Getty 38r
Two disarms from the Fourth Master's hold ([62], [63]), the counter that is aimed at both of them and at the Master himself ([65]), and then — on the same page — a new Remedy of an entirely different kind ([66]). Note the Getty carries this dagger material on folio 38, a long way from the section's main run at 9r–18v.
With my right hand I will make your dagger do a round turn (volta tonda), driving it upward close along your arm, which I hold. And your dagger will remain in my hand as a pledge, and then I will treat you according to what you deserve.
- You are holding his arm — the Fourth Master's hold is already in place.
- With your right hand, drive his dagger upward, close along the arm you hold, carrying it all the way round: a round turn (volta tonda).
- The grip cannot follow the rotation; the dagger comes free and stays in your hand.
- Then use it on him "according to what you deserve".
If I lift this dagger upward close by your elbow, it will remain in my hand to strike you, for certain. Though this play wants to be done very quickly, so that the counter does it no mischief.
- The same disarm as [Dagger 62], taken at a different height: lift the dagger upward close by his elbow.
- It stays in your hand, "for certain", and you strike him with it.
- Proviso: it "wants to be done very quickly, so that the counter does it no mischief." The play concedes a counter exists without naming it — [Dagger 65], two plates on, declares itself the counter to exactly this play and the one before it.
I am the counter-maker (contrafattore) to the Fourth King and Master, and against these two plays that stand before me I make the counter: in this way I will ruin their hands — theirs and their Master's — with a wrench (tratta) that I will make suddenly. Even if they were well armored, I would ruin them without a doubt.
- You are the counter-maker (contrafattore) — the man whose whole office is the counter.
- Your targets are named exactly: the Fourth Master and both disarms before you ([Dagger 62] and [Dagger 63]).
- Make a wrench (tratta) — a sharp snatching pull — and make it suddenly; the whole play is that one action.
- Outcome: their hands are ruined — the scholars' and the Master's alike.
- Claim: it works "even if they were well armored".
The text does not say why armor is no help. [Dagger 87] does: the hand is the one place a man "cannot be well armored".
I am the Fifth King and Master, held by the collar (cavezzo) by this player. Before he can strike at me with his dagger, in this way I ruin his arm; for the hold he has on me is a great advantage to me, since I can make all the covers, holds, and locks of the other Remedy Masters and of their scholars who have come before. The proverb speaks by way of example: I want everyone who is a scholar in this art to know that a grip on the collar hinders no defense.
- The starting position is one the player has made: he already has you by the collar (cavezzo), dagger up, about to strike.
- Before he can strike, ruin his arm — the verse names the target the prose does not: a strike against the elbow, and the arm dislocates.
- The doctrine underneath: his grip is an advantage to you, because it parks his arm where you can work on it. From here you can run every cover, hold, and lock of the Remedy Masters before you ([Dagger 17] onward) and of their scholars.
- The rule, given as a received proverb: "a grip on the collar hinders no defense."
This Master has no cover of his own. He is defined by what has been done to him — the only dagger Remedy that begins from the opponent's grip rather than from a crossing.
Glossological analysis
- volta tonda ([62]) — a round turn, a full rotation. It sits in a graded family: the plain volta around the arm ([Dagger 18]), the half turn meza volta ([Dagger 83], [Dagger 104]), and this full one. The dagger's disarms are all rotations, and the text distinguishes them by how far the turn goes.
- "as a pledge" ([62]) — the captured dagger is held as surety, a forfeit. A legal-commercial image, of a piece with the bon merchato / derada ("good bargain") habit of the verse family: Fiore repeatedly prices violence as a transaction.
- contrafattore ([65]) — the counter-maker, not "counterfeiter". A rare agent-noun: the counter here is a role a man occupies, not merely an action he performs.
- tratta ([65]) — a wrench, a snatching pull (from trarre, to draw). Not "tract" or "treatment". The entire counter to the Fourth Master is this one sudden pull.
- cavezzo / caveço ([66]) — the collar of the garment (whence cavezza, a halter), not the neck or throat. It is a grip on cloth, and that is the point: it commits his hand to a place that does him no good.
- "the proverb speaks by way of example" ([66]) — Fiore explicitly flagging a received saying, not his own coinage. He does this rarely; where he does, the maxim is doing the teaching.
Manuscript comparison
- Register at [62]. The Getty holds the captured dagger "in my hand as a pledge" and promises to treat the man "according to what you deserve" — the language of debt and settlement. The Paris drops the pledge and makes it a contest of will: "I will take it from you, whether you forbid it or fight back." The Pisani Dossi keeps only the turn. The action is agreed; the framing is three different things.
- [63]'s proviso is the Getty's alone. Only the prose admits the play is vulnerable — "it wants to be done very quickly, so that the counter does it no mischief" — and only the prose then delivers that counter two plates later at [65]. The verse witnesses treat each plate as self-contained; the Getty is building a chain across the page.
- [65]: the counter shrinks as it travels. The Getty names its targets exactly — the Fourth Master and both plays before it — and promises to ruin all three men's hands. The Pisani Dossi names only "the Master who makes the hold with both hands". The Paris names only the Master too, and recasts the whole thing as defensive: "so that I may defend myself". The Getty's counter destroys a family; the Latin's counter merely saves a man.
- [66]: the witnesses do not agree where the grip is. Getty and Pisani Dossi both say the collar (cavezzo / caveço) and build the proverb on it. The Paris says the chest — "You seize me by the chest" — which quietly dissolves the proverb the other two are stating.
- [66]: the verse is the more technical witness. Only the Pisani Dossi says how the arm is ruined — "through the strike that I make against your elbow". The Getty gives the doctrine, the advantage, and the proverb, but never names the target; the Paris gives neither ("grappling, I will nonetheless unhinge this arm of yours"). This inverts the section's usual division of labour.
- Illustrations and coverage. [65] is the only plate here with a Getty figure (38r-c), shown beside the Pisani Dossi's; [62], [63], and [66] are the Pisani Dossi's alone. All three witnesses carry all four plays; Morgan, as throughout the dagger, has none.