Getty 32v
The section's opening: a collective rubric in which six armored Masters announce themselves, and then four of the six naming their guards. These are guards and not plays — the other two Masters stand on 33r, and nothing is actually performed until the first scholar at [SwordArmor 9].
We are six Masters who know well how to fight in armor (armezare), and each of us knows how to do that art well. And of handheld weapons we take very little care; from cuts and from thrusts we defend ourselves, if the occasion arises.
- This plate is a rubric, not a play: six Masters speak at once, before any of them has named his guard.
- What they claim: they know armored fighting (armezare), and each of them knows the whole of that art — not a part of it.
- What they discount: "of handheld weapons we take very little care" — in harness the ordinary weapon is not what decides.
- What they will still do: defend against cuts and thrusts — but conditionally, "if the occasion arises" (s'el zi fa loco). Covering is an opportunity, not an obligation.
- The Pisani Dossi turns the rubric into a syllabus: this same art governs axe, sword, and dagger, and Masters and scholars will show how it proceeds.
The six are the four guards of this folio plus the Archer's Guard and the Bastard Cross on 33r ([SwordArmor 6]–[SwordArmor 7]).
I am the Short Guard, the Serpentine (posta breve la serpentina); I hold myself better than the others. To whomever I give a thrust, the mark will show well on him.
- Take the Short Guard, the Serpentine — hands close, point forward.
- The claim is a ranking, not a technique: "I hold myself better than the others" — this Master rates himself above the other five.
- What the guard offers is the thrust, and nothing else is named: "to whomever I give a thrust, the mark will show well on him" (ben gli parara lo segno).
- The Getty stops there. What this guard does about an incoming cut is supplied only by the Morgan and by the verse — see the comparison.
the Getty heading has no inline folio marker for this play; it sits between [1] (32v-a) and [3] (32v-b).
The guard of the True Cross (posta di vera crose) is what I want to make against you; your thrusts cannot enter into me. From you I will cover myself in the pass that I will make, and I will strike you with the thrust without fail. For you and the other guards can do little against me, so well do I know armored fighting that I cannot fail in the crossing (incrosare); for in the passing and in the crossing and in the striking, the art requires this so as not to fail.
- Stand in the guard of the True Cross and let him come — the whole plate describes what the guard does to an attack, never how it attacks.
- His thrusts cannot enter: the crossed structure closes the line ahead of his point.
- Cover in the pass — the cover is made by stepping, not by moving the sword alone.
- Strike him with the thrust off that cover, "without fail".
- The grammar is stated in order, and named as a requirement: pass → cross (incrosare) → strike. "In the passing and in the crossing and in the striking, the art requires this so as not to fail."
This is the guard that becomes the section's Remedy Master at [SwordArmor 8]; every scholar-play from 33r to 34v issues from its cover.
the Paris MS calls this guard the "leopard's stance" (situs leopardi) where the Italian versions have the True Cross; Paris gives the name "True Cross" (crux vera) instead to play [7].
I am the high Serpentine (serpentino lo soprano), and, well armored, I throw great thrusts underhand; I am up high, and I return to the low. A strong thrust I will hurl at you with the pass — it is my art, and I know how to do it well. About your cuts I care nothing, so deep am I in the art that of great thrusts I will give you a great share.
- Stand high — this is the raised Serpentine, against [SwordArmor 2]'s short one.
- Throw great thrusts underhand (sotto mano) from that high carriage.
- The guard's own account of its path: "I am up high, and I return to the low" — high is where it starts, low is where it finishes.
- The thrust is carried with the pass, as at [SwordArmor 3].
- Cuts are dismissed outright — "of your cuts I care nothing" — because the harness answers them and the guard need not.
How high hands produce an underhand thrust, the text does not say: it gives the start, the finish, and the step, and stops.
the Getty and Morgan both open with a corrupt word ("Sompno"/"Sompuo", marked [!] in the transcriptions), apparently for "son" (I am); the Getty's rubric reads "Sonno serpentino lo soprano", which some read as "Serpentine Sleep, the high one".
I am called the Middle Iron Gate (porta di ferro la mezana), because in armor and without I make strong thrusts. And I will pass out of the way with the left foot and put a thrust in your face; or else with the point and with the edge I will enter between your arms, in such a way that I will put you in the middle lock (ligadura mezana) — the one that is depicted and named earlier.
- Take the Middle Iron Gate — the longsword's guard-name, and the Getty says it works "in armor and without" alike.
- Its stated product is strong thrusts (punte forte) — though both verse witnesses flatly deny it; see the comparison.
- First option: pass out of the way with the left foot and put the thrust in his face.
- Second option: with the point and the edge together, enter between his arms.
- From that entry, shut him in the middle lock (ligadura mezana). Fiore does not describe it — he points back to the lock "depicted and named earlier", the dagger's ([Dagger 19]), which the book treats as its canonical statement.
The only place in the section that reaches for the middle lock; everywhere else the armored plays go to the lower one ([SwordArmor 12]–[SwordArmor 13], [SwordArmor 19]).
a real crux: the Getty boasts strong thrusts, while the Pisani Dossi ("sempre son vana") and Paris ("sum semper inanis") make the guard call itself vain or empty at throwing great thrusts. Translated literally; the verse versions may be self-deprecating or corrupt.
Glossological analysis
- armezare / armizare ([1], [3]) — armored fighting, combat in harness; not "arming oneself". The Getty writes it both ways within this one folio.
- posta breve la serpentina ([2]) / serpentino lo soprano ([4]) — the Short Guard, the Serpentine and the high Serpentine: one guard-family at two heights, both defined by the thrust. The axe reuses the first name unchanged ([Axe 1]).
- posta di vera crose ([3]) — the True Cross, named for the crossed structure that is itself the cover. In the Paris this guard is called the leopard's stance instead (see the comparison).
- porta di ferro la mezana ([5]) — the Middle Iron Gate, the longsword guard borrowed whole ([S2H 16], where it is classed stabile — a guard that holds its ground and awaits).
- incrosare ([3]) — the crossing, the meeting of the weapons; here not a state that happens to you but the middle term of a required sequence — pass, cross, strike.
- punte forte ([5]) against vana / inanis (PD, Paris, [5]) — strong thrusts against vain, empty ones. The corpus's flattest contradiction; see the comparison.
- sotto mano ([4]) — underhand: the thrust delivered from below the hand rather than over it. A direction of delivery, not a grip.
- ligadura mezana ([5]) — the middle lock; Fiore names it by back-reference rather than describing it, assuming the dagger has already been read.
- s'el zi fa loco ([1]) — "if it makes room / if the occasion arises": loco here is opportunity, not "place" in the modern sense. It qualifies the Masters' whole promise to defend.
Manuscript comparison
- Form. All four witnesses carry all five plates. The Getty gives each Master a tactical program; the Pisani Dossi reduces him to a two-line boast; the Paris Latinizes the boast. The prose is not a translation of the verse but an expansion around it — the standard relation across the corpus (Manuscript comparison §3).
- The crux at [5]: "strong" or "vain". The two prose copies agree word for word — Getty "fazo le punte forte", Morgan "fazo le punte forte" — that the Middle Iron Gate makes strong thrusts, in armor and out. The two verse copies agree word for word against them: Pisani Dossi "A butar grande punte sempre son vana", Paris "At sum semper inanis" — at throwing great thrusts the guard is always vain, empty. This is not compression: the families make opposite claims about the same guard, and the split falls exactly on the prose/verse line. The Getty's own plate supports the prose, since it goes on to give the guard two working thrusts (to the face, and between the arms); the longsword in turn classes this guard stabile, one that awaits rather than initiates ([S2H 16]), which would make "vain at throwing great thrusts" a description rather than an insult — but no witness says so, and the translation records the alternative possibility that the verse is self-deprecating or corrupt. As the four texts stand, they cannot all be right (Manuscript comparison §5).
- The Paris renames the guard at [3]. Where all three Italian witnesses have the True Cross, the Paris has "the stance of the leopard" (situs leopardi) — and then gives the name "True Cross" (crux vera) to a different figure, the Bastard Cross at [SwordArmor 7]. The Latin is internally consistent; it simply hangs the names on different guards. A systematic reassignment, not a slip.
- The Morgan is the fuller witness at [2]. The Getty's Short Guard is two clauses. The Morgan's runs on: "If you are not well armored I will make you feel it well… Because against the cuts I sign myself with the cross, they can do nothing to me. In armor and without armor I will prove it." The Morgan alone gives this guard a defense — and gives it as a pun, since to sign oneself with the cross is also to cross the blade. The "in armor and without" formula that the Morgan puts here, the Getty attaches instead to [5]. On this page the prose twins are not duplicates.
- A corruption shared by all three Italian witnesses at [4]. The Getty's body text opens Sompno[!], the Morgan's Sompuo[!], and the Getty's rubric reads Sonno serpentino lo soprano — whence the debated "Serpentine Sleep". The usual explanation is a miswriting of son ("I am"). But the Pisani Dossi has the word too, and there that explanation will not work: its line reads "E son sonno serpentino Lo sovrano", with son and sonno standing side by side. Whatever sonno is in the verse witness, it is not a slip for the word next to it. The Paris shows no trace of it at all — "Serpentinus ego vocor / et sopranus" — so the Latin either had a clean exemplar or normalized silently.
- Illustrations and coverage. All five plates are reproduced from the Pisani Dossi (25a-a…d); [1] carries no illustration in any witness column. The Getty's own 32v figures are not the ones shown, so the reader sees the verse witness's rendering of the prose witness's guards.