The Steel Marginalia

Witnesses: Getty 1r–2r · Morgan 1r–2r · San Daniele 783r–783v (1699 copy) · Illustrations shown: Getty, Morgan

Illustrations: Getty 1r; Morgan 1r · Text: Getty 1r–2r · Morgan 1r–2r · San Daniele 783r–783v

The book's opening page, and the most-quoted text in the Fiore corpus. It is autobiography deployed as credential.

What the page carries (digest — full text at Preface translation):

Identification. Fiore the Friulian of Cividale d'Austria, son of Messer Benedetto, of the house of the Liberi of Premariacco, in the diocese of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. The Getty opens with an elaborate decorated initial (`F※I+O※R`).
What he set out to learn: the use of arms (armiçare) and combat in the barriers (in sbarra) — lance, poleaxe, sword, dagger, and grappling, on foot and horseback, in armor and without — plus the temper of steel (tempere di ferri) and the make of each weapon, and above all combat to the utmost (ad oltrança).
His training: from many German and Italian masters, across many provinces and cities, at great cost.
His students, and their five duels — the roll of honor: Piero del Verde (vs Piero della Corona, at Perugia); Niccolò Wriçilino (vs Niccolò the Englishman, at Imola); Galeazzo da Mantova (vs the French marshal Boucicaut, at Padua); Lancilotto da Beccaria (six lance-thrusts with sharpened heads, vs Baldassarre); Giovannino da Baggio (vs Sram, before the Duke and Duchess of Milan); Azzo da Castelbarco.
The oath of secrecy. He taught "always secretly", with no one present but the scholar and a discreet kinsman; any other present was sworn on faith not to reveal any play seen from me, Fiore Master.
The five challenges. Fencing masters, out of envy, challenged him to play with sharp swords in an arming jacket and nothing but chamois gloves — because he would not practise with them or teach them his art. Five times he was required; five times he fought "in strange places, without kin and without friends", and came away with honor and without injury.
The verdict on judicial combat: fighting in the barriers is far less dangerous than fighting with sharp swords in a doublet, "for with him who plays with sharp swords, one single cover that fails — that blow gives him death."
Why the book exists. No man's memory can hold a quarter of this art without books; Fiore, who can read, write, and draw, and has studied it forty years and more, still calls himself not a perfect master. Hence the book, made by the order of Niccolò III d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio and Parma.
The grappling introduction (into 2r): grappling is of two kinds — for sport (da solaço) and in anger (da ira), i.e. for one's life; the eight things grappling requires (strength, speed, knowing advantageous holds, breaks, locks, where to strike, how to ground a man safely, how to dislocate); and the definition of the Master / scholar / Counter system that governs the whole book.

Glossological analysis

armiçare / armizare — to use arms, to fight in armed combat; the noun of the whole discipline, not merely "to arm oneself".
in sbarra — in the barriers / lists: the enclosed judicial or formal combat ground. Distinguished throughout from fighting in a doublet with sharp swords.
ad oltrança — to the utmost / to the death (Fr. à outrance): combat without limitation, as opposed to a formal or sporting encounter.
in arme e senç'arme — "in armor and without armor". Here arme means armor, not weapons — a live trap, since the same word means weapons elsewhere on the page.
tempere di ferri — the tempers of steel, not "temperatures": the hardening of weapon metal, which Fiore lists as part of the art.
çuparello d'armare — the arming doublet/jacket: the padded garment worn under harness, here worn instead of harness in the masters' challenges.
da solaço vs da ira — for sport vs in anger (i.e. in earnest, "for one's life"). Fiore says explicitly he will teach the latter.
magistri scarmidori — fencing masters (schermidori); the professional rivals whose challenges he recounts.
prese avantiçade / roture / ligadure / dislogadure — advantageous holds / breaks / locks / dislocations: four of the eight things of grappling, and the vocabulary the rest of the book runs on. See Glossary.
posta vs guardia — the page defines both: guardia because a man guards himself with it; posta because it is a way of waylaying (apostar) the enemy. Fiore's own etymology, and the reason we render posta as "guard" throughout.
Re / rimedio / contrario / contra contrario — King (= crowned Master) / Remedy / Counter / counter-counter: the four-figure pedagogy, defined here in the abstract before a single play. Fiore adds that "few plays in the art go beyond the Third Master; and if more are made, they are made with danger."

Manuscript comparison

Getty ≈ Morgan, near-verbatim. The two prose copies carry substantially the same preface. Their most consistent difference is orthographic: the Getty is ç-heavy (armiçare, çoventu, açça, senç'arme) where the Morgan prefers z (armizare, zoventu, azza, senza). The Morgan also shows a scribal false start ("a callo cavallo") and small phrasing shifts — Getty's tanto… quanto against Morgan's cosi… como.
Both prose copies are illustrated here, and this is one of the few places the Morgan's own figure can be set beside the Getty's — the two opening pages above.
The San Daniele (1699) descends from a Morgan-like exemplar, not the Getty. It sides with the Morgan's cusi… como against the Getty's tanto… quanto. It is visibly three centuries younger: it adds grave accents the 1400s hands lack (tempére, spése, cavaléro, arté), modernizes spellings (aibudo for habudo, amagistradi for magistradi, apalentar for palesare), is lacunose (passages marked …… and [illegible]), and abridges the roll of students — it drops the Niccolò Wriçilino duel entirely and breaks off mid-way through the Castelbarco entry. It is therefore a witness to the prose tradition, not an independent witness to Fiore.
The verse family has no counterpart to this page. Neither the Pisani Dossi nor the Paris carries the Italian prose preface; their prologues are separate compositions (below). The biography — the duels, the oath, the forty years, the Este dedication — survives only in the prose family.

Pisani Dossi 2a–2b →