Getty 10r
Four crowned figures, each holding an emblem and explaining it: the dagger, the broken arms, the keys, the palm. They are neither guards nor plays but the section's argument in pictures — and they are [Dagger 8]'s five things distributed, take-and-strike at [13], break the arms at [14], lock them at [15], put him on the ground at [16]. The verse witnesses join the dagger here, and they join it in Latin.
As to why I carry a dagger in my right hand: I carry it for my art, which I have well earned; for anyone who draws a dagger against me, I will take it from his hand. And with it I will know well how to strike him, for I know how to carry both the attack and the counter (lo pro e'l contra) through to the end.
- Not a technique: the figure explains his emblem. He carries a dagger in his right hand, and the question put to him is why.
- First answer: he carries it for his art, which he has "well earned" — the emblem is a claim of title.
- What he does with it: anyone who draws a dagger against him loses it. The taking (tor di daga), first of the five things at [Dagger 8].
- Then he strikes with the taken dagger — the disarm is not the end of a play but the start of one.
- His warrant: he carries both the attack and the counter (lo pro e'l contra) through to the end. He knows both sides of every play, which is what makes him a Master rather than a fighter.
The section in one sentence: take the dagger, then strike with it. The takings run from [Dagger 21] to the end.
In the Pisani Dossi the four introduction masters [13]–[16] carry Latin verses nearly identical to the Paris text, not the usual Italian couplets. The Latin of these verses is irregular; the translations are best-effort.
By the broken arms that I carry, I mean to declare my art, which is this, without wishing to lie: that I have broken and dislocated many of them in my life; and whoever sets himself against my art — such art I am always ready to use.
- Not a technique: the second figure explains the broken arms he carries as his emblem.
- His claim is a résumé, not a mechanism: he has broken and dislocated many arms in his life, and says so "without wishing to lie".
- The standing threat: whoever sets himself against his art gets that art used on him.
- No grip, no side, no play is named. The emblem stands for breaking the arms — one of [Dagger 8]'s five things — and nothing more.
I am a master of opening and also of closing — that is, the arms of whoever wants to act against me. I will put him in great trouble and suffering, in the manner in which the locks (ligadure) and breaks (rotture) are depicted. And therefore I carry the keys as my emblem, for such art is well worthy of me.
- Not a technique: the third figure explains the two keys he carries.
- His art is stated as a pair of opposites — opening and closing — and what he opens and closes is the arms of whoever wants to act against him.
- The means: locks (ligadure) and breaks (rotture), "in the manner in which [they] are depicted". The emblem defers to the plays.
- Hence the keys: a lock is a thing that shuts, and a key is what shuts it. The metaphor is Fiore's own — from [Dagger 20] onward the locks are literally called keys (chiave).
Two keys, because the locks come in levels. The dagger fixes three — middle [Dagger 19], upper [Dagger 43], lower/strong [Dagger 54] — and the rest of the book cites them by number.
You asked me why I hold this man beneath my feet: because I have put thousands into such a plight by the art of grappling (abrazare). And for victory I carry the palm in my right hand, because from grappling there has never yet been a stop.
- Not a technique: the fourth figure answers a question put to him — why he stands on a man.
- The answer: he has put thousands into that plight, and by grappling (abrazare) — not by the dagger.
- His emblem is the palm of victory, in the right hand.
- His reason for it: "from grappling there has never yet been a stop" — nobody has found the end of it.
The dagger's fourth Master is a wrestler and says so. This is the Iron Gate's claim at [Grappling 4] — that grappling underlies the armed arts — planted at the head of the dagger to license what follows: the throws, the locks, the ground plays. See Tactical grouping §6.
Glossological analysis
- lo pro e'l contra ([13]) — literally "the pro and the contra": the play and its counter, the two halves of every exchange. Not "pros and cons" in the modern deliberative sense — pro is the action, contra the answer to it. Carrying both "through to the end" is the Master's qualification.
- tor di daga ([13]) — the taking of the dagger, enacted here as an emblem and named as a term at [Dagger 37]. First of [Dagger 8]'s five things.
- ligadure / rotture ([15]) — locks / breaks, the pair the keys stand for; the same words as grappling's ([Grappling 3]).
- chiave — the key. Fiore's own metaphor for a lock, shown as an emblem here before it is used as a term ([Dagger 20], [Dagger 21], [Dagger 52], [Dagger 54]).
- abrazare ([16]) — grappling as an art, not an action — the sense of [Grappling 4]. The dagger's fourth Master claims it, and the section's throws follow from the claim.
- Re / magistro — King / Master, used interchangeably of these crowned figures ("the first King and Remedy", [Dagger 31]). The dagger is the section that leans hardest on Re.
- palma ([13], [16]) — the Latin verses open and close the set on the same word in two senses: at [13] the palm of the hand that bears the dagger, at [16] the palm of victory held in the right hand. Both figures name the right hand; the emblem-set is bracketed by the pun.
Manuscript comparison
- The verse witnesses begin here — and they begin in Latin. The Pisani Dossi is an Italian-verse manuscript, but for exactly these four figures it carries Latin hexameters near-identical to the Paris: "Nam palmam tutam signo sic refero dagam" against Paris "Nam palma tutam signo sic defero dagam." At [Dagger 17] the Pisani Dossi switches to its Italian couplets and stays there for the rest of the section. Four Latin plates in an Italian book (Note at [13], Dagger translation).
- The two Latin texts differ at word level, not sense level. [13]: Pisani Dossi refero ("bear back") against Paris defero ("bear"). [14]: Pisani Dossi "Pol manibus fractis ornatis porto lacertos" against Paris "Pro manibus fractis ornatus porto lacertis" — the same line with the endings redistributed, so that in the Pisani Dossi the arms are adorned and in the Paris the man is. [15] and [16] agree almost letter for letter. This is one text copied twice, not two independent translations.
- The Latin is irregular, and the translations are best-effort accordingly: sixtere for sistere, talles for tales, cumgero for congero, cumclaudas for conclaudas. The Pisani Dossi's spellings are consistently the looser of the two; the Paris tidies them.
- What the prose adds is the warrant. The Getty gives each figure a motive: how the art was earned ([13]), the lifetime of broken arms ([14]), the deferral to the depicted plays ([15]), the claim that grappling has never been stopped ([16]). The Latin gives the emblem and the boast and stops — the corpus's standard division (Manuscript comparison §4A), here with the unusual twist that both verse witnesses are in the same language as each other and not in the same language as the book they sit in.
- Illustrations. All four are the Getty's own (10r-a…d) — and the last Getty pictures until [Dagger 23]. Coverage: Getty, Pisani Dossi and Paris all four; Morgan none.