The Steel Marginalia

Witnesses: Getty 32r · Pisani Dossi 17a · Paris 1v · Illustrations shown: Getty, Pisani Dossi, Paris

Illustrations: Getty 32r; Pisani Dossi 17a; Paris 1v · Text: Getty 32r · Pisani Dossi 17a · Paris 1v

The treatise's emblem, and the only figure in the prefatory material. All three witnesses carry it — the sole page where the prose and verse families and the Latin can be set side by side against the same image.

Getty. This Master with these swords signifies the seven blows of the sword. And the four animals signify four virtues, namely prudence (avisamento), celerity (presteza), fortitude (forteza), and audacity (ardimento); and whoever would be good in this art must have a share of these virtues.

Prudence (Avisamento) [the lynx]: Better than I, the lynx (lovo cerviero), no creature sees; and that [which I see] I always set by compass and by measure (a sesto e a misura).
Celerity (Presteza) [the tiger]: I, the tiger, am so swift to run and to turn that the bolt from the sky (la sagitta del cielo) could not outstrip me.
Audacity (Ardimento) [the lion]: More than I, the lion, none bears a bold heart; therefore I make invitation to battle to anyone.
Fortitude (Forteza) [the elephant]: I am the elephant, and I carry a castle for a load; and I do not kneel, nor lose my stride (vargo).

Pisani Dossi (verse).

We are four animals of such complexion (conplesione):
whoever would fence, let him take comparison from us;
and whoever has a good share of our virtues
will have honor in arms, as the art declares.

### What the plate shows (in place of a flow of actions — this figure is emblematic, not a technique)

At the centre, a Master, from whom seven swords radiate — the text says they "signify the seven blows of the sword". Read against the longsword Introduction, the seven are the six cuts (two descending fendenti, two rising sottani, two mezani) plus the thrust ([S2H 8]–[S2H 11]).
At the four corners, four animals, each with a motto scroll, standing for the four virtues a fighter must share in: - the lynx — prudence, holding the dividers/compass: the virtue of seeing and measuring before acting; - the tiger — celerity: speed of foot and hand, outrunning the thunderbolt; - the lion — audacity: the bold heart that invites all comers; - the elephant — fortitude, carrying a castle on its back: structural strength that does not kneel.
In the Pisani Dossi and Paris versions, the names of the sword guards are additionally written around the figure — Woman's Guard right and left, Window Guard right and left, Long Guard, Short Guard, Full Iron Gate, Middle Iron Gate, Boar's Tooth. The verse witnesses thus fold the guard-system into the emblem itself; the Getty does not.
The page is a table of contents in symbolic form: what blows exist, what qualities the man needs, and (in the verse witnesses) what guards the art uses — all stated before a single play.

Glossological analysis

segno — the sign/emblem of battle. Not a play; a conceptual frame.
avisamento (Lat. prudentia) — prudence, foresight, judgement; the deliberative virtue, paired with measuring. Related to avisado ("wary, aware"), used in the grappling introduction.
a sesto e a misura — "by compass and by measure". Sesto is the compass/dividers, not "sixth" — the lynx's attribute in the picture, and the root of Fiore's whole treatment of distance. See Lexicon.
presteza (Lat. celeritas) — speed, quickness; not "prestige".
forteza (Lat. fortitudo) — strength, fortitude; the elephant's structural steadiness, contrasted against the lynx's judgement.
ardimento (Lat. audatia) — boldness, audacity; the willingness to commit.
lovo cerviero — the lynx (lit. "deer-wolf"), a standard medieval name for the animal.
la sagitta del cielo — "the bolt from the sky", i.e. lightning or a thunderbolt.
vargo — stride, pace (cf. the descending blows returning to guard "from stride to stride", [S2H 8]). The elephant does not "lose his stride" — a gait metaphor, not a crossing.

Manuscript comparison

All three families carry the emblem — the Getty (prose), the Pisani Dossi (Italian verse), and the Paris (Latin verse). It is the strongest single piece of evidence that the emblem belongs to the tradition's core rather than to one recension.
An internal disagreement inside the Getty. Its prose lists the virtues as Avisamento, Presteza, Forteza, & Aerdimento — but the animal mottos that follow run prudence, celerity, audacity, fortitude: the lion before the elephant. The list and the pictures do not agree on the order. The Pisani Dossi and Paris label the same four with the Latin Prudentia, Celeritas, Audatia, Fortitudo and are internally consistent.
The verse witnesses add the guard-names to the figure; the Getty does not. Same emblem, more freight in the verse family.
The Paris page is badly damaged. Folio 1v has lacunae in the two introductory tercets and in the Audacia verse, and the Fortitudo (elephant) verse is missing entirely — only the paragraph mark survives. Its translations here are best-effort from the surviving words; see Translation evaluation §5.
The Paris preface is this page and nothing else. Where the prose family opens with autobiography and the Pisani Dossi with two prologues, the Florius opens straight onto the emblem.

← Pisani Dossi 2a–2b