Folio 7 / 31
Pisani Dossi 8a (no Getty text)
The counter-counters
Three plates from the Pisani Dossi's counters page that have no Getty text at all. Two of them are counter-counters — the fourth and last term of Fiore's pedagogical chain — and they are the only ones the dagger has.
[26] Counter-Counter for the First Master
Pisani Dossi · 08a-e
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 08a-e · Text: Pisani Dossi 8a-e
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
I make the counter-counter (contra contrario) on behalf of the First Master,
because he is a fine master of counter-counters.
Flow of actions
- Doctrine, and only doctrine: the couplet describes no action whatever. It announces a category.
- The speaker acts on the First Master's behalf (per lo magistro primo) — he is not the Master; he is the Master's side answering back.
- What he makes is a counter-counter (contra contrario): the reply to the counters of [Dagger 25] and [Dagger 29].
- His warrant is reputation, not mechanism: the First Master "is a fine master of counter-counters".
- There is nothing else — no grip, no hand, no target. The plate must carry it, and no prose witness explains it.
The fourth term of the chain — attack → remedy → counter → counter-counter (Tactical grouping §1) — and in the dagger it survives in one manuscript, in two lines, with no description.
[27] Counter-Counter: the First Dagger Taking
Pisani Dossi · 08a-f
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 08a-f · Text: Pisani Dossi 8a-f
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
For the first King I act against the counter;
I will do the first taking of the dagger, if I do not err.
Flow of actions
- Again on the first King's behalf, again against the counter.
- This one names its content: "the first taking of the dagger" (lo primo tore de daga).
- Which taking that is, the couplet does not say. The section's first dagger-taking is the First Master's own disarm at [Dagger 17] — so the counter-counter is a return to the Master's own play: the counter is answered by doing the remedy again.
- The hedge: "if I do not err" (si non svario) — the only qualification offered.
So the two counter-counters are: assert the Master's authority [26], and re-run the Master's disarm [27]. Neither adds a technique; both restore one.
[28] Counter Wounding the Arm
Paris · 43v-a
Illustration: Paris 43v-a · Text: Pisani Dossi 8a-a · Paris 43v-b
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
I make the counter of the first King of the dagger,
and, as can be seen, I have wounded his arm.
Flow of actions
- A counter — not a counter-counter — to the First Master, sitting on the same page as the two plates that answer it.
- Its entire content: the Master's arm is wounded.
- Both witnesses point at the picture instead of describing the action: "as can be seen" (per vezuda), "this is made plain" (patet). The evidence is the plate; the couplet only labels it.
- No grip, no entry, no hand named.
The one counter of the First Master the Getty does not carry — and the only one that answers him by wounding rather than by seizing ([Dagger 25]) or by striking to make him release ([Dagger 29]).
Glossological analysis
- contra contrario ([26]) — the counter-counter: the answer to a counter, and the last term of Fiore's chain. He uses it sparingly and almost only in the dagger (Glossary); these two plates are its whole showing here.
- per lo magistro primo / per lo primo re ([26], [27]) — "on behalf of the First Master / the first King". The counter-counter is spoken for a Master by somebody else — a scholar restoring his Master's play, not the Master himself.
- tore de daga ([27]) — the taking of the dagger. "The first taking" is an ordinal address of the same kind as [Dagger 19]'s "third play": it names a play by its place, not by its mechanics.
- svario ([27]) — "if I do not err": svariare, to go astray or falter. The same verb the section's last counter uses of what an elbow-push does to a man — "to make him falter" ([Dagger 110]).
- per vezuda ([28]) — "as can be seen": the couplet defers to the illustration. The verse family does this openly and often — it is a caption tradition, and it assumes the picture is there.
- magistro fino ([26]) — a fine master, i.e. accomplished, refined. Praise, and the couplet's only argument.
Manuscript comparison
- The counter-counter is verse-only. [26] and [27] have no Getty text and no Paris text — they exist in the Pisani Dossi alone. So the dagger's fourth pedagogical term, which Tactical grouping §1 cites as completing the remedy chain, survives in one manuscript, in four lines. The prose family's dagger stops at three terms.
- [28] is verse-family, not Pisani-Dossi-only. Unlike its neighbours it has a Paris parallel (43v-b), and the two agree closely: Pisani Dossi "E per vezuda io li, o ferido el braço" against Paris "Patet hoc feriendo lacertum" — both defer to the picture, both name the arm. The Getty has nothing.
- The page the Getty took apart. In the Pisani Dossi these three plates sit on folio 8a together with [25], [29] and [30]: six plates, every one a counter or counter-counter to the First Master. The verse family gives the First Master's counters a page of their own; the Getty keeps three of the six and distributes them across three folios. What that redistribution costs is precisely the two plates whose sense depends on standing next to the counters they answer.
- No base text at all. These three plates have no prose in any witness, so our translation prints only the couplet — one of the few places in the section where the verse is the text rather than a witness against one.
- Illustrations. [26] and [27] are the Pisani Dossi's (08a-e, 08a-f); [28] shows the Paris's figure (43v-a). Coverage: Pisani Dossi three, Paris one ([28]), Getty none, Morgan none.