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Pisani Dossi 12a (no Getty text)
The counter completed, and the crossing that feeds both locks
Two plays with no Getty text. [95] finishes a turn that another plate began — probably [Dagger 94]'s, though nothing says so. [96] is the more remarkable: it is the verse family stating the prose family's routing rule, and stating it more systematically than the Getty ever does.
[95] Completion of the counter: thrown by the turn
Pisani Dossi · 12a-b
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 12a-b · Text: Pisani Dossi 12a-b
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
By the quick turn that I have made you make,
striking you, I will make you go to the ground.
Flow of actions
- You have already made him turn — the couplet begins after the fact, and the turn is something you imposed on him, not something you did.
- Strike him inside the turn, while it is still running.
- He goes to the ground.
- Whose play this completes is not stated. The couplet names no Master and no target. Its position (Pisani Dossi 12a-b, straight after the Eighth Master's material) and its content — elbow-turn, strike within it, fall — both point at [Dagger 94]. With no Getty text here, the identification cannot be closed.
[96] The strong crossing in armor: to the lower and middle locks
Pisani Dossi · 12a-c
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 12a-c · Text: Pisani Dossi 12a-c · Paris 37r-c
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
In armor this is a very strong crossing (incrosar),
for one can lock both above and below:
this one goes to the lower lock (ligadura sotana),
and the one above goes to the middle (meçana).
Flow of actions
- Cross, dagger against dagger, in armor — "a very strong crossing" (incrosar).
- Its virtue is that it works both ways: "one can lock both above and below."
- The lower crossing goes to the lower lock (ligadura sotana) — the strong key of [Dagger 54].
- The upper crossing goes to the middle lock (meçana) — [Dagger 19].
This is the routing rule of [Dagger 75] restated — below → lower lock and strong key, above → middle lock — but stated here as a property of the crossing itself, not of any one Master's cover. Four lines of verse carrying the section's whole lock-logic.
Note
The last Latin line (Mediana iacet sub forte supermo) is garbled; the sense follows the Pisani Dossi — the lower crossing leads to the lower lock, the upper crossing to the middle lock.
Glossological analysis
- incrosar ([96]) — the crossing, used as a noun: the act and structure of crossing dagger against dagger, not the name of a guard. The Eighth Master says "I cross with my dagger" ([Dagger 92]); this verse names the thing he is doing and tells you what it is worth.
- ligadura sotana / meçana ([96]) — the lower and middle locks in the verse family's spellings. What matters is that both appear in one couplet, each mapped to a height. This is the routing rule of [Dagger 75] in the mouth of the verse tradition — and it lands on the same answer: the lower crossing goes to the lower lock, which is the strong key.
- "above and below" ([96]) — the section's governing axis, one last time: [Dagger 56] ("above and below I can make my offense"), [Dagger 75] ("below the hands as above"), [Dagger 77] ("from below or from above"), [Dagger 92] (di sotta mano against the overhand). The dagger has exactly two lines, and a great deal of the art is a decision procedure over which one you got.
- "the quick turn that I have made you make" ([95]) — made you make. Fiore's counters are causative: the elbow-push does not move you, it moves him ([Dagger 88], [Dagger 90], [Dagger 91], [Dagger 94]). The grammar is the mechanics.
Manuscript comparison
- [95] is a Pisani Dossi singleton whose owner cannot be identified. No Getty, no Paris. The couplet gives an action — a turn imposed, a strike inside it, a fall — and names no Master and no target. Page position and content both point at [Dagger 94]; the witness that would settle it is the one that is missing.
- [96] is the verse family carrying a system, not an outcome — and it is the only place in the section where that happens. Everywhere else the division holds: prose gives the routing ([Dagger 75], [Dagger 77], [Dagger 82], [Dagger 90]), verse gives the boast. Here four Pisani Dossi lines lay out the whole lock-logic, and agree with the Getty exactly, including on the point that matters most: the strong key is the lower lock.
- The Paris agrees for three lines, then collapses on the fourth. Its opening matches ("This lower play goes openly to the lowest lock"). Its last line — Mediana iacet sub forte supermo — is garbled past repair; read literally it would put the middle lock "beneath the strong upper", inverting the entire scheme. The translation follows the Pisani Dossi. It is worth stating plainly: the one Latin line that would have contradicted the section's fixed identity of chiave forte = lower lock is the one line that does not survive intact — so the identity stands unopposed across every witness that is legible.
- Illustrations. Both plates are the Pisani Dossi's own (12a-b, 12a-c). The Paris carries text for [96] but no figure is shown here; [95] is depicted nowhere else.