s)	Tratado de la esgrima con figuras (Lost)

The title of this article contains the character á. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Francisco Roman.

Francisco Román was a 16th century Spanish fencing master. In 1532, he is believed to have written a fencing manual, possibly titled Tratado de la esgrima con figuras, which was published in Seville by Bartolome Perez. This treatise covered grappling and fencing with various weapons, including the side sword, both alone and with cloak and shield, as well as the montante. Unfortunately, no extant copies of Román's work are known to exist, but there are several excerpts of it in later works on Iberian fencing, along with those of 15th century Spanish masters Jaime Pons and Pedro de la Torre.

Treatises

Though Francisco Román's treatise is lost, Tim Rivera has created a partial reconstruction of it based on excerpts by later authors. He offers the following speculative description:

The length of this work is unknown, as the highest folio number cited is 13. It covers at least the montante, sword alone, sword and shield, sword and cloak, and throws. Sword alone is called the queen of weapons, but montante is called the principal weapon and the eagle of weapons. However, it is also said that the sword and shield is the best of all, and that the sword is the foundation of all shields.