Getty 40r
The backhand trio, mirroring the forehand trio of 39r–39v, and the strike they share — which doubles as the section's closing statement. The three guards use three different steps between them ([7] advances, [8] returns, [9] passes with the rear foot), and their counter is described in [10]'s last lines rather than given a plate of its own.
We are three guards of the backhand side (di parte riversa), and I am the first, in the Boar's Tooth (dente di zenghiaro). Those of the forehand side do what we do from the backhand. We step out of the way, first advancing the foot that stands in front — as said, out of the way — and of our thrusts from the backhand side we make a bargain (fazemo derada, we deal them out cheaply). And all of us, of the forehand side and the backhand, must finish in the thrust while beating aside, for no other offense can follow with the spear.
- Take the Boar's Tooth (dente di zenghiaro) — the low guard, borrowed from the longsword ([S2H 20]) and shared with grappling ([Grappling 3]); the first of the three backhand guards.
- The relation between the trios, stated flatly: the forehand guards do what we do, from the other side. They are mirror images, not two systems.
- Step out of the way — and note the footwork is not [Spear 2]'s: here you advance the foot that already stands in front (acressando lo pe ch'e denanzi), rather than crossing with the rear.
- Thrust from the backhand side, and thrust freely — "of our thrusts we make a bargain" (fazemo derada): we deal them out cheap.
- The rule for all six Masters: finish in the thrust, while beating aside — "for no other offense can follow with the spear."
- The Pisani Dossi's verse adds a mechanic the prose does not have: cover above with the fore-end (avanzo) and below with the butt (pedale) — both ends of the shaft working the cover.
Step 5 sits awkwardly against [Spear 3], which rated the left-side guards worse thrusters and gave them "a blow" as their offense. [3] says they thrust less well; [7] says nothing but the thrust exists at all. The Getty does not reconcile the two.
In the guard of the True Cross (posta di vera crose) I wait. You are too close to me — play cleanly. The right foot that stands in front I will return behind, and I will beat your spear aside out of the way, toward the right hand. My thrust will not have failed; yours will have failed.
- Take the guard of the True Cross (posta di vera crose) — elsewhere an armored guard ([SwordArmor 3], [Axe 1]), here a spear guard.
- Wait. This Master's first remark is about measure, not mechanics: "you are too close to me — play cleanly" (zoga netto).
- As he comes, return the right foot — the front one — behind you (in dredo lo tornero). Alone among the six, this Master answers by going backward; the complaint about distance in step 2 and the retreat here are one thought.
- Beat his spear out of the way, toward the right hand.
- The outcome, stated as a pair of failures: "my thrust will not have failed; yours will have failed."
In the Window Guard on the left (posta de fenestra sinistra) I stand prepared: if I do not strike you with the thrust, you get off cheaply (bon mercado). I will hold the point high and carry the arms low, and with the foot that stands behind I will step out of the way to the backhand side; the thrust I will put in your face without any defense [being possible]. The play that comes after me, we three Masters can all do. If you try it once, you will not want to try it again.
- Take the Window Guard on the left (posta de fenestra sinistra) — the mirror of [Spear 4]'s right-side Window.
- The carriage is specified where the others' are not: point held high, arms carried low.
- Step out of the way to the backhand side with the foot that stands behind — the rear foot passes.
- Put the thrust in his face, "without any defense [being possible]".
- The ironic wager: if the thrust does not land, "you get off cheaply" (bon merchado).
- Where it goes: the next plate ([Spear 10]) — "and we three Masters can all do it."
"If you try it once, you will not want to try it again" — the section's only appeal to the reader's experience rather than to the geometry.
The play of the spear finishes here, and I do it from the backhand side; with their plays I concern myself. These three guards that came before make it their thought not to miss the spear, long or short, for they are guards of great defense, which in a single pace (in uno vargo) make offense and defense. And the counter to this thrust can well be made: when the thrust is broken, the butt should be turned, and with that strike — for the play of the spear this can well suffice.
- This is the backhand trio's shared strike, the mirror of [Spear 5]: the speaker does it "from the backhand side", on their behalf.
- Why the three guards work: they "make it their thought not to miss the spear, long or short" — they are indifferent to the opponent's reach, which is the whole point of the section.
- The mechanism, stated once and plainly: in a single pace (in uno vargo) they make offense and defense. One step, both halves. This is the section's thesis sentence.
- The counter — described, not depicted: when the thrust is broken, turn the butt (lo pedale se de voltare) and strike with it. The same answer [Spear 6] gives the forehand trio, in one clause instead of a plate.
- Fiore closes the art: "for the play of the spear this can well suffice."
The forehand trio's counter got a plate; the backhand trio's gets a sentence. The section ends by pointing at a play it declines to draw.
Glossological analysis
- di parte riversa ([7], [10]) — the backhand side, the left; the glossary's riverso. It is the folio's organizing axis and the only division the section makes among its Masters.
- dente di zenghiaro ([7]) — the Boar's Tooth, taken from the longsword ([S2H 20]) and shared with grappling ([Grappling 3]) and the armored axe ([Axe 4]). Here it is the low backhand guard — and it is the guard Fiore reaches for whenever a short weapon must await a long one ([Sword-Spear 2], [Spear-Other 17], [Dagger-Sword 1]).
- posta di vera crose ([8]) — the True Cross, elsewhere an armored guard ([SwordArmor 3], [Axe 1]). Its spear form is the only one of the six that retreats the front foot.
- derada ([7]) — a bargain; cheap wares (cf. derrata, a commodity), not "dread". "Of our thrusts we make a bargain" = we deal them out cheaply, freely and in quantity. It is the sardonic cousin of bon merchado ([9]) — the same market metaphor pointed the other way: here we sell cheap, there you got the deal. The word closes the mounted section too ([Mounted 23]).
- avanzo (PD, [7]) — the fore-end of the shaft. At [Spear-Other 13] the same word means the part projecting behind. Avanzo names the surplus of shaft beyond the hands; which end it points to depends on where the hands are.
- acrescere / tornare / passare ([7], [8], [9]) — advance / return / pass: three of the four steps defined at [S2H 1], and the six Masters use all three between them. [2] passes the rear foot crosswise, [7] advances the front foot, [8] returns the front foot behind, [9] steps out with the rear. The spear section is a small survey of Fiore's footwork.
- zoga netto ([8]) — "play cleanly". The sense is genuinely open: netto is clean/clear, so this may be a demand for proper distance ("keep clear") rather than for fair dealing. The text does not settle it, and no other witness glosses it.
- in uno vargo ([10]) — "in a single pace" (vargo, the glossary's stride). The section's whole economy in three words: one step yields cover and strike together (Tactical grouping §2).
- bon merchado ([9]) — the ironic "good bargain" again, exactly as at [Grappling 2], [Grappling 5], and [Grappling 14]. Its reappearance here ties the spear's register to the grappling's: it is Fiore's stock sardonic phrase across the book.
Manuscript comparison
- The Latin is already gone, and the verse is running on fumes. [7]–[10] have no Paris text at all — it stopped at [Spear 6]. The Pisani Dossi carries all four, but three of them as bare couplets. From here the backhand half of the art rests on two prose copies and four verses.
- A shared prose difficulty at [9]. The Getty's "tu naii[!] bon merchado" and the Morgan's "tu naii[!] I bon mercato" carry the same troubled reading (for tu n'ài bon merchado) in both prose copies. Small, but it points the way the whole corpus does: the Getty and Morgan are copying the same prose (Manuscript comparison §6).
- The verse states a hierarchy the prose leaves implicit. The Pisani Dossi's eight-line [7] names "the fourth master, who finishes our plays in the art" and says the trio has "given him his share of the crown" — the verse explicitly promotes the collective strike-plate ([Spear 10]) to a crowned fourth Master. The Getty's [7] says nothing of the sort, and its [10] claims no crown. Only the verse family tells you how the trio is ranked internally.
- The verse also carries a mechanic the prose does not. "With the butt below and with the fore-end above I make the cover" (PD, [7]) — the Boar's Tooth covering with both ends of the shaft. No prose witness mentions it. It is the same two-ended logic the counter at [Spear 6] runs on, stated here as a property of the guard rather than of the counter — which suggests the trick was understood as native to the weapon, not as a surprise.
- Morgan tracks the Getty almost word for word. All four plates are substantially identical between the prose copies; what separates them is orthography — the Morgan's zenghiar, denanci, difesa against the Getty's zengiaro, denançi, deffesa — the ç/z fingerprint catalogued at Manuscript comparison §4B.
- Illustrations. All four plates are the Pisani Dossi's (16a-a…d); the Getty's own 40r figures are not the ones shown. The section's illustration column flips at the fold: Getty-led on 39r–39v, Pisani-Dossi-led on 40r.