The Steel Marginalia

abrazare

grappling

Unarmed close fighting for holds, takedowns, locks, breaks, and dislocations. It is placed first in the book and treated as the foundation of everything else: the same holds and locks reappear, weapon in hand, throughout the dagger, sword, armored, and mounted sections. Fiore states the dependency explicitly.

In the Iron Gate's boast, the guard says the play of grappling "is my art; and of lance, poleaxe, sword, and dagger I have a great share" ([Grappling 4]) — grappling is named as the common denominator of the armed arts.

acrescere / discrescere / passare / tornare

advancing / withdrawing / passing / returning

"The four things in the art" — Fiore's complete footwork vocabulary. Acrescere and discrescere gain or yield ground with the front foot; passare drives the rear foot through into a pass; tornare recovers. Nearly every play resolves as a step of one of these four kinds combined with a turn of the sword.

The longsword Introduction enumerates them together with the three turns as the mechanical basis of the art: "there are four things in the art: passing, returning, advancing, and withdrawing" ([S2H 1]).

avisamento (Lat. prudentia) — prudence, the lynx Meaning: The first of the four virtues of the segno, the deliberative, measuring virtue. The lynx is the animal that sees best and governs distance. Fiore pairs the four virtues with four animals and asks that a good fighter share in all four. Example: "Better than I, the lynx, no creature sees; and that which I see I always set by compass and by measure (a sesto e a misura)" ([Preface, "Seven Swords"]). The other three: celerity/presteza (tiger), audacity/ardimento (lion), fortitude/forteza (elephant). ## C chiave forte

the strong key (= the lower lock, ligadura di sotto) Meaning: The strongest of Fiore's arm-locks, expressly identified with the lower lock and called "the key of grappling". It shuts the arm so that the opponent cannot escape and can be struck, killed, or thrown from it, in or out of armor. Note the identification is with the lower lock, not the middle — a point worth stating because "strong key" might be assumed to mean the central bind. Example: "This is called the lower lock (ligadura di sotto) and the strong key (chiave forte). For with such a lock, armored or unarmored, one can give death… and whoever enters it stays there in trouble and suffering" ([Dagger 54]). Later plays send the opponent "into the lower lock and strong key" as a known destination ([Dagger 76]). colpo di villano — the Peasant's Blow

A great committed downward cut of the kind an untrained man throws with full force. Fiore's answer is not to oppose it but to wait, void it with a step off the line, and strike into the opening it leaves — a paradigm of his "let the powerful blow spend itself" logic.

The Master invites it: he waits, lets the villainous blow pass with a step, covers, and strikes ([S2H 33]–[S2H 34]).

coverta

cover

A defensive closing of the line that exists in order to strike, bind, or disarm from it. Fiore's covers are the front half of a single cover-and-strike action, not ends in themselves; the plays that follow a Master are precisely what his cover makes possible.

The Sixth Dagger Master crosses his arms as a cover "worth more in armor than out of armor", and from it comes the middle lock and the strikes ([Dagger 74]; and the plays [Dagger 81]–[Dagger 84] that name "the cover of the Sixth Master").

dente di zenghiaro

the Boar's Tooth

A low guard, named for the boar's upward tusk-strike, that delivers rising blows and thrusts up into the opponent. It appears both as a grappling posture and as two of the twelve longsword guards (full and middle).

As a longsword guard it is classed stable and answers with rising actions ([S2H 20], [S2H 25]); as a grappling guard the fighter promises from it to break the hold and enter the Iron Gate ([Grappling 3]).

fendente

descending blow

A downward cut, the first of the three cutting pairs. It "cleaves the teeth and comes down to the knee", passes through and breaks the low guards, and returns to guard "from stride to stride". The fendenti are the backbone of the cutting game and the beat in the romper di punta.

"We are the descending blows, and our quarrel is to cleave the teeth… we are not slow in striking, and we return into guard from stride to stride" ([S2H 8]). The breaking of the thrust is a fendente onto the incoming point ([S2H 39]).

incrosar / incrosada

to cross / the crossing

The meeting of the two swords, and the decision point from which a Master's family of plays follows. Each Master names where along the blades he is crossed, and what he does from there.

the wide play's first Master is "crossed… at the point of the sword" (in punta de spada) and turns his sword to strike or thrust ([S2H 27]); its second Master crosses "in wide play, at the middle of the sword" (a meza spada) and lets his sword run over the hands ([S2H 29]).

Caution: crossing-place does not divide wide play from close play, though it is often said to. [S2H 29] is expressly a middle crossing in wide play; the close play's Master names no measure at all ("we stand here crossed", [S2H 49]); and the first close play works "whether the crossing is above or below the hands" ([S2H 50]). See [[Fiore dei Liberi - Technical grouping]] §3. ## L ligadura

lock / bind (soprana / mezana / sottana) Meaning: A binding of the opponent's arm (or arm-and-weapon) that immobilizes it and threatens break, dislocation, disarm, or throw. Three named levels recur across grappling, dagger, and sword: upper (soprana), middle (mezana), lower (sottana / di sotto, = the strong key). The middle lock's reference point is fixed once and cited everywhere: the third play of the First Dagger Master. Example: "In the middle lock (mezana ligadura) I have shut your arm so that you cannot cause me trouble" ([Dagger 19]); an upper lock that "closes up well… I can take your dagger and put you on the ground; also I can dislocate your arm" ([Dagger 58]); and the lower lock/strong key ([Dagger 54]). The longsword borrows the middle lock wholesale ([S2H 64], "the middle lock, the sword imprisoned"). ## M magistro rimedio — Remedy Master ("King and Remedy") Meaning: A crowned Master understood as the remedy to a specific attack. He is the organizing node of instruction: name the attack, show the remedy, then unfold the scholars' plays that flow from it. The dagger's nine Masters are nine remedies to nine dagger situations; the device repeats in every section. Example: The First Dagger Master is cited from all over the book as "the First King and Remedy [Master] of the dagger", his third play being the middle lock ([Dagger 19], referenced at [Dagger 84], [S2H 69]). magistro contrario — Counter Master / counter

The figure (crowned and gartered) who shows the counter that defeats a Remedy Master and his scholars. He completes Fiore's basic three-term unit — attack → remedy → counter — and occasionally is himself answered by a counter-counter (contra-contrario).

Throughout the grappling and dagger, a play states its own counter in the same breath: "If you were to grip your right hand with your left hand, that would be the counter to me, and I would have to release you" ([Dagger 58]).

mandritto / riverso

forehand / backhand

The two sides from which any blow can come — mandritto from the sword-hand (right) side, riverso from the left. Fiore builds symmetry into the art: a remedy on one side implies its mirror on the other, and the mezani even change edge by side.

The middle blows go "with the true edge from the forehand side, and with the false edge from the backhand side" ([S2H 10]).

mezano

middle blow

A horizontal cut travelling "through the middle" between the descending and rising lines; it beats thrusts aside and can redouble into a fendente. One of the three cutting pairs.

"We middle blows go crossing athwart… and we beat the thrusts out of the way, and redoubling the blow, we deal strikes in plenty" ([S2H 10]).

misura

measure

Distance, governed by the prudence-virtue. Fiore reasons about measure concretely — most vividly in the too-far cut that simply cannot arrive, which the defender therefore ignores — rather than as the elaborated doctrine of later point-fencing.

The lynx sets all things "by compass and by measure" ([Preface]); and a Master lets a riverso pass unparried precisely "knowing well that such a cut cannot wound from that distance" — the Fabris parallel is instructive but the reasoning is Fiore's own.

porta di ferro

the Iron Gate

The low forward guard with the point down and toward the opponent. In "full" form (low and central) it is a powerful awaiting guard; in "middle" form the point rides in line. It passes with a cover, exchanges or beats thrusts, and goes to the close. A guard of the same name anchors the grappling section.

"Full Iron Gate… stands in great strength… it passes with a cover and goes to the close; it exchanges the thrusts and plants its own; it also beats thrusts to the ground" ([S2H 12]); as a grappling guard, "I, the Iron Gate, am full of malice" ([Grappling 4]).

posta (pulsativa / stabile / instabile)

guard (pulsative / stable / unstable)

A functional fighting position. The twelve longsword guards carry a three-way classification: pulsative guards beat and initiate; stable guards hold ground and await; unstable guards are transitional, dangerous for what they become. Guards resembling one another are mutually counters, except the point-in-line guards, where reach decides.

Full Iron Gate is labelled pulsativa ([S2H 12]), Middle Iron Gate stabile ([S2H 16]), Window Guard instabile ([S2H 15]); and "every… guard that is similar to another is its counter, except the guards that stand with the point in line" ([S2H 1]).

posta di donna

the Woman's Guard

A high guard with the sword carried back over the shoulder (right, left, and a "high" form), classed pulsative. Strong for covering and deceptive by nature: it threatens a cut and delivers a thrust.

The high Woman's Guard "with its malices often deceives the other guards: for you will believe that I am going to strike with a blow, and I will strike with a thrust" ([S2H 7]; as a longsword guard, [S2H 14], [S2H 22]).

presa / prese avantazade

hold / holds with advantage

A seizure of the opponent's body or weapon. Fiore's grappling explicitly seeks only advantageous holds — a hold that confers no advantage is not worth making — and the four grappling Masters exist to win them.

"The holds are not gained if they are not with advantage; therefore we four Masters seek holds with advantage (prese avantazade)" ([Grappling 1]).

punta

thrust

The point attack, ranked the deadliest offense ("more venomous than the serpent"). Fiore counts five kinds by line (two high, two low, one central) and repeatedly prefers the thrust's speed and reach to the cut, especially in armor.

"We are the thrusts, cruel and mortal… we are thrusts of five kinds: two from above… two from below… and one from the middle, which issues from the Middle Iron Gate, or from the Long Guard or the Short Guard" ([S2H 11]).

punta falsa

the false thrust

A feigned thrust thrown to draw a defense and then converted — Fiore's named deception of the point, sitting at the seam between the wide and close plays.

Presented as its own Master with a counter following it ([S2H 45]–[S2H 46]).

rebattere

to beat aside

To strike an incoming weapon (including a thrown lance or sword) out of line. It is the defensive verb behind the "breaking" actions and the anti-throwing guards.

The second longsword guard is "good… against lance and sword thrown from the hand, for I know how to beat them aside (rebattere) and avoid them" ([S2H 3]).

romper di punta

the breaking of the thrust

Defeating a thrust by beating it down to the ground with a fendente and passing in to strike, as opposed to exchanging point-for-point. The "break" removes the point rather than trading with it.

Presented as its own Master, the beat-and-enter against the thrust ([S2H 39]), with a follow-on strike to the head ([S2H 41]).

scambiar di punta

the exchange of thrusts

Answering a thrust with a thrust: passing off the line and turning the hand so that the Master's point goes in while his blade simultaneously carries the opponent's aside. Contrast romper di punta, which beats the thrust away instead of trading.

Its own Master in the wide play, "the exchange of thrusts", leading directly into a grip ([S2H 37]–[S2H 38]).

scolaro / zugadore

scholar / player

The two non-Master roles. The scholar (gartered) performs a play issuing from his Master's remedy; the player (zugadore) is the opponent who attacks and is acted upon. In the plays "I/we" is the Master or scholar and "you" is the player.

"The scholar puts the player into the lower lock, that is, into the strong key" ([Dagger 74]) — scholar acting on player, from the Master's cover.

segno / the Seven Swords

the sign of battle

The emblem of the man with seven swords and four animals that opens the treatise: the seven swords are the seven blows of the sword, the four animals the four virtues. It states the conceptual frame — what blows exist, what qualities the fighter needs — before any play.

"This Master with these swords signifies the seven blows of the sword. And the four animals signify four virtues, namely prudence, celerity, fortitude, and audacity" ([Preface, "Seven Swords"]).

sottano

rising blow

An upward cut from the knee to the forehead along the fendente's path, often finishing in the Long Guard; the mirror-image ascent of the descending blow.

"We are the rising blows, and we begin at the knee and go up through the middle of the forehead… or else we remain in the Long Guard" ([S2H 9]).

tor di spada

the taking of the sword (disarm) Meaning: Disarming the opponent of his sword. The close play systematizes three takings — high (soprano), middle (mezano), low (sottano) — a deliberate parallel to the three locks, and provides the counter that breaks them all. Example: "The high taking of the sword" ([S2H 75]), "the middle taking" ([S2H 77]), "the low taking" ([S2H 78]); and "seizing the hilt: the break of every sword-taking" ([S2H 68]). volta stabile / meza volta / tutta volta — stable turn / half turn / full turn

Fiore's three turns, "the three movements of the sword". The stable turn plays front and rear on one side without stepping; the half turn steps once to change side; the full turn circles one foot about the other. With the four steps they are the mechanical substrate of every play.

Defined together in the longsword Introduction: "the sword has three movements: the stable turn, the half turn, and the full turn" ([S2H 1]).

zogho largo / zogho stretto

wide play / close play

Fiore's two tactical states of the longsword fight. Wide play is fought mostly with the sword (covers, exchanges, strikes to openings); close play is fought once the fighters have come near, with binds, grapples, pommel-strikes, and disarms. Reading which state one is in, and applying the right family of plays, is the core diagnostic skill Fiore teaches. Note that the treatise marks the two by their Masters and their families of plays, not by a stated rule about where the blades meet — [S2H 29] crosses at the middle and is still wide play.

the wide play runs [S2H 26]–[S2H 47]; "here begins the close play (zogho stretto)… in which there will be covers" and binds ([S2H 48] onward). See Tactical grouping §3.

Lexicon

Italian–English Lexicon