Getty 24r
Four guards that between them carry the section's whole doctrine of sword-length — two that demand a long sword, one built around a short one. The Getty's page order again runs against the numbering: physically these stand [17], [16], [21], [20].
This is the Middle Iron Gate (mezana porta di ferro), because it stands in the middle; and it is a strong guard, but it wants a long sword. It throws strong thrusts, and beats swords upward by force, and returns with the descending blow to the head or to the arms, and then returns into its guard. It is called a gate because it is strong, and it is a strong guard that can hardly be broken without danger, or without coming to the close.
- The Middle Iron Gate (mezana porta di ferro) is named for its height: it stands in the middle.
- Its declared quality is strength — but it comes with a requirement: it wants a long sword.
- Its actions, in the order given: - throw strong thrusts; - beat swords upward by force (rebatte per forza le spade in erto) — up, not down; - return with the descending blow to the head or the arms; - return into its guard.
- Why "gate": because it is strong. The name is an argument about the guard, not a picture of it.
- Its defensive claim, and it is carefully hedged: it can hardly be broken — but only at one of two prices. Without danger, or without coming to the close. Break it if you will; it will cost you one of those.
One of the very few guards Fiore describes as beating upward — every other beat in the section drives to the ground. And note the honesty of the last clause: he does not claim the guard is unbreakable, he prices it.
This is the Long Guard (posta longa), full of falseness. She goes probing the guards, to see whether she can deceive the companion. If she can strike with a thrust, she knows well how to do it; and she avoids the blows, and then strikes if she can. More than the other guards, she knows how to use deceptions.
- The Long Guard (posta longa) is characterized by a single word: falseness (falsita) — she is full of it.
- Her method is reconnaissance: she goes probing the guards (va tastando le guardie), feeling for whether the companion can be deceived.
- If she finds a thrust available, she takes it — and knows well how.
- Otherwise she avoids the blows, and strikes afterward, if she can.
- The comparative claim: more than any other guard, she knows how to use deceptions.
Classed instabile, and one of the three point-in-line guards of [S2H 1] — by that rule she strikes first against another point. Her plate never mentions reach at all; the verse witnesses supply it, and turn it into a paradox (see the comparison).
This is the Boar's Tooth (dente di zengiaro), because it takes its manner of striking from the boar. It throws great underhand thrusts up to the face, and does not move from its step, and returns with the descending blow down at the arms. And sometimes it throws the thrust at the face and goes with the point high, and in that throwing of the thrust it immediately advances the foot that is in front, and returns with the descending blow to the head and to the arms, and returns into its guard; and immediately it throws another thrust with an advance of the foot. And it defends itself well from the close play (zogo stretto).
- The Boar's Tooth (dente di zengiaro) is named from the animal, and explicitly from the animal's manner of striking — Fiore says so outright.
- Its signature action: great thrusts underhand, up to the face — and, unusually, without moving from its step.
- Then return with the descending blow, down at the arms.
- The variation ("and sometimes"), which is where the footwork enters: - throw the thrust at the face, going with the point high; - in that same throwing, immediately advance the front foot (acresser di pe); - return with the descending blow to the head and the arms; - return into the guard; - and immediately throw another thrust, again with an advance of the foot.
- The claim it closes on: it defends itself well from the close play (zogo stretto).
The pattern is a loop, not a line: thrust → advance → fendente → guard → thrust again. And the advance is folded into the thrust rather than preceding it — the economy that lets a stable guard threaten over and over without ever passing.
This is the Short Guard (posta breve), which wants a long sword; and it is a malicious guard that has no stability. It also moves constantly, and watches to see whether it can enter with a thrust and with a pass against the companion. And such a guard is more suited to armor than to being without armor.
- The Short Guard (posta breve) has a requirement, stated first: it wants a long sword.
- Its character: malicious, and without stability — the Getty says outright that this guard has no stability.
- So it moves constantly — and what it is doing while it moves is watching: for whether it can get in.
- Its entry, when it comes, is one thing only: a thrust, with a pass (cum punta e cum passo).
- Its case: more suited to armor than to being unarmored.
The Getty's heading classes this guard stabile; its text, one line below, says the guard "has no stability" (non a stabilita) and "moves constantly". Either stabile means something narrower than "does not move" — see Technical grouping §1 — or the heading is misapplied. The manuscript does not tell us which.
Glossological analysis
- mezana / tutta ([16]; cf. [12]) — middle / full. The Iron Gate exists at two heights, and the Boar's Tooth likewise ([S2H 20], [S2H 25]); the qualifier does all the work. Mezana here means "at the middle of the body" — a height, not a half-measure.
- rebatte in erto ([16]) — beats upward; erto = high, upright. Worth flagging because every other beat in the section goes to the ground ([S2H 12], [S2H 22], [S2H 39]). This guard alone beats the other way.
- falsita ([17]) — falseness, deceit, as a technical virtue rather than a moral failing. Cognate with falso in falso taglio ([S2H 10]) and punta falsa ([S2H 45]) — in all three, "false" means not what it appears, and is praise.
- tastando ([17]) — probing, feeling out (from tastare, to touch or taste). The Long Guard "goes tasting the guards": searching by contact for a deception that will work.
- inzegno (PD, [17]) — cunning again (cf. [S2H 8], [Grappling 5]), and again not "engine": the Long Guard "with cunning often steals to the throat".
- acresser di pe ([20]) — an advance of the foot: the front foot gains ground and the stance does not change lead. The smallest of [S2H 1]'s four steps — and the reason the Boar's Tooth can threaten repeatedly "without moving from its step".
- stabilita ([21]) — stability, standing firm. Set against the class-label stabile in the heading of the very same plate; see the flow.
- zogo stretto ([20]) — the close play, here as something to be defended from rather than sought. The only guard on this page that treats the close as a threat.
Manuscript comparison
- A flat contradiction at [16], and it splits the prose family. The Getty: the Middle Iron Gate "is a strong guard, but it wants a long sword". The Morgan, whose text is otherwise near-identical, reads ma ella non vole longa spada — "but it does not want a long sword". The Pisani Dossi's couplet sides with the Getty ("through the length of sword that I feel in me"). One negation, and the two prose copies give opposite equipment advice for the same guard.
- The verse builds a paradox across [17] and [21] that the prose only half-carries. The Pisani Dossi and the Paris pair these guards by inversion: the Long Guard holds "my short sword" ([17]), and the Short Guard "has length of sword" ([21]). The Getty carries the second leg — its [21] does say the Short Guard "wants a long sword" — but says nothing whatever about the Long Guard's sword. The chiasmus belongs to the verse family; the prose preserves only the half of it that doubles as practical advice.
- The Getty's page order runs against the numbering again. Physically this folio is [17] (24r-a), [16] (24r-b), [21] (24r-c), [20] (24r-d). The Morgan and both verse witnesses have these four in numbered order, spread across three pages (Morgan 12r-d, 12v-a, 12v-d, 13r-a). As on 23v, three witnesses agree and the Getty rearranges.
- Coverage. All four witnesses carry all four guards. The Morgan is substantially identical to the Getty at [17], [20], and [21] — and diverges only at [16], where it matters.
- Illustrations. All four plates are the Pisani Dossi's (18a-d, 18b-a, 18b-d, 19a-a); none of the Getty's own 24r figures are the ones shown.