Francisco Amorós

Amorós, Francisco

 

Born 1767; died 1848. Spanish military figure and teacher; initiator and organizer of physical education in France and Spain.

Author of many articles on gymnastics, Amorós founded a military gymnastics school in Madrid. After Napoleon’s defeat he moved to France (1814), where he taught gymnastics. In 1819 he organized the Normal Gymnastic Civil and Military School. In 1830 he published A Guide to Physical, Gymnastic, and Moral Education. The system of gymnastics devised by Amorós became known as the “natural-applied” system. After the participation of his gymnasts in the July Bourgeois Revolution of 1830, Amorós was removed from his position as leader of the army’s physical education and from the school which he founded (1832), whereupon he opened a gymnastics hall in Paris with his own resources.