Getty 12r
The counter to the previous folio's scholar, then a self-contained pair — a named cover called Greater Strength and the counter that undoes it — and a shoulder break to close. The Getty misspells the cover's name on this page and spells it right two figures later.
I make the counter to you in this way, so that you will not take my dagger, nor will you lock my arm; and I and my dagger will remain at liberty. And then I will strike you in the release that you will make of me, in such a way and manner that you will have no defense.
- Answers [Dagger 31], the scholar who wanted your dagger and your arm.
- Item by item: no disarm, no lock.
- The positive claim is unusual — you and your dagger both remain at liberty. This counter's object is freedom, not a hold.
- Then strike him — in the release itself. The tempo is named exactly: the moment he lets go is the moment you hit.
- And in that moment he has no defense, because releasing and defending are the same hand.
The scholar at [Dagger 31] said he would act "without delay" because he doubted you knew this counter. This is that counter, and it punishes precisely the letting-go.
This cover is called Greater Strength (più forteza), and I make it so that I can trouble you with several plays. And such strength you cannot annul, for two arms can well withstand one.
- A named cover: Greater Strength (più forteza).
- Its purpose is optionality — from it you can "trouble him with several plays". The verse says how many: all the foregoing remedies.
- Its warrant, and it is arithmetic rather than mechanics: two arms can well withstand one. Your two against his one dagger-arm.
- Hence the claim that the strength "cannot be annulled" — not because of leverage, but because of the count.
The plainest statement of advantage in the section, and it is not a lever at all; it is a numbers argument. Compare [Dagger 5]–[Dagger 6], where the crossed guards buy strength and pay in reach.
The Getty writes "pie forteza" here but "piu forteza" in the counter [34]; "più fortezza" (greater strength) is clearly intended.
This is the counter of the play before, which is called Greater Strength. And I will turn him with my left hand; once I have given him the turn, striking him does not fail me.
- Answers [Dagger 33].
- Turn him with your left hand — one hand, against the two that were supposed to be unanswerable.
- Once the turn is given, the strike does not fail. The turn does all the work; the strike is a consequence of it.
- The Getty does not say where the left hand goes, and neither does the verse.
Two arms beat one ([Dagger 33]) — and then one hand beats two. The refutation is not more strength but a turn, which strength does not answer. The elbow-pushes work the same way ([Dagger 42], [Dagger 88], [Dagger 91]).
By the good grip that I have made against you, it does not fail me to break your arm over my left shoulder. And then with your own dagger I will be able to strike you; and this play is not one to miss.
- From a good grip already made. The verse credits it to the Master (la presa delo magistro) — the grip is the First Master's, not this scholar's invention.
- Break his arm over your left shoulder. The shoulder is the fulcrum; the arm is the lever.
- Then strike him with his own dagger — the break has disarmed him as well.
- Fiore's rating: this play is "not one to miss".
Break and take from one grip — two of [Dagger 8]'s five things at once. Its counter opens the next folio ([Dagger 36]), and the Second Master's scholar will assemble four such outcomes into a single list ([Dagger 43]).
Glossological analysis
- più forteza ([33], [34]) — Greater Strength: the name of a cover, not a quality of one. It is one of the very few dagger positions the Getty dignifies with a proper name, alongside the guards and the locks. On its spelling, see the comparison.
- anichilare ([33]) — to annul, bring to nothing: the strength "you cannot annul". A Latinate word in an otherwise plain register.
- volta ([34]) — the turn, again the operative verb ([Dagger 17], [Dagger 18]). Here it is what defeats a superiority of arms: you do not out-push, you rotate.
- presa delo magistro (PD, [35]) — "the Master's grip". The verse attributes the hold to the First Master rather than to the scholar performing it: scholars in Fiore borrow their Master's grip and vary the finish — the logic [Dagger 30] reasons about explicitly.
- invito (PD, [33]) — an invitation, and one served on the opponent: "I offer you an invitation to all the foregoing remedies", i.e. you are about to receive every remedy in the book. The Getty says the same thing flatly ("I can trouble you with several plays") and so does the Paris ("I attempt the methods that any man before could accomplish"); the irony is the verse's own, of a piece with bon merchato ([Grappling 2]).
- non e miga da fallire ([35]) — "not one to miss". Miga is an intensifying negative (cf. French mie) and fallire is to fail, not to fall. The phrase rates the play, and it will carry either sense — the play does not fail, or do not omit it.
Manuscript comparison
- A scribal slip the same page corrects. The Getty writes the cover's name "pie forteza" at [33] and "piu forteza" at [34], two figures later. Più fortezza, greater strength, is plainly meant, and both verse witnesses confirm it — Pisani Dossi "Per piu forteça", Paris "grandi valitudine" (Note at [33], Dagger translation). The Pisani Dossi has a slip of its own in the same couplet: "io crovo[!] aquesto partito" for covro, "I cover".
- The verse quantifies what the prose leaves vague. Getty [33]: the cover lets me trouble you with several plays (parechi). Pisani Dossi: all the foregoing remedies. Paris: "the methods that any man before could accomplish". It is a small word, but it is the difference between a useful cover and a universal one — and it is the verse, again, that makes the larger technical claim.
- [35] is where the Paris jumps. Its texts for [33] and [34] sit at 25v; [35] is back at 23r-a. The witnesses agree on the play and disagree on where it lives (see 11v).
- Illustrations. All four are the Pisani Dossi's (06b-f, 07a-a, 07a-b, 07a-c). No Getty figure appears on this page — as on 10v, the pictures are the verse family's and the text is the prose family's.
- Coverage. Getty, Pisani Dossi, Paris all four. Morgan none.