Getty 18v
The section's final page, and the only one carrying five plates. Two plays Fiore twice apologises for as out of use ([106], [107]), a thrust to the chest ([108]), the dagger-swap the Eighth Master promised ([109]), and the counter that closes the Ninth Master and the whole dagger with him ([110]). Four of the five are Getty-only, and [110] has no illustration in any witness.
The grip of my Master I did not abandon, until I saw that this player was not releasing his grip, and he bends down with the dagger toward the ground; and I at once seized his hand with my left [hand] in between his legs. And when I had gripped his hand well, I passed behind him — as you can see — so that he cannot get himself free (discavalcare) without falling. And this play that is behind me I can do: [my] right hand releases the dagger, and I come to seize him by the foot, to make him go entirely to the ground; and I cannot fail to take his dagger from him.
- Do not abandon the Master's grip.
- Wait for the condition — the play is triggered, not chosen: the player will not release his grip, and he bends down with the dagger toward the ground.
- Then seize his hand with your left, in between his legs.
- Once you have gripped it well, pass behind him.
- He now cannot get himself free (discavalcare) without falling.
- And the play behind you is available: your right hand releases the dagger, you seize him by the foot, and he goes entirely to the ground — "I cannot fail to take his dagger from him."
- The verse attaches a caveat that is really an apology: "Although this play is not much in use, it comes off well for one who has practiced it."
This scholar who is before me has made the beginning, and I make the end of his play, sending him [the player] to the ground as he has well said. And because this play has not had currency in the art, we wish to show that we have a part in the whole of it.
- The scholar before ([Dagger 106]) has made "the beginning"; this one makes the end.
- Send the player to the ground, "as he has well said" — the mechanics are [Dagger 106]'s step 6, released dagger and hand to the foot, and are not restated.
- Then the reason the plate exists, and it is not a tactical one: "because this play has not had currency in the art, we wish to show that we have a part in the whole of it."
Two plates running admit the technique is out of use — and keep it anyway. This is the only place in the section where completeness is the stated reason for a play's inclusion. Fiore is not teaching here; he is claiming coverage.
Against my Master he made his cover, and at once, with my left hand, I seized his [hand] in this way; and with my dagger I give him a thrust (punta) in his chest. And if my dagger were not sufficient, I would do this play that follows me.
- He has made his cover against the Master.
- At once, with your left hand, seize his hand.
- With your dagger, thrust (punta) into his chest.
- If your dagger is not sufficient — the unspoken case being armor — do the play that follows ([Dagger 109]), and take his.
This is the plate the Eighth Master called "the ninth scholar of the Ninth Master, who strikes the player in the chest" ([Dagger 92]). By the surviving count he is the eighth.
I complete this play of the scholar who is before me, who leaves his own bad dagger and wants your good one. This that I do to you — settle the account for it with him.
- This completes [Dagger 108] — the case where "my dagger were not sufficient".
- The scholar before leaves his own bad dagger and takes your good one. The disarm is a trade, and an upgrade.
- And the closing line hands the bill to the loser: "This that I do to you — settle the account for it with him."
This is the play [Dagger 92] pointed at — "the last play that stands behind, abandoning my dagger". Of the Eighth Master's three forward references it is the only one that lands cleanly. It is also the section's last word on the appetite that has driven it from the start: not to disarm a man, but to have his blade.
The counter of the Ninth Master is this: when the player's right hand, together with the dagger, has been gripped by his [the master's] left hand, then let the player at once seize his own dagger near the point and drag it, or pull it toward himself, so strongly that he [the master] must let it go; or else let him give a push (penta) at the elbow, to make him falter (svariare).
- The condition: the Ninth Master's grip from below ([Dagger 100]) is on — your right hand and the dagger together are held in his left.
- Either: seize your own dagger near the point with your free hand and drag or pull it toward yourself, hard enough that he must let go. You do not fight his grip; you pull the thing he is gripping out through it.
- Or: give a push (penta) at the elbow, to make him falter (svariare).
- That closes the Ninth Master — and, there being no more masters of the dagger ([Dagger 100]), the section.
The book ends on the elbow-push. It has answered the Second, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Masters and the crossed covers ([Dagger 42], [Dagger 88], [Dagger 91], [Dagger 94], [Dagger 98]); here it takes the Ninth, offered almost in passing, as the second of two options.
Glossological analysis
- discavalcare ([106]) — literally to dismount, get down off something. Used of a man extricating himself from the trap: he cannot discavalcare without falling. The image is exact — with his hand caught between your legs he is astride something, and getting off it costs him his feet.
- punta ([108]) — the thrust, and the point that makes it. The dagger's basic offense, set against the fendente ([Dagger 9]) and the colpi mezani ([Dagger 10]) of the section's opening pages.
- svariare ([110]) — to falter, waver, go astray. The elbow-push's intended effect stated in one word, and it is not injury: it is loss of the man's line. The push has never once been a strike.
- penta ([110]) — the push at the elbow, its final appearance. Named with this word at [Dagger 42], [Dagger 91], and here; used without it at [Dagger 88], [Dagger 90], [Dagger 94], and [Dagger 98].
- "not much in use" / "not had currency in the art" ([106], [107]) — Fiore's formula for a technique he is preserving rather than recommending. Compare [Dagger 24] ("little used in the art of the dagger, but it is still a defense, and more knowledge") and the gambarola at [Grappling 15], which all three witnesses disparage and none omits. The book keeps what it disapproves of.
- "we have a part in the whole of it" ([107]) — the completeness claim, and the only place in the section given as a reason for a play's existence. Note the pronoun: "we". Fiore speaks here as the book, not as the man.
Manuscript comparison
- Four of the five plates are Getty-only. [107], [108], [109], and [110] have no verse witness of any kind — no Pisani Dossi couplet, no Latin. The section's last page is very nearly a prose document, and that includes the counter that closes both the Ninth Master and the dagger.
- [110] has no illustration in any witness. Text without a picture — the exact inverse of [93], a picture without text. The section's final plate is a counter in prose alone: no figure, no couplet, no Latin. It reads less like a play than like a note appended to close the account.
- [106]: all three witnesses keep the apology; only one keeps the play. The Getty gives everything — the trigger condition (he will not let go, he bends toward the ground), the left hand between the legs, the pass behind, the released dagger, the grab at the foot. The Pisani Dossi gives only the caveat ("Although this play is not much in use, it comes off well for one who has practiced it"), and the Paris says the same ("Though this play is scarcely known in this art, yet for the practiced man it succeeds honorably"). The disclaimer is the best-attested thing on the plate — the exact inverse of the section's usual arrangement.
- [109] resolves the Eighth Master's promise. [Dagger 92] pointed forward to "the last play that stands behind, abandoning my dagger." This is it, and it is the only one of that Master's three cross-references that lands: "the fourth play" and "the ninth scholar" both fail against the surviving sequence.
- Illustrations and coverage. [106] is the Pisani Dossi's (12b-d); [107] and [109] are the Getty's own (18v-b, 18v-d); [108] shows the Getty's (18v-c) beside a Cod. 1324 figure (31r-c), a further illustrated witness outside our five collated manuscripts; [110] has no figure at all. Coverage: [106] all three witnesses; [107]–[110] Getty alone. Morgan, none — as on every folio of this section from first to last.