Getty 13v
The Second Master's family ends at [Dagger 44] and the Third Master begins in the same breath — the backhand plays, whose introduction and first play the Getty runs together in one figure. His three plates here are a single continuous action: cover, throw, and the arm ruined once the man is down.
I am the counter of the play just passed before here. And I say that with this grip I break all his four plays named before. And he cannot prevent me from dashing him to the ground, by the grip that I have, strong and fierce.
- Answers [Dagger 43], the strong grip and its four things.
- And answers the set, not a member of it: "with this grip I break all his four plays." One grip against four options.
- The Getty gives no mechanism — only the grip's character, strong and fierce.
- And its outcome: he cannot prevent the throw.
The second time the book counters an enumeration rather than a technique ([Dagger 22] did it to a list of three). What is being answered is the position, not the move.
The Paris transcription groups two verses under this number: the first (23v-c) parallels the Second Master's own statement [41]; the second (22r-b) is the counter proper, paralleling [42]/[44]. ## 3rd Master
Here begin the plays of the backhand (man riversa), by which countless men have lost their lives. And my scholars will follow the plays, all through the cover that I make with my right hand. This is an easy play to do: in this way I mean to tumble this man to the ground.
- Two figures in one text. First the announcement: here begin the plays of the backhand (man riversa) — a whole family, and one by which "countless men have lost their lives".
- The family's condition, stated once and binding on all of it: everything his scholars do runs through the cover he makes with his right hand.
- Then the play itself, which is the Master's own: this cover is easy to do.
- From it, tumble the man to the ground.
- No grip is described. The Master is a cover and a claim; the scholars supply the rest ([Dagger 48]–[Dagger 55]).
The Getty fuses the Third Master's introduction and his first play into one text; the Pisani Dossi keeps them as two plates ([Dagger 45], [Dagger 46]) — and the seam is still visible in the Getty's wording. See the comparison.
In this way you will be thrown to the ground. And I would do it more safely if I were well armored; yet even unarmored you can do nothing to me. And I would do this to you even if you were stronger still.
- Continues the Master's cover ([Dagger 47]): the man is thrown to the ground.
- Then three ratings, and no mechanics whatever:
- Armored — the throw is done more safely.
- Unarmored — it still works: "you can do nothing to me."
- Against a stronger man — it still works.
- So the plate's content is an argument about when the play holds, not about how it is done.
The armor question of [Dagger 1] resurfacing, now asked of a play instead of a guard. Fiore's ratings are comparative and never absolute: armor makes this safer, not possible.
You go to the ground, and your arm is dislocated, by the art of my Master who is crowned. And you can make no counter against me, for here I hold you so as to make you suffer the more.
- The end of the sequence: he is on the ground and his arm is dislocated.
- The credit goes to the Master, not the scholar — "by the art of my Master who is crowned". The scholar claims nothing of his own.
- No counter is available from here.
- And the hold is kept deliberately — not to finish him but to make him suffer the more.
Cover ([Dagger 47]) → throw ([Dagger 48]) → the arm ruined on the ground ([Dagger 49]): the Third Master's opening is one continuous action across three plates, and only the first of them names a cover.
Glossological analysis
- man riversa ([47]) — the backhand, literally the "reversed hand", and the name of the Third Master's whole family. The Getty spells out elsewhere what it means for him: he "plays with the right hand at the backhand" ([Dagger 98]) — the hand is the right one; riversa says where it goes.
- coverta ([47]) — the cover, and here a family's constitution rather than an action: every scholar's play runs "through the cover that I make with my right hand". A Fiorean cover is what the plays hang on (Tactical grouping §2).
- incoronado ([49]) — crowned. The crown is the Master's mark throughout the book; the scholar names it to say whose art the play is, not whose hands.
- dislogado ([49]) — dislocated, as against rotto, broken ([Dagger 35], [Dagger 43]). The section keeps the two apart and offers them as alternatives ([Dagger 59]).
- stentare ([49]) — to suffer, be in torment; not "to strain". The word the locks use of what they do to a man ([Dagger 21], [Dagger 52], [Dagger 54]) — and here a hold is kept expressly to prolong it.
- liziero ([47]) — "easy to do". One of the few ratings Fiore gives a play, and it goes to a Master's own opening rather than to a scholar's finish.
Manuscript comparison
- The Paris's [44] is not [44]. The transcription files two Latin verses under this number and neither answers the four things. 23v-c — "Me tego luctantem sicut cruce nempe lacertis / Omnibus atque modis possum colludere primis" — is the Second Master's own statement, the Latin of [Dagger 41]. 22r-b — "Hoc tua contrario tectura refellitur ecce…" — is the counter to him, the Latin of [Dagger 42], and it even keeps that couplet's shape ("neither the plays of the reversed hand nor the earlier ones will avail"). So the Paris has no verse for [44] at all; what it has is [41] and [42], misfiled (Note at [44], Dagger translation). Our page shows both Paris illustrations at [44] in consequence.
- The Getty fuses what the Pisani Dossi splits at [47] — and the seam shows. Pisani Dossi: "Qui comença zoghi de man riverssa zoghi forti / Per tali zoghi non saver, asaii ne sono morti / E li zoghi li mie scholari seguirano / E pur de parte riverssa començarano". Getty: "Qui comenzan çoghi di man riversa, per li quali infiniti ano lor vita persa. E li zoghi li mei scolari seguirano, pur per la coverta qual io fazo cum la destra mano." Lines one and three are the same line; lines two and four have been replaced — and replaced with new lines that keep the rhyme (riversa / persa, seguirano / mano) while swapping the verse's content for doctrine. This is the clearest look in the section at how the prose was made.
- What the swap costs. The Pisani Dossi's fourth line says the scholars begin from the backhand side; the Getty's says they work through the Master's right-hand cover. Both are structural instructions and they are not the same instruction — the verse tells you which side, the prose tells you whose cover. The Getty's second line also drops the verse's rating of these as strong plays.
- The verse rates [48] differently. Getty: armored is safer, unarmored still works, and it works against a stronger man. Pisani Dossi: "Tu va in terra per tuo pocho saver" — you go down through your scant knowledge — and armor merely lets one hold oneself more safely. The Getty credits the play; the verse blames the loser.
- Illustrations. [44] carries three: the Pisani Dossi's (07b-f) and both Paris figures (23v-c, 22r-b) — the misfiling made visible on the page. [47]–[49] are the Pisani Dossi's (08b-c, 08b-d, 08b-e).
- Coverage. Getty four; Pisani Dossi four; Paris five texts across four plates — but the two filed at [44] belong to [Dagger 41] and [Dagger 42]. Morgan none.