Getty 16v
Three more scholars keeping the Sixth Master's cover ([85]–[87]), and the counter that undoes him ([88]). It is also the folio where the Getty's own layout visibly fails: [87] is printed after the counter and says so out loud, protesting that "by rights I go before him."
Having made my Master's cover, I have made this hold. Armored or unarmored I can strike you, and I can also put you into the upper lock (ligadura soprana) of the first scholar of the Fourth Master, Remedy [Master] of the dagger.
- Having made the Master's cover, make this hold.
- Armored or unarmored, you can strike him from it.
- Or put him into the upper lock (ligadura soprana) — and note whose lock it is. The address given is not the Sixth Master's at all but "the first scholar of the Fourth Master": [Dagger 58].
The Sixth Master's cover feeds the Fourth Master's lock. The locks are a shared set of destinations; the covers are only different roads into them.
Not abandoning the cover of the Sixth Master, I make this turn. Your right hand is on the point of losing the dagger — you see how you are turning it over — mine will strike you at once, and your dagger will be lost to you. Also I can make such a turn with my left arm that I will make you suffer in the lower lock (sotana ligadura).
- Not abandoning the Sixth Master's cover, make this turn.
- His right hand is on the point of losing the dagger — the turn rolls it over out of his grip.
- Your own dagger strikes at once; his is gone.
- Alternative: make the same turn with your left arm instead, and he suffers in the lower lock (sotana ligadura) — the strong key of [Dagger 54].
The clause describing his hand is corrupt in the Getty and this is the only witness to the play. What survives unambiguously is the branch: right hand turns → disarm; left arm turns → lower lock.
The Getty's sentence "la mano tua dritta per perder e la daga, e vedi che tu la riversi" is garbled; the translation follows the evident sense of the disarm.
Although I am placed after the counter of the sixth play, by rights I go before him, because I am his scholar, and this play is his — that is, the Sixth Master's. And this play is worth more in armor than without; therefore I strike this man in the hand, because in that place one cannot be well armored. For if a man were unarmored, I would seek to strike him in the face or in the chest, or in a place where worse might befall him.
- Bookkeeping first — and here it is a protest. The play stands after the counter on the page, and objects: "by rights I go before him, because I am his scholar" — the Sixth Master's, not the counter's.
- The play itself: strike the man in the hand.
- The reason, and it is doctrine, not preference: "because in that place one cannot be well armored."
- Branch: were he unarmored, you would strike the face or the chest, "or a place where worse might befall him."
The section's clearest statement of how armor works in this book. It does not defeat the play; it deletes targets. The hand is what an armored man leaves you, not what you would choose.
In the Getty the counter [88] stands earlier on the folio than this play (16v-c against 16v-d); the scholar's text itself protests the placement, and the numbering here follows the order the text asks for.
I make the counter to the Sixth King: pushing your elbow, I will make your body turn, and in that moment I will be able to strike you. For this push, which you will make suddenly, can defend against many close plays — and above all it is the counter to the holds of the close play (zogo stretto).
- Push his elbow — the verse specifies with the left hand.
- His body turns, or opens.
- In that moment — while he is turning and cannot answer — strike him.
- The scope claim: this push, "which you will make suddenly, can defend against many close plays", and above all it is the counter to the holds of close play (zogo stretto).
The push at the elbow is the section's universal solvent. It recurs at [Dagger 42], [Dagger 90], [Dagger 91], [Dagger 94], [Dagger 98], and [Dagger 110] — six Masters answered by one gesture.
Glossological analysis
- the push at the elbow (penta) ([88]) — a shove, not a strike: it does no damage and is not meant to. Its whole function is to turn a man, and it is the most widely applicable action in the section — named at [Dagger 42], [Dagger 91], and [Dagger 110] with the word penta, and used without it here and at [Dagger 90], [Dagger 94], [Dagger 98].
- zogo stretto ([88]) — close play, spelled here without the h of [Dagger 80]'s zogho stretto. The same term; the orthography drifts freely and nothing turns on it.
- ligadura soprana ([85]) — the upper lock, and cited across families: reached from the Sixth Master's cover, but addressed as the Fourth Master's first scholar ([Dagger 58]).
- sotana ligadura ([86]) — the lower lock, i.e. the strong key of [Dagger 54]. Word order reversed from ligadura de sotto as usual, sense unchanged.
- cortello ([87], verse) — the knife: the verse's ordinary word for a blade, where the prose uses the technical daga. The Pisani Dossi's register is consistently the plainer one.
- "in that place one cannot be well armored" ([87]) — the doctrine underwriting every armor branch in the section. Armor does not stop the plays; it removes targets, and the plays re-aim.
- "by rights I go before him" ([87]) — a play objecting to its own position on the page. Fiore's texts navigate by physical neighbourhood ([Dagger 68], [Dagger 78]); this is what happens when the neighbourhood is wrong.
Manuscript comparison
- A play that argues with its own manuscript. In the Getty, [87] sits at 16v-d and the counter [88] at 16v-c — the counter physically precedes the scholar it answers. The scholar's text protests aloud: "Although I am placed after the counter of the sixth play, by rights I go before him, because I am his scholar." Our numbering follows the order the text asks for, not the order the page gives. It is the section's most explicit evidence that layout and teaching had already come apart by the time the Getty was copied.
- [86] is Getty-only and textually damaged — the worst combination in the section. No verse witness carries it, and the Getty's own sentence (la mano tua dritta per perder e la daga, e vedi che tu la riversi) is garbled; the translation follows the evident sense of the disarm. For a play that offers a two-way branch into a disarm or the lower lock, the single witness is corrupt exactly where it matters.
- [87]: the verse keeps the armor and drops the reasoning. The Pisani Dossi gives the tableau — "You being armored and I armored, you see that I have driven the knife into your hand" — and stops there. The Getty supplies why: the hand cannot be well armored, and an unarmored man would be struck in the face or chest instead. The verse shows the picture; the prose explains the choice behind it.
- [88]: agreement, with the Getty generalizing. The Pisani Dossi has the mechanism ("With my left hand I will make you turn, or uncover") and the result. The Getty adds the scope: many close plays, and above all the holds of close play. Once again the verse counters a Master and the prose counters a category — cf. [Dagger 80].
- Illustrations. [86] is the Getty's own (16v-b); [85], [87], and [88] are the Pisani Dossi's — gathered from three separate Pisani Dossi pages (11a-f, 12a-a, 11b-d) to furnish one Getty folio, the same scattering seen across [Dagger 67]–[Dagger 72].
- Coverage. Getty and Pisani Dossi carry [85], [87], [88]; [86] is Getty-only. The Paris has none of these four — the Latin witness drops the whole folio. Morgan, as ever in the dagger, none.