Getty 8v
The whole of the baton section: one Getty folio, four plates, the shortest weapon-section in the book. It splits down the middle — [Baton 1] and [Baton 2] use the little baton (bastonçello) as a binding and levering tool, while [Baton 3] and [Baton 4] are not baton plays at all but two of the dagger Masters' covers, made with whatever happens to be in the hand.
See how with a little baton (bastonçello) I hold you bound (ligado) by the neck. And I want to throw you to the ground — I shall have little trouble in doing it — for if I wished to treat you worse, I would make you enter into the strong lock (la forte ligadura). And you could not do the counter (contrario) against me.
- You have the little baton at his neck, holding him bound (ligado). How baton and hands are placed, the text does not say — the plate carries that.
- From the binding, throw him to the ground. Fiore's estimate of the cost: "little trouble" (pocha briga).
- If you want to treat him worse: do not throw him at all — make him enter into the strong lock (la forte ligadura) instead.
- Fiore's claim: you could not do the counter against me — one of the few plays in the book declared counter-proof (cf. [Grappling 12]).
The text names the destination only as "the strong lock". Fiore's named strong lock elsewhere is the lower lock, expressly equated with the strong key ([Dagger 54]) — but this play does not say so, and no other witness carries the sentence.
If you were well armored, I would do this play to you all the sooner, considering that I have caught you with a little baton (bastonzello) between the legs. You sit as if on horseback (tu sta a cavallo), and it can last you but little, for I will make you topple over onto your back.
- You have caught him with the little baton between his legs; he is straddling it — "you sit as if on horseback" (tu sta a cavallo).
- It can last him but little: lever him over so that he topples onto his back.
- The condition runs opposite to expectation: if he were well armored, Fiore says he would do this play to him all the sooner. Harness makes the topple easier, not harder.
- As at [Baton 1], the grip and the lift go undescribed; the plate is the instruction.
The armored/unarmored branch is the treatise's standard reweighting (Tactical grouping §10) — but here armor is a reason to choose the play, not a modification of it.
I am the scholar of the Sixth King (Sexto Re), who is the Remedy Master of the dagger and who [defends] against it in this way with his own dagger [Dagger 81]. And for his honor I make such a cover (coverta) with this little baton (bastonçello); and immediately I rise to my feet and do the plays of my Master. That which I do with the little baton, I would do with a hood (capuzo). The counter (contrario) of my Master is my counter.
- You are the scholar of the Sixth King — the Sixth Remedy Master of the dagger, who covers against a dagger with his own dagger ([Dagger 81]).
- You have no dagger. Make his cover with the little baton instead.
- You are down: the cover made, rise to your feet at once. (The text says only that you rise; that you began on the ground is its implication, and the plate's.)
- On your feet, do the plays of your Master — the Sixth Master's scholars' plays ([Dagger 82]–[Dagger 87]).
- The baton is not the point: "that which I do with the little baton, I would do with a hood (capuzo)."
- Counter: none is given here, and none is needed — "the counter of my Master is my counter", that is, the push at the elbow of [Dagger 88].
From the Eighth King (octavo Re), who is a Remedy [Master] [Dagger 92], I do this play; and again with this little baton (bastonzello) I make my defense. And the cover made, I straighten myself up onto my feet, and I can do the plays of my Master. And with a hood (capuzo) or with a rope (corda) I would do the same to you. The counter (contrario) which belongs to my Master is mine.
- The same construction from the Eighth King — the Eighth Remedy Master of the dagger, who crosses with his dagger ([Dagger 92]).
- Again the little baton makes the defense in the dagger's place.
- The cover made, straighten up onto your feet.
- Then do the plays of your Master.
- Or do it with a hood (capuzo), or with a rope (corda) — the list of substitutes grows by one.
- Counter: inherited again — "the counter which belongs to my Master is mine", that is, the push at the elbow of [Dagger 94].
Read together, [3] and [4] state the treatise's one-art claim as a procedure: take a Master's cover, put a stick, a hood, or a rope in the scholar's hand, and the whole family of plays — and its counter — comes with it. Note that both inherited counters ([Dagger 88], [Dagger 94]) are the same elbow push. See Technical grouping §9.
The "Sixth King" and "Eighth King" are the Sixth and Eighth Remedy Masters of the Dagger section ([Dagger 81] and [Dagger 92]), both of whom cover with their own dagger; these two seated baton plays transfer those covers to an improvised weapon (baton, hood, or rope).
Glossological analysis
- bastonçello / bastonzello ([1]–[4]) — a little baton: the diminutive of bastone, a short stick, not a staff and not a club. Note that the Getty spells it with ç in [1] and [3] and with z in [2] and [4] — the ç/z alternation that elsewhere fingerprints the Getty against the Morgan (Manuscript comparison §4B) is not stable inside a single Getty folio.
- ligado / la forte ligadura ([1]) — bound / the strong lock. The binding is the section's whole idea: the baton is not swung, it is used to tie a man up.
- briga ([1]) — trouble, not "brigade": pocha briga per questo ho a fare, "I shall have little trouble in doing it". Fiore's habitual measure of what a play costs the man doing it.
- tu sta a cavallo ([2]) — "you sit as if on horseback": the idiom for straddling. It describes the player's predicament, not a mounted play — the baton is between his legs and he is riding it.
- Sexto Re / octavo Re ([3], [4]) — the Sixth and Eighth King. Re is Fiore's alternative title for a Remedy Master (Glossary); the two meant are [Dagger 81] and [Dagger 92].
- coverta ([3], [4]) — the cover, and here it is the whole of what is borrowed: these plates take the two Masters' covers and nothing else, then hand the reader back to the dagger section for everything that follows.
- capuzo ([3], [4]) — a hood (the hooded cape of the period), not a "cap". Offered as an equal substitute for the baton: the play needs something in the hand, not a weapon.
- corda ([4]) — a rope; the third substitute, and the one that shows the mechanism is not the stick's rigidity. How a rope makes the same cover as a baton, the Getty does not say — it offers the option without comment.
- bon merchato (PD, [1]) — the ironic "good bargain" once more: "if I do not put you on the ground, you have gotten off cheaply." The Pisani Dossi's stock sardonic phrase, used the same way in the grappling ([Grappling 2], [Grappling 5], [Grappling 14]).
Manuscript comparison
- Coverage: this is a Getty section. The Morgan has no baton at all — it lacks the entire opening of the art, grappling, dagger, baton, and axe alike (Manuscript comparison §4C) — and the Paris has none either. The Pisani Dossi has only [1] and [2]. The two plates that carry the section's whole point, [3] and [4], therefore survive in one witness.
- The Pisani Dossi does not treat the baton as a section. Its two couplets sit at 5b-e and 5b-f, running straight on from the last grappling plays on the same page (5b-a…d = [Grappling 18]–[Grappling 21]). The Getty, by contrast, gives the baton a folio of its own, 8v, after the grappling closes at 8r-d. The section boundary belongs to the prose recension; in the verse the baton is the tail of the grappling.
- Form, as usual. The Getty's [1] gives the throw, the escalation to the strong lock, and the claim that no counter exists; the couplet gives the throw and a joke. The Getty's [2] gives the armored condition and the toppling; the couplet gives an oath — "if you do not go to the ground by this little baton, I will never believe that this art is true."
- Nothing to compare where it counts. [3] and [4] have no verse, no Morgan, no Paris. That a Master's cover transfers whole to a stick, a hood, or a rope — counter included — is single-witness testimony, and it is the most consequential claim on the page.
- Illustrations. [1] and [2] are the Pisani Dossi's (5b-e, 5b-f); [3] and [4] are the Getty's own (8v-c, 8v-d), necessarily, since no other witness depicts them. This is one of the few pages where the Getty supplies both the picture and the only text.