la Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

la Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

La Verdadera Destreza, the Spanish tradition of fencing based on geometry—the mathematics of combat: angles (for the hands and arms) and circles (for the feet and distances) against the enemy—that dates back from the beginning of the Golden Age to the 19th century, represents a titanic effort to bring order to the chaos that a sword duel entails. This Spanish martial art was documented for the first time in the treatise "On the Philosophy of Weapons and their Dexterity and Christian Aggression and Defense" back in 1582.

[In the image a swordsman with rapier and dagger on the circle of Rada]

[T-shirt proposed by Carlos Loscertales]

Once the Cantabrian wars were over, the conquest of the Empire in Iberia came to an end. Some 200 years of colonization and Romanization, a process of assimilation of the Roman way of life and its culture, in which the barbarian pre-Roman peoples fought and heroically resisted.

The adhesion and seduction of the barbarian peoples —Celtic Hispania— to Rome was a natural process. The society of leaderships - of merit, of lineage, of heroic ethics - of the Indo-European world - aristocratic, hierarchical and warrior -, that backbones the Iberian barbarians, find in Rome and its metaphysical ideal of Imperium - with the cult, oath and loyalty to the emperor, who along with heroes and kings are pontifex, bridges between heaven and earth — a continuation of his spiritual and warlike worldview, but on a much higher political scale.

Roman Hispania would comprise from the Roman landing in Ampurias between 218 BC. and the beginning of the V century with the Visigothic entry. It was fundamental for the Empire and the cradle of great rulers.

The Romans called the Iberian Peninsula Hispania. Etymologically there are many theories, from meaning it as the land of rabbits, or I-span-ya to the northern land (of Africa), where the Phoenicians lived. Or land where metals are forged, or even called Hispalis, a word of Iberian origin that would mean the western city. Although for the Greeks it would initially be the Ophioússa Peninsula, land of snakes.

Ispania the Romans listened to the Carthaginians and Iber what the Greeks heard. These finally named it Iberia. The Romans stayed with Hispania.

February 27, 380, the emperor Theodosius abolished the religion and festival of the Sun Invictus by the famous edict of Thessalonica. Until then the Romans worshiped the Sun god during the Republic, and with greater prominence in the Imperial era, since the gradual entry of different religions of salvation of monotheistic tendency, such as Christianity and Mithrism, was giving greater weight to the power of the star king, the one who conquered the darkness ...

Emperor Aurelian made it official on December 25 as the day of the birth of the Undefeated Sun (the main divinity of the Roman pantheon at that time) back in the year 274 and later Juliano the Apostate would declare Helios (Greek equivalent) as the only divinity, and would try to prevent the spread of growing Christianity.

Finally, during a long process of syncretism, both the Festival of the Birth of the Invincible Sun "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" held after the Winter Solstice, when daylight increased, as well as many other acts and celebrations were gradually reconverted. Paganism would come to an end, a new stage would begin with a victorious sun reborn in the arms of a Galilean.

October 12, Hispanic Day. They have asked us to launch something commemorative for the date and we have been thinking about how to approach the Conquest without being dragged by the Black Legend or by chauvinism or irrational nationalism, an exclusive jingoism in many cases. Nor did we want to go into details and nuances about the differences between civilizing empires versus predatory empires, or disquisitions about rights, cruelties and benefits.

This memory is perhaps more metaphysical and spiritual, an approach oriented to the epic, the deed, the courage, the patriotism and the identity of the peoples. Influence the epic of some brave men whose gods were born in Extremadura and who, dressed in swords, breastplate and morion, jumped into the sea seeking glory and fortune for their Empire, and who faced other mythical and honorable giants, strong and powerful warriors protected by their gods of War and the Sun, who worshiped the rain and the stars in their imposing temples and who fought fiercely while beating their drums carved in ahuehuete wood - Huehuetl is thought to have a mystical and ancestral sense , because its sound is related to the heart of the earth.

Thinking about the dimensions of that historic journey and that encounter, remembering those men on both sides of the pond is what we have intended with this design, a look at that world in which life hung by a thread, and in that being, courage, honor and spirit had a value that today we can hardly imagine.

In 409 the first Germanic invasion took place in the peninsula, Swabians, Vandals and Alans entered Hispania. The Arian Visigoths, with Alaric in command, sacked Rome (410) and headed, led by Ataulfo, towards France and Iberia. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) and the great defeat of Vouillé (507), the Regnum Gothorum of Tolosa fell, which definitively displaced the Visigoths towards Hispania. There is a rapprochement between the barbarian Goths and the civilized Roman aristocracy. Confrontations, friendship and alliances that favor the birth and formation of Regnum Gothorum and the strengthening of the Hispano-pagoda monarchy of Toledo. Leovigildo will be the true organizer of the political unity that seeks the fusion between the Hispano-Roman and Gothic populations. His son Recaredo will achieve the desired legislative and religious unity in the III Council of Toledo (589), and his descendants will settle the Regnum Hispaniae with the territorial unity...

The son of the wolf, the Goth Wulfilias, converted the Visigoths of Germania to the Arian religion. Upon their arrival in Iberia, they came into contact with the pagan pre-Roman and Spanish-Roman peoples, with the newcomers Vandals, Swabians and Alans - who also practiced Arianism - and with the Jews who had settled since the 6th century. A heterogeneous society is configured where different pre-Christian beliefs coexist alongside primitive Christianity - Manichaeism, Arianism and Gnosticism. The Council of Nicea in 325 will condemn the Arian heresies, the subsequent syncretism process, the conversion of Recaredo and the final unification of the Third Council of Toledo (589) will displace all religious tendencies in favor of Catholicism.

However, in that Visigoth Hispania sacred and perhaps heretical elements will appear, such as those that appeared in the mysterious hermitage of Santa María de Quintanillas de las Viñas in Burgos. We speak of “pagan” reliefs such as the undefeated sun, the spirit of life, and the crescent Moon, the mother life, of oriental Manichean reminiscences, capable of separating light from darkness, good from evil ... perhaps Gnostic inscriptions perhaps last outbreaks of Arian heresy ... In any case, despite the assimilation of Christian orthodoxy, we find in the ruins secrets of a pagan spirituality so latent in the stones, in the art and in the soul of this people ...

In 409 the first Germanic invasion took place in the peninsula, Swabians, Vandals and Alans entered Hispania. The Arian Visigoths, with Alaric in command, sacked Rome (410) and headed, led by Ataulfo, towards France and Iberia. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) and the great defeat of Vouillé (507), the Regnum Gothorum of Tolosa fell, which definitively displaced the Visigoths towards Hispania. There is a rapprochement between the barbarian Goths and the civilized Roman aristocracy. Confrontations, friendship and alliances that favor the birth and formation of Regnum Gothorum and the strengthening of the Hispano-pagoda monarchy of Toledo. Leovigildo will be the true organizer of the political unity that seeks the fusion between the Hispano-Roman and Gothic populations. His son Recaredo will achieve the desired legislative and religious unity in the III Council of Toledo (589), and his descendants will settle the Regnum Hispaniae with the territorial unity...

If you have seen women running through the streets from one place to another being chased by some half naked guys in wolf skins who whipped and whipped them with bloody strips of ram, do not be alarmed! they are just remembering an old pagan festival, something lewd that yes, but it was a sacred rite of purification and fecundity celebrated in Ancient Rome every February 15 called the lupercales or Lupercalia.

The word comes from lupus, that is, wolf and its Roman god of fertility and male sexuality Fauno Luperco (Greek mythological deity Pan, the one who protected the wolf), a strange, hairy being, with legs and horns of a goat and large, pointed ears with a voracious and infinite sexual appetite.

One of the legends tells that in the ancient city of Alba Longa, the evil Amulio after deposing his brother Numitor from the throne, ordered to kill all his first-born, turning his daughter Rea Silvia into a virgin so that she would not have successors, but The god of war Mars was enraptured by the girl and they procreated the brothers Romulus and Remus, who managed to escape from the clutches of their uncle Amulio, managing to survive in the forests thanks to the woodpecker and the she-wolf Luperca who nursed and raised them. Years later they would return to their homeland to take revenge and kill him.

Due to the shortage of fertility and women in Rome, the oracle of the goddess Juno announced that the mothers of Lazio would be fertilized by a male goat. For this purpose, a ritual was held every February 15 in the Lupercal cave - there where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf - where the most virile young men were selected - those ephebos who, on their initiation path, had lived in the forests as human wolves—, called loberos or luperci (friends of the wolf), and their faces were marked with the blood of a dog and a sacrificed male goat.

To make the rite more fun and interesting, virile members were created in the form of strips with the skin of the goat ... The libido to the surface, the lustful participants launched themselves in the carnal search for women eager to be impregnated, who agreed in a Shameless sexual play, whipping and spanking included, in a depurifying act that increased fertility.

Christianity erased with a stroke of the pen this fun bacchanal, so beneficial to health and to the women of Ancient Rome, moving it to February 14, Valentine's Day.

If you have seen women running through the streets from one place to another being chased by some half naked guys in wolf skins who whipped and whipped them with bloody strips of ram, do not be alarmed! they are just remembering an old pagan festival, something lewd that yes, but it was a sacred rite of purification and fecundity celebrated in Ancient Rome every February 15 called the lupercales or Lupercalia.

The word comes from lupus, that is, wolf and its Roman god of fertility and male sexuality Fauno Luperco (Greek mythological deity Pan, the one who protected the wolf), a strange, hairy being, with legs and horns of a goat and large, pointed ears with a voracious and infinite sexual appetite.

One of the legends tells that in the ancient city of Alba Longa, the evil Amulio after deposing his brother Numitor from the throne, ordered to kill all his first-born, turning his daughter Rea Silvia into a virgin so that she would not have successors, but The god of war Mars was enraptured by the girl and they procreated the brothers Romulus and Remus, who managed to escape from the clutches of their uncle Amulio, managing to survive in the forests thanks to the woodpecker and the she-wolf Luperca who nursed and raised them. Years later they would return to their homeland to take revenge and kill him.

Due to the shortage of fertility and women in Rome, the oracle of the goddess Juno announced that the mothers of Lazio would be fertilized by a male goat. For this purpose, a ritual was held every February 15 in the Lupercal cave - there where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf - where the most virile young men were selected - those ephebos who, on their initiation path, had lived in the forests as human wolves—, called loberos or luperci (friends of the wolf), and their faces were marked with the blood of a dog and a sacrificed male goat.

To make the rite more fun and interesting, virile members were created in the form of strips with the skin of the goat ... The libido to the surface, the lustful participants launched themselves in the carnal search for women eager to be impregnated, who agreed in a Shameless sexual play, whipping and spanking included, in a depurifying act that increased fertility.

Christianity erased with a stroke of the pen this fun bacchanal, so beneficial to health and to the women of Ancient Rome, moving it to February 14, Valentine's Day.

February 27, 380, the emperor Theodosius abolished the religion and festival of the Sun Invictus by the famous edict of Thessalonica. Until then the Romans worshiped the Sun god during the Republic, and with greater prominence in the Imperial era, since the gradual entry of different religions of salvation of monotheistic tendency, such as Christianity and Mithrism, was giving greater weight to the power of the star king, the one who conquered the darkness ...

Emperor Aurelian made it official on December 25 as the day of the birth of the Undefeated Sun (the main divinity of the Roman pantheon at that time) back in the year 274 and later Juliano the Apostate would declare Helios (Greek equivalent) as the only divinity, and would try to prevent the spread of growing Christianity.

Finally, during a long process of syncretism, both the Festival of the Birth of the Invincible Sun "Dies Natalis Solis Invicti" held after the Winter Solstice, when daylight increased, as well as many other acts and celebrations were gradually reconverted. Paganism would come to an end, a new stage would begin with a victorious sun reborn in the arms of a Galilean.