Could this be the last original craftsman of the Toledo sword?

It’s a quiet Thursday morning in the ancient Spanish city of Toledo, and Mariano Zamorano is standing outside of his store looking out across the empty cobblestone street. Behind him, past walls covered with gleaming swords of varying lengths and designs, the faint sound of clanking metal can be heard.

The 67-year-old is the owner of the Mariano Zamorano Sword Factory, a shop that has survived for five generations. Unlike the owners of these mass-produced swords, Mariano is one of the last remaining original craftsmen of the notorious Toledo blade.

It’s a craft he’s learned from his father, also Mariano, who learned it from his father, another Mariano. But today the art has all but disappeared and the Zamorano family tradition is at risk of disappearing too.

Mariano’s son – a 40-year-old aeronautical engineer also called Mariano – is not interested in sword-making. “He doesn’t want swords … He hasn’t liked [them] since he was young. You can’t force someone to do something they don’t like,” says Mariano in his office, where dozens of swords hang from the walls and form piles on the shelves around him. “I have a grandson, but he’s only six years old so I don’t think there’s enough time,” he says with a laugh.

All European armies knew about the superior quality of Toledo steel Richard Cohen, author

But Mariano is not just concerned about the future of the family business. “What worries me is that I am really becoming the last artisan in the city,” he explains.

Mariano is one of the few people who still know how to make a Toledo blade, which is made from “Toledo steel,” an alloy of iron and two kinds of steel with different carbon content, meaning it is both hard and flexible. Making one of these swords involves multiple steps and can take up to 50 hours.

The result is a sturdy, superior quality sword apt for heavily armored armies, says Richard Cohen, the author of the sword-fighting history book By the Sword. According to Cohen, during the Second Punic War (218 BC to 202 BC), the Carthaginian General Hannibal Barca used the Toledo blade to defeat the Romans, who at the time were using inferior bronze swords.

The Romans later adopted the Toledo sword as they spread into the Iberian peninsula. “All European armies knew about the superior quality of Toledo steel. In other parts of the world, craftsmen have tried to imitate the Toledo product, but they all failed,” says Cohen in an email.

The sword became particularly important in the 16th and 17th centuries when Spain was a global power and Toledo one its most-prized imperial cities.

But by the end of the 18th century, the importance of Toledo and its famed weapon began to dwindle. “Given the rise of munitions in war, [the sword] was mainly used for ceremonial purposes,” explains Richard Kagan, professor emeritus of history at Johns Hopkins University.

Blacksmiths were no longer sought after to forge blades made from Toledo steel, and slowly the art was lost. “I do not have the impression that, marzipan apart, there is much artisanal culture [left] in Toledo today,” says Kagan.

A fading tradition

Nowadays Toledo resembles something of a medieval playground. Commercial shops have capitalized on the city’s rich history, selling medieval trinkets and sword replicas from series and movies such as Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.

“The difficulties that artisans face is recognition,” says Mariano, who says there used to be an artisan school in Toledo that taught the city’s ancient crafts, including sword making, but it was shut down years ago because there weren’t enough students.

One of the biggest threats facing the survival of the craft is the boom in commercial shops that are eclipsing the artisans’ work. Not only do these stores flood the city with cheap, mass-produced swords, some also try to control the market by telling customers that authentic Toledo swords no longer exist, says Mariano. “This is truly evil. The difficulty artisans face is convincing these shops to tell the truth,” he adds.

A real Toledo sword will be perfectly balanced, and its blade will be marked by small blemishes that show where the mallet struck it with varying degrees of strength, explains Mariano, as he runs his hands along one of his swords. His fingers, which are tinged a metallic gray, point out the blade’s small imperfections. A fake sword is completely smooth because it is shaped by a machine, which can regulate the strength of its strikes.

While Mariano also sells a few mass-produced swords and other souvenirs to stay afloat, his main business is the authentic Toledan blades, which attract people from all over the world. “Anyone can go buy a sword online, but getting one hand made in Toledo by an artisan, by a person who actually knows what they’re doing is insane,” says Drew Borgerding, 20, from Minnesota as he takes a tour of the sword factory.

But Mariano’s renowned store, like the craft itself, face an uncertain future. He is currently training three artisans how to make the Toledo sword in the hope that they will keep the tradition alive after he retires – which is not likely to happen anytime soon. “I will continue working until my body gives out,” says Mariano. “I have to recognize that my body doesn’t work like it used to when I was 50. But [the work] is another way of staying active. If I don’t go to work, I take a stroll. But I get bored, so I come and work.”

After all, for Mariano making swords is more than a job, it’s a passion; a tradition that thanks to him, has not disappeared. Yet.