Getty 22v
The run begun on 22r completes: four more guards, each defined by its hold on the sword rather than by its posture — the long-thrust grip [4], the half-sword grip for armor [5], and two that treat the sword as a poleaxe [6]–[7]. Three of the four are explicitly armored guards, and this is where half-swording enters the book.
I am a guard for delivering a long thrust — so much does my hold (mantener) of the sword add in length. And I am good for going against a man when both he and I are in armor. Because I keep a short point in front, I shall not be deceived.
- Take this hold on the sword — the plate's whole claim rests on the hold (mantener), which is what "adds in length".
- Its office: a long thrust, delivered at the reach the hold buys.
- Its case: man in armor against man in armor. Fiore names the matchup rather than a generic opponent.
- Its safety: the point is kept short in front, so there is nothing hanging out to be deceived.
The plate states a paradox and leaves it there: the guard throws a long thrust while keeping a short point. The length is in the hold and the pass, not in a point already extended — but Fiore does not spell the mechanism out, here or anywhere.
I am a good guard against sword, poleaxe (azza), and dagger when I am in armor, because I hold the sword with my left hand at its middle. And I do this to work against the dagger, which can do me worse than the other weapons.
- Set the left hand at the middle of the blade — the half-sword hold, entering the book here.
- The condition is stated, not optional: this is a guard for when you are in armor.
- It answers three weapons — sword, poleaxe (azza), and dagger — but it is built for one.
- The reason is given plainly: the dagger can do you worse than the others.
The ranking is the plate's real content: in armor the shortest weapon is the most dangerous, and this hold exists to answer it. See Technical grouping §8 on the armored mechanics and Tactical grouping §10 on the reweighting that produces them.
Guard, and Woman's Guard (posta di donna), I am called; for by these other grips of the sword (prese de spada) I am set apart — no one grip being the same as another — although this one facing me seems to me to be my own guard, were it not that the sword has taken the form of a poleaxe (azza).
- This guard names itself Woman's Guard (posta di donna) — the same name as the two figures of [S2H 1], and of three of the twelve guards to come.
- What sets it apart is not the posture but the grip (presa de spada): among these six, no two holds are alike, and the hold is the identity.
- It then looks across at the figure facing it ([S2H 7]) and concedes the awkwardness: that one looks like my own guard — same posture, same name —
- except that its sword "has taken the form of a poleaxe" (azza). The hold, not the stance, is what divides them.
A guard reasoning about its own identity — and, incidentally, [S2H 1]'s rule demonstrated: two guards that look alike stand as counters to each other.
This sword is both sword and poleaxe (azza); and great weights sorely hinder light ones. This too is the high Woman's Guard (posta de donna la soprana), which with its malices often deceives the other guards: for you will believe that I am going to strike with a blow, and I will strike with a thrust. I have nothing to do but lift my arms above my head, and I can throw a thrust, for I have it ready.
- The sword in this hold is both sword and poleaxe (azza) — held as a haft weapon, and weighted like one.
- The mechanical principle, stated flat: great weights sorely hinder light ones. This configuration wins by mass, not by finesse.
- This is also the high Woman's Guard (posta de donna la soprana), and it deceives by what it appears to threaten:
- the expectation — he is winding up for a blow;
- the delivery — a thrust instead.
- The mechanism is one movement: lift the arms above the head, and the thrust is already loaded and ready to go.
The clearest statement in the section of a guard as a lie told with the body — the invitation-and-deception logic of Tactical grouping §8. Here the deceit lives in the hold; when the Woman's Guard returns as a formal longsword guard ([S2H 14], [S2H 22]) it is classed pulsativa and sells its great blows instead.
Glossological analysis
- mantener ([4]) — the hold/grip on the sword (from mantenere, to hold). The whole plate turns on it: length comes from the hold. The same word later names the handle itself — the part of the hilt seized in the close play ([S2H 38], mantigner; [S2H 50], mantenir). What gives you reach is also what he grabs.
- presa de spada ([6]) — a grip on the sword, not a hold on a person: presa is the grappling section's governing term ([Grappling 1]) carried over to the weapon. Six guards, six prese, no two alike.
- azza ([5], [6], [7]) — the poleaxe, not a hatchet: the armored weapon of its own section ([Axe]). Here it is a shape — the sword held so as to become one.
- posta di donna / posta de donna la soprana ([6], [7]) — the Woman's Guard and the high Woman's Guard. Soprana = high/upper, the same modifier that names the high sword-taking (tor di spada soprano, [S2H 75]) and the upper lock.
- "half-sword" ([5]) — not a term Fiore uses. He describes the thing — "I hold the sword with my left hand at its middle" — and never names it. It is the description, not a name, that the rest of the book reuses ([S2H 45], [SwordArmor]).
- malicie ([7]) — malice in the technical sense of guile: a deceit deliberately built into a guard, not moral wickedness. Fiore's guards are routinely "full of malice" ([S2H 15], [S2H 21]) and it is always a compliment.
- ingana / inganni ([7]; also [15], [17]) — deceives / deceptions. Paired with malicie as the standing vocabulary of feinting.
Manuscript comparison
- Coverage: two witnesses only. These four guards exist in the Getty and the Pisani Dossi and nowhere else. The Morgan and the Paris do not open their sword sections until the twelve guards ([S2H 12]); the whole six-guard group — and with it the book's introduction of half-swording at [4]–[5] — is absent from half the tradition.
- Form, in its purest case. Every plate here is prose-explains, verse-asserts. The Getty's [7] runs to five clauses of mechanism (the weights, the deception, the arms lifted, the thrust ready); the Pisani Dossi gives two lines and a dare — "whoever can do aught against me, let him do it". Nothing in the couplet would let you perform the guard.
- A divergence of scope at [5]. The Getty is strict: this guard is good "when I am in armor". The Pisani Dossi has it good "in armor and unarmored". The prose limits the guard to the case it was designed for; the verse sells it for both — exactly the widening the verse performs at [S2H 3].
- What the verse cannot carry. The Getty's [6] reasons about its own identity: why this guard is set apart from the one facing it, and what the sword's poleaxe-form has to do with it. The couplet just names it "the proud Woman's Guard". The self-comparison between plates, which is the whole point of the group, is a prose-only device.
- Illustrations. All four plates carry the Getty figure and the Pisani Dossi figure side by side (22v-a…d against 17b-c…f) — the fullest visual comparison of the two traditions available anywhere in this section.