Getty 21r
The section's most technical page: a disarm, a two-plate elbow-turn sequence, and the beat that breaks a thrust. [11] and [12] are one action across two plates — [12] says so outright, naming the play before it as its cause — and they are the one place where all three witnesses tell the same story.
Here I can strike you well, and take your sword without fail: turning it around your hand, I will make it turn over (riversare) in such a way that you will be forced to let go of the sword.
- From this position you can strike — and you can also take his sword (tor de spada), "without fail".
- Turn his sword around his own hand: the blade is levered about the axis of his grip.
- Carried far enough, it turns over (riversare) —
- — and his hand cannot follow it round: he is forced to let go.
- The verse adds the only other fact available: you have gripped his sword to do it.
The mechanism is stated in one clause and nothing else is given — no hand, no foot, no place on the blade. The takings are a systematized family in the longsword (high, middle, low: [S2H 75], [S2H 77], [S2H 78]); here there is one, and it is the one the Master's own verse promised at [Sword1H 2].
Here I can strike you from in front, and this does not suffice me: by the elbow that I push, I will make you turn so as to strike you from behind, and I will be able to throw my sword at your neck, so that you will not be able to guard against this.
- You can strike him from in front — and the text immediately refuses it: "this does not suffice me."
- Push his elbow — with the left hand, per the verse.
- The push turns him, so that his back comes to you.
- Now strike him from behind.
- And cast your sword to his neck, against which "you will not be able to guard" — what that is for, the next plate shows.
The refusal in step 1 is the interesting part: a strike is on offer and Fiore declines it in favour of a better position. Compare [Sword1H 6], where the strike is taken and the close play is the option declined.
By the play that comes before me [11], in that way I made you turn, and immediately I threw my sword at your neck. If I do not cut your throat, then say indeed that I am wretched and a fool.
- This is the completion of [Sword1H 11], and the text says so: "by the play that comes before me."
- The turn has been made by the elbow.
- Immediately the sword is cast to the neck.
- Cut the throat. The verse measures it: half the throat cut through.
- Fiore stakes his name on it: if it fails, "say indeed that I am wretched and a fool."
All three witnesses describe this plate the same way, down to the causal link — the elbow is turned, and therefore the throat is cut. Agreement of that kind is rare in this section.
You threw a thrust at me, and I beat it to the ground. See that you are uncovered and that I can strike you. Further, I want to turn you, to do you worse, and I will strike you from behind in that same time (in quello mezo).
- He throws a thrust at you.
- Beat it to the ground (rebatei a terra) — down, not aside. The verse names the action the Getty only describes: this is a breaking of the thrust (rompere de punta).
- He is uncovered: you can strike.
- Further — the Getty is not content with the strike, as at [Sword1H 11] — turn him, "to do you worse".
- Strike him from behind, in that same time (in quello mezo): the turn and the strike occupy one tempo.
- Where it leads, only the verse says: "in this manner it comes to the close play." The break is an entry, not an end.
The section's last technical statement, and it is the section in miniature: beat, turn, strike from behind — and the elbow-turn's destination is once again someone's back.
Glossological analysis
- tore / tor de spada ([10]) — the taking of the sword, i.e. the disarm. A systematic family of three in the longsword close play ([S2H 75], [S2H 77], [S2H 78]), with a universal counter ([S2H 68]); here a single play, and one of the four things the Master's verse advertised at [Sword1H 2].
- riversare ([10]) — to turn over, overturn: the sword is rotated about the opponent's own hand until his grip cannot follow. Not the riverso, the backhand blow (Glossary) — same root, different animal, and a standing trap for the reader.
- butare al collo ([11], [12]) — to cast [the sword] to the neck. Despite the verb, not a hurl: [Sword1H 12] shows what it is for — the throat is cut with the blade so cast. Contrast the genuinely thrown swords of [Sword1H 1]–[Sword1H 2], which use lanzare.
- cubito ([11], [12]) — the elbow, the section's favourite handle: pushed at [11], [12], and [14]. The same push is the dagger Master's answer to a swordsman ([Dagger-Sword 3], [Dagger-Sword 4]) and the dagger's counter to two of its Kings ([Dagger 88], [Dagger 94], the counters the baton plays inherit) — where [Dagger 88] calls it "the counter to the holds of the close play" and [Dagger 91] declares it good "against every close play of the dagger, of the poleaxe, and of the sword". It is as close to a universal action as Fiore has.
- in quello mezo ([13]) — "in that same time": mezo is the interval, the tempo in which the turn happens — not "means", and not the middle of the sword.
- rompere de punta (PD, [13]) — the breaking of the thrust: beating the point down to the ground and entering, rather than exchanging point for point (Lexicon). It has its own Master in the longsword ([S2H 39]); here only the verse names it, while the Getty describes the action without the term.
- streto (PD, [13]) — the close play: the couplet says the break "comes to be close", making the beat an entry rather than a finish. The Getty says that about a different plate ([Sword1H 6]) and not about this one.
Manuscript comparison
- The verse names the technique; the prose performs it. At [13] the Getty describes the action plainly — "you threw a thrust at me, and I beat it to the ground" — and never names it. The Pisani Dossi supplies the term: a good breaking of the thrust (un bon rompere de punta), the longsword's own named remedy ([S2H 39]), and adds where it leads ("it comes to the close play"). Here the prose has the mechanics and the verse has the doctrine — the reverse of the section's usual division.
- Unanimity at [12]. Getty, Pisani Dossi, and Paris all give the same play with the same causal link: the elbow is turned, and therefore the throat is cut. The Italian couplet claims half the throat (meça la gola) and the Latin "the middle of your throat" (medium … gutturis) — the same measure, independently rendered. After the divergences at [8] and [15], this is the section's one plate where the two families are plainly reporting one event.
- The Paris carries the pair in the reverse order. Its panel letters put [12] at 12r-b and [11] at 12r-d — the throat-cut before the elbow-turn — where both the Getty (21r-b, 21r-c) and the Pisani Dossi (14a-d, 14b-a) put the turn first. The Latin's own verse for [12] names the turn as the cause of the cut, so its page order contradicts its content.
- Paris expands the taking at [10]. The Latin adds a judgement neither Italian witness offers: the sword is plucked from slack hands (a manibus … lentis), and the hand that takes it is the more cunning (callidior). The Pisani Dossi says only that the sword was gripped and will be wrenched away; the Getty explains the mechanism and assigns no blame. The Paris alone makes the disarm a comment on the loser.
- Illustrations. [11] and [12] are the only plates in the section illustrated from the Paris (12r-d, 12r-b), each shown beside the Pisani Dossi's figure — two direct comparisons of the Latin and Italian verse traditions on the same elbow-turn. [10] and [13] are the Pisani Dossi's alone. No Getty figures.
- Coverage. The Morgan has none of these four — it gave out after [7]. The Paris has [10], [11], and [12] but not [13], and stops here.