Getty 17r
Two Masters and their two counters on one page. The Seventh crosses his arms ([90]), the Eighth crosses his dagger ([92]) — and both are undone by the same thing: a push at the elbow ([91], [94]). Between them stands plate [93], which no witness transcribes at all: it has an illustration and no text anywhere, and the numbering steps over it.
I am the Seventh Master, who plays with the arms crossed (le brazze incrosade), and this cover (coverta) is worth more in armor than out of armor. As for what I can do with such a cover, my plays stand before me — namely the middle lock (ligadura mezana), which is the third play of the First Master, the dagger Remedy [Dagger 19]. Also, I can turn you by pushing your right elbow with my left hand, and then strike you in the head or in the shoulders at once. And this cover is more for locking (ligare) than for doing anything else, and it is a very strong cover against the dagger.
- Cover with the arms crossed (le brazze incrosade).
- Value statement: "worth more in armor than out of armor."
- What the cover is for — and it is classified by its destination, not its shape: locking (ligare). "This cover is more for locking than for doing anything else."
- The destination, named and addressed: the middle lock (ligadura mezana), "the third play of the First Master, the dagger Remedy" — [Dagger 19].
- Alternative: turn him by pushing his right elbow with your left hand, then strike the head or the shoulders at once.
Read step 5 against the next plate. The Seventh Master is teaching, as his own alternative, the exact action that [Dagger 91] will use to destroy him — same hand, same elbow, same follow-up to the shoulders. Neither text remarks on it.
This is the counter of the Seventh Master who is before me, by the push (penta) that I make at his right elbow. I say further that this counter is good against every close play (zogho stretto) of the dagger, of the poleaxe, and of the sword, in armor and out of armor. And once the push at the elbow is made, the strike to the shoulders must follow at once.
- Push (penta) at his right elbow.
- At once the strike to the shoulders must follow — the text treats push and strike as one action, not two: "once the push at the elbow is made, the strike to the shoulders must follow at once."
- The scope claim, and it is the widest in the section: this counter is good against every close play (zogho stretto) — of the dagger, of the poleaxe, and of the sword — in armor and out of armor.
The Seventh Master taught this push, at this elbow, with this follow-up to the shoulders, as his own option one plate earlier ([Dagger 90]). His counter is his own play, run back at him.
I am the Eighth Master, and I cross with my dagger. And this play is good in armor and out of armor. And my plays are placed some before, some behind. The play that is before me — namely the fourth play, the one who strikes the player in the hand with the point of his dagger — could in the same way strike this man underhand (di sotta mano), just as he strikes him from above. Also, I could seize his hand at the joint with my left hand, and with the right I could strike him well, according to what you will find behind me in the ninth scholar of the Ninth Master, who strikes the player in the chest. Also, I could do the last play that stands behind [Dagger 109], abandoning my dagger.
- Cross with your dagger. Like the Sixth Master, this one is armed; unlike him, he says so in his own text.
- Good in armor and out of armor.
- Bookkeeping, and it is unusual: "my plays are placed some before, some behind." This Master does not own a contiguous block of plates, and knows it.
- Three things he claims he could do, each addressed to a play elsewhere: - the hand-strike standing "before me" could be made underhand (di sotta mano) just as it is made from above; - seize his hand at the joint with the left hand and strike with the right — as "the ninth scholar of the Ninth Master, who strikes the player in the chest"; - do "the last play that stands behind" ([Dagger 109]), abandoning your dagger altogether.
- The play itself is never described. This plate is a table of contents, not a technique.
Two of those three references do not resolve against the surviving plays — see the comparison below.
The hand-strike meant is evidently [Dagger 87] (the Sixth Master's scholar, who strikes the hand because it cannot be well armored); the count "fourth play" does not match the surviving sequence. The chest-strike is depicted at [Dagger 108], the eighth surviving scholar of the Ninth Master — Fiore's "ninth scholar" suggests a play has dropped out or is counted differently.
I am the counter of the eighth play that is before me, and of all its scholars. And if I extend my left hand to his elbow, I will push it with force, in such a way that I will be able to strike him across (ala traversa). Also, in that turn that I will give him, I could throw my arm around his neck and strike him in the very many ways that can be done.
- Extend your left hand to his elbow and push it with force — the folio's second elbow-push, against a different Master.
- He turns, and you strike him across (ala traversa) — on the line his own turn has opened.
- Or, riding the same turn, throw your arm around his neck and strike "in the very many ways that can be done."
- Scope: it counters "the eighth play… and of all its scholars" — the family, not the plate.
No transcription exists for Wiktenauer's [93] in any version (illustration only); the text numbering passes from [92] to [94].
Glossological analysis
- le brazze incrosade ([90]) — the crossed arms. The section's most persistent structure, and the Seventh Master is simply the crossing given a crown: [Dagger 5] and [Dagger 6] are crossed guards, [Dagger 41] is the Second Master crossed, [Dagger 77] waits crossed, [Dagger 98] covers crossed. Fiore crowns the same idea more than once.
- ligare ([90]) — to lock, to bind (whence ligadura). "This cover is more for ligare than for doing anything else" — a cover classified by where it goes, not by what it looks like. That is how the dagger's covers are told apart throughout.
- penta ([91]) — the push, shove at the elbow; also [Dagger 42] and [Dagger 110]. Not a strike: it does no damage and is not meant to. Its function is purely to turn a man, and the strike is a separate beat that must follow "at once".
- di sotta mano ([92]) — underhand, from below; paired against sopramane (overhand, [Dagger 100]). These are the two lines a dagger can arrive on, and they are the axis the Fourth and Ninth Masters are distinguished by — the Ninth says so himself.
- ala traversa ([94]) — across, crosswise. Not a named guard but a direction of attack: having turned him, you strike on the line his turn has opened. Cf. colpi mezani, the middle blows of [Dagger 10].
- chiave mezana ([90], verse) — the middle key, and here loaded with a claim the prose never makes: it is "the one that is the finishing of battle: against it there is no defense that avails."
Manuscript comparison
- The Seventh Master hands over his own counter. [90] teaches, as an alternative: "I can turn you by pushing your right elbow with my left hand, and then strike you in the head or in the shoulders at once." [91], the counter to him, does precisely that: "the push that I make at his right elbow … once the push at the elbow is made, the strike to the shoulders must follow at once." Same hand, same elbow, same follow-up, one plate apart — and neither text notices.
- The verse makes a claim the prose refuses. The Pisani Dossi's [90] calls the middle key "the one that is the finishing of battle: against it there is no defense that avails," and the Paris expands it further ("which ends every battle, nor does anyone who handles the arts of war prevail against it"). The Getty says only that the cover is "more for locking than for doing anything else." The verse family makes the middle lock unanswerable — and the prose family answers the Master who enters it on the very next plate.
- [93] has a picture and no text — in any witness. Between [92] and [94] Wiktenauer numbers a plate that nobody transcribes: not the Getty, not the Pisani Dossi, not the Paris. It is illustration only, and the text numbering steps straight from [92] to [94]. This is not a play lost from a witness; it is a play that may never have had words.
- [92]'s own cross-references do not resolve. The Eighth Master cites "the fourth play … the one who strikes the player in the hand with the point of his dagger": the play that does that is [Dagger 87], the Sixth Master's scholar, which is fourth in no surviving count. He then cites "the ninth scholar of the Ninth Master, who strikes the player in the chest": that is [Dagger 108] — the eighth surviving scholar. Either a play has dropped out of the Ninth Master's run, or this Master is counting on a sequence we no longer possess. Only his third reference, to "the last play that stands behind", resolves cleanly — to [Dagger 109].
- The Pisani Dossi does not carry the Eighth Master at all. [92] survives in the Getty and Paris only; [94] in the Getty alone. That is worth setting against the rest of the section, where the Pisani Dossi is repeatedly the fuller witness, carrying whole plays the Getty lacks ([Dagger 57], [60], [64], [68], [89]). Here it is the one that has lost a Master.
- Illustrations and coverage. [90] and [91] are the Pisani Dossi's (11b-e, 11b-f); [92] and [94] are the Getty's own (17r-c, 17r-d) — necessarily, the Pisani Dossi having neither. Coverage: [90] all three witnesses; [91] Getty and Pisani Dossi; [92] Getty and Paris; [94] Getty alone; [93] no text in any witness. Morgan, none.