Getty 22r
The section opens with doctrine rather than a play: [1] fixes the turns and the steps every later plate is built from, and states the rule by which guards counter one another. [2] and [3] then begin a run of six guards ([S2H 2]–[S2H 7]) distinguished by how the sword is held rather than by where it is carried — a group entirely separate from the twelve named guards that begin at [S2H 12].
We are two guards, one made just like the other, and the one is the counter (contrario) of the other. And in the art, every other guard that is similar to another is its counter, except for the guards that stand with the point in line — that is, the Long Guard (posta lunga), the Short Guard (breve), and the Middle Iron Gate (meza porta di ferro) — for point against point, the longer one makes its offense first. And what one of these can do, the other can do. And every guard can make a stable turn (volta stabile) and a half turn (meza volta). The stable turn is when, standing firm, one can play to the front and to the rear on one side. The half turn is when one makes a step forward or backward, and can thus play on the other side, to the front and to the rear. The full turn (tutta volta) is when one goes around one foot with the other foot: the one foot stays firm and the other circles it. And therefore I say that the sword has three movements: the stable turn, the half turn, and the full turn. And these guards are each called the Woman's Guard (posta di donna). Also, there are four things in the art: passing (passare), returning (tornare), advancing (acressere), and withdrawing (discressere).
- Read the picture first: two identical figures, both standing in the Woman's Guard (posta di donna) — and by the plate's own rule, each is the counter (contrario) of the other.
- The rule generalized: any guard that resembles another is that other's counter.
- The exception: the guards that stand with the point in line — Long Guard (posta lunga), Short Guard (breve), Middle Iron Gate (meza porta di ferro). Between these, likeness settles nothing; point against point, the longer one strikes first.
- Within any such matched pair the capability is symmetric: what one can do, the other can do.
- The three turns, given as the sword's three movements: - stable turn (volta stabile) — the feet stay planted; from there you can play forward and backward on one side; - half turn (meza volta) — one step forward or backward, and you can now play forward and backward on the other side; - full turn (tutta volta) — one foot stays fixed while the other circles it.
- The four things in the art — the steps that carry the turns: passing (passare), returning (tornare), advancing (acressere), withdrawing (discressere).
Not a play but the section's grammar. Note the plate's own arithmetic: it first says every guard can make "a stable turn and a half turn", then counts three movements by adding the full turn — the third is the one no guard makes merely by standing. And the four steps are not ornament: [S2H 35] will answer a blow to the leg by naming two of them (discressere, tornare) as the entire defense. See Technical grouping §7.
We are six guards, and one is not like another. And I am the first, and I state my purpose: to throw my sword — that is my office. The other guards that come behind me will tell their virtues, as I believe.
- Six figures follow ([S2H 2]–[S2H 7]); the claim is that no two are alike — each is distinguished by its hold and its office, not by a shared posture.
- This first one states its office plainly: to throw the sword. The guard exists to hurl the weapon, not to fence with it.
- The verse supplies the only mechanical detail on offer: the throw goes with a great pass (passare) — the step of [S2H 1], already doing work.
- The rest is deferred: the five guards behind will each state their own virtue.
Doctrine, not technique. Fiore names the office and is silent on grip, target, and distance; whatever the throw actually looks like, the illustration carries it and the text does not.
The first Pisani Dossi quatrain introduces all six masters of this group ([2]–[7]); the couplet that follows belongs to this first guard.
I am a good guard, in armor and without, and against lance and sword thrown from the hand, for I know how to beat them aside (rebattere) and avoid them. Therefore I hold myself certain that they cannot do me harm.
- Stand in this guard — good in armor and unarmored alike, the first plate in the run to make that pairing explicit.
- Its office is narrow and defensive: against the lance or the sword thrown from the hand.
- Two answers, both named: beat the missile aside (rebattere), or avoid it — leave the line it is travelling on.
- On that basis the guard claims outright immunity: thrown weapons cannot harm it.
The pairing with [S2H 2] is deliberate — the first guard throws the weapon, the second answers a thrown weapon.
Glossological analysis
- contrario ([1]) — counter: a specific, named answer to a specific action, not "contrary" in the loose modern sense. This plate generalizes it into a rule about guards — likeness itself is countering.
- posta di donna ([1]) — the Woman's Guard. Both figures here stand in it; the name returns as a formal longsword guard, and Fiore will need three of them ([S2H 14], [S2H 19], [S2H 22]).
- volta stabile / meza volta / tutta volta ([1]) — stable / half / full turn. Not three sizes of one rotation: the first turns without stepping, the second steps to change side, the third pivots on a planted foot. Volta here is the body-and-sword turn — the same mechanic that finishes a grappling lock ([Grappling 6]) and drives the round-turn sword-taking ([S2H 79]).
- passare / tornare / acressere / discressere ([1]) — passing / returning / advancing / withdrawing. Acressere and discressere are literally "increasing" and "decreasing": they gain or yield ground with the front foot and do not change which foot leads. Passare does.
- posta lunga / breve / meza porta di ferro ([1]) — the three point-in-line guards, exempted from the likeness rule; each gets its own heading later ([S2H 17], [S2H 21], [S2H 16]).
- condicione ([2], rendered "office") — a guard's station, what it is for — not "condition" as a precondition. Paired here with rasone ("I state my rasone"): his case, his argument, not his sanity or his motive.
- rebattere ([3]) — to beat aside, strike a weapon out of line. Used here of a lance or sword in flight; the same verb later governs the beats made by the guards ([S2H 12], [S2H 22]).
- merchado (PD, [2]) — a bargain, a deal driven — not "market". "With a great pass I shall drive my bargain" is Fiore's stock sardonic idiom for dealing a man the worst of it (cf. [Grappling 2], [Grappling 5]).
Manuscript comparison
- [S2H 1] survives in the Getty alone. No other witness carries it: the Pisani Dossi's sword run begins at [S2H 2], and the Morgan and the Paris do not open this section at all until the twelve guards at [S2H 12]. The three turns and the four steps — what Technical grouping §7 treats as the atoms every play in the book is assembled from — hang on this one page of this one manuscript.
- Guards, or masters? The Getty opens [2] "We are six guards" (semo Seii guardie); the Pisani Dossi opens the same plate "Six masters are we" (Sie magistri semo). The prose sees six postures; the verse sees six men. The difference is not incidental — it is how each family personifies the guards throughout.
- Both witnesses fumble the same opening line. The Getty reads Voii semo Seii guardie — "You are six guards", for Noii, "We are" — and the Pisani Dossi reads Sie for Sei. Two independent copies, two slips, in the identical position; both transcriptions flag them.
- The verse claims more than the prose at [3]. The Getty confines the second guard to thrown weapons — lance and sword "thrown from the hand". The Pisani Dossi has it protect "against what is held in the hand, and also against throwing" — a guard for the general case, not the special one. The same widening recurs at [S2H 5].
- Form. The Pisani Dossi prefaces the run with a quatrain introducing all six masters at once, then gives each a couplet; the Getty dissolves that introducing move into [2]'s prose ("the other guards that come behind me will tell their virtues"). Same architecture, different joinery.
- Illustrations. [1] carries the Getty's own pair of plates (22r-a, 22r-b) — the only figures for a text no other witness has. [2] and [3] show the Getty and the Pisani Dossi side by side.