Getty 31r
Note the plate numbers: they run [11]–[19], continuing the Spear section's sequence ([Spear 1]–[Spear 10]) rather than restarting at [1]. The numbering is the source transcriptions' and is kept as-is; the two sections are one numbered run split by weapon.
This page sets a Master with staff and dagger against two spearmen — and then, uniquely in the section, hands the plate over to the spearmen, who answer his stated defense with a deception of their own ([12]). The Getty folio is shared: 31r-a and 31r-b are the swordsman of [Sword-Spear 1]–[Sword-Spear 2], and 31r-c and 31r-d this Master. One manuscript page, two matchups.
This Master awaits these two with their spears. The first wants to strike with the point overhand (sopra man), and the other wants to strike underhand (sotto man) — this can be seen. The Master who waits with the staff (bastone) and the dagger: when one of these wants to strike with his spear, the Master bends the staff toward the right side — that is, almost into the Full Iron Gate (tutta porta di ferro) — turning his body without moving his feet, nor the staff from the ground. And the Master remains in guard. And as one of these strikes, he beats his spear aside with the staff — and with the dagger if need be, on the left side — and with that beat he steps and strikes. And this is his defense, as you will find after these two with the spears.
- Two spearmen face one Master. The first will thrust overhand (sopra man), the second underhand (sotto man) — the spear's two attacks, one high, one low, split between two men.
- The Master holds a staff (bastone) and a dagger, the staff's end resting on the ground.
- As one of them prepares to strike, the Master bends the staff toward his right side — into what the text carefully calls "almost the Full Iron Gate" (quasi in tutta porta di ferro).
- He does it by turning his body only: the feet do not move, and the staff does not leave the ground. The guard is reached by rotation, not by stepping.
- "And the Master remains in guard" — having spent no step, he still has one when the spear arrives.
- As the spear comes: beat it aside with the staff, and with the dagger too if need be, on the left side.
- With that beat he steps and strikes — the one-pace rule of [Spear 1] again, here from a mismatch.
The verse divides the labor the prose lets blur: "the staff will make the cover, the dagger will strike you in the chest."
We were both ready to strike this Master, but by what he has said we shall be able to do nothing — unless we deceive him in this way: that is, we will turn the irons (ferri) of our spears to the rear and strike with the butt (pedale) of the spear. And when he beats aside the butt of the spear, we will turn our spears and strike him from the other side with the irons of the spears. And this will make his counter.
- The two spearmen speak. This is the only plate in the section voiced by the players rather than by a Master or his scholar.
- Their admission first: by what he has said, a straight attack will do nothing. They are answering his statement, not his action.
- The deception: turn the irons of the spears to the rear and attack with the butt (pedale).
- He beats the butt aside — beating what he takes for the point, exactly as [Spear-Other 11] said he would.
- Turn the spears again and strike him from the other side with the irons.
- That, they say, "will make his counter": the deception is the answer to the Master.
The mirror of [Spear 6]. There the turned butt was the counter, and the strike came off the heel; here the turned butt is the feint, and the returning point is the counter. One mechanism, opposite roles — and the Master of [Spear-Other 11] is beaten by his own trick.
Glossological analysis
- sopra man / sotto man ([11]) — overhand / underhand: the two carriages of the spear thrust, high and low. Fiore splits them between two men here so the Master must answer both; the pair returns at [Spear-Other 16].
- bastone ([11]) — the staff: a plain shaft, no head — the weapon of the [Baton] section, put to spear-work. The verse concedes it is the weaker tool: what it does, "I would do with the sword, though with that I would find yet stronger plays."
- quasi in tutta porta di ferro ([11]) — "almost into the Full Iron Gate". The hedge is doing work: the Master reaches an approximation of the guard by turning his body, not the guard proper by stepping into it. Fiore rarely qualifies a guard-name this way.
- ferro / ferri ([12]) — the irons: the spearheads. Fiore identifies a shaft's ends by their irons, so "turning the irons to the rear" is the whole deception stated in four words.
- pedale ([12]) — the butt (lit. "foot"). At [Spear 6] and [Spear-Other 19] it is a striking surface; here, alone in the corpus, it is a decoy — offered to be beaten.
- contrario ([12]) — counter. Its use here is unusual: the players do not counter a play, they counter a speech — "by what he has said we shall be able to do nothing". The Master is undone by having explained himself.
- deffesa ([11]) — defense, meaning the whole beat-step-strike package rather than the beat alone: "and this is his defense". Fiore's deffesa is never merely the parry (Tactical grouping §2).
Manuscript comparison
- [12] is Getty-only. No Morgan, no Pisani Dossi, no Paris. The players' deception — the entire reversed-spear counter, and the section's one plate spoken by the losing side — survives in a single witness. It is counted in the Getty's nine plays and in no one else's (Manuscript comparison §2).
- The Morgan's [11] is not a shorter play but a different one. Condensing changes the facts: the Morgan makes the actor a scholar (lo scolar), not a Master; drops the two spearmen for one ("staff and dagger against spear"); puts him in the Full Iron Gate where the Getty has him only almost in it; and has him advance the left foot out of the way, where the Getty names no foot at all. It then adds a rubric the Getty lacks — "this play should be done so as not to fail" — and folds in the dagger finish that the Getty saves for [Spear-Other 13]. Two prose copies, two accounts of the same figure.
- The verse assigns one job per hand. Getty: beat with the staff, "and with the dagger if need be". Pisani Dossi: "the staff will make the cover, the dagger will strike you in the chest." Paris agrees (At clava tegmen mihi prebet. et ista / Daga ferit pectus). The verse family separates cover from strike cleanly; the prose lets the dagger help with the cover.
- The Paris is the longest text on this plate. Five lines against the Pisani Dossi's four, and it preserves the Italian's whole argument — the staff/sword comparison and the "nimble arms" flourish included. On this plate the Latin is not the compressed witness but the fullest verse.
- Illustrations, and a numbering that comes apart. Both figures are the Getty's own (31r-c, 31r-d), and Wiktenauer attributes both to [11]. [12] is therefore left without an image — though the Getty's 31r-d figure, the two spearmen, is precisely who speaks in [12]. Image-numbering and text-numbering diverge here, as they do again at [Spear-Other 16].
- The manuscript page is shared; our sections are not. Getty 31r carries four plates across two matchups: 31r-a and 31r-b the swordsman awaiting three companions ([Sword-Spear 1]–[Sword-Spear 2]), 31r-c and 31r-d this Master. Both are the same lesson — a short weapon awaits long ones in a low guard — and the Getty scribe laid them out as one page. The section divisions are ours, and the Morgan's placement of its [11] at 18r, beside its own sword-vs-spear play at 18r-b, confirms the pairing was in the tradition.