Pedro de la Torre

Pedro de la Torre
Born	date of birth unknown
Died	after 1474
Occupation	Fencing master
Nationality	Spanish
Movement	Esgrima común
Genres	Fencing manual
Language	Spanish (?)
Notable work(s)	Lost treatise

Pedro de la Torre (Petrus de Turri) was a 15th century Spanish fencing master. In ca. 1474, he is believed to have written a treatise on fencing with various weapons, including the side sword, both alone and with secondary weapons (cloak, shield, dagger, and double side swords), the dagger, and the montante. This treatise is described as being "published", though given the date it seems likely that it was a manuscript rather than a book. Unfortunately, no extant copies of Torre's work are known to exist, but there are several excerpts of it in later works on Iberian fencing, as well as those of his contemporary, Jaime Pons, and the later Francisco Román.

Treatises

Though Pedro de la Torre'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:

This work is at least 124 folios long, and is separated into at least two parts. Folio 58 is cited as being in chapter three, so it is likely that the second part starts before then. The treatise covers sword alone, dagger alone, sword and shield, montante, sword and cloak, two swords, sword and dagger, and sword alone against spear. Sword alone is likely the principal weapon, as it is called the queen of weapons. The two-sword method was created by the author. There are four principal guards: one at each shoulder and hip.