Getty 24v
The last four plates of the Getty's roster, closing the twelve. Three are shared with every witness; the fourth — the Middle Boar's Tooth [25] — is the Getty's alone, and it is the plate that lets the Getty reach twelve without the Queen's stance ([S2H 19]) that the other three witnesses carry.
This is the Forehead Guard (posta frontale), called by some masters the Crown Guard (posta di corona). For crossing it is good, and against the thrusts it is also good: if the thrust comes at it high, it crosses it, passing out of the way; and if the thrust comes low, it likewise passes out of the way, beating the thrust to the ground. It can also do otherwise: as the thrust is thrown, it returns with the foot backward and comes with the descending blow to the head and to the arms, and goes into the Boar's Tooth (dente di cengiaro), and immediately throws a thrust or two with an advance of the foot, and returns with a descending blow into that same guard.
- The Forehead Guard (posta frontale), which Fiore notes some masters call the Crown (posta di corona) — a rare admission that a rival name exists.
- It is good for two things: crossing, and against thrusts.
- Against a thrust, branch on its height: - thrust comes high → cross it, passing out of the way; - thrust comes low → likewise pass out of the way, and beat the thrust to the ground.
- Or — a third answer, and a wholly different one. As the thrust is thrown: - return the foot backward (torni cum lo pe indredo) — yield, do not pass; - come with the descending blow to the head and the arms; - and land in the Boar's Tooth ([S2H 20]); - from there throw a thrust or two, with an advance of the foot; - and return with a descending blow into that same guard.
Classed instabile, and it earns the label: the guard's third option does not end in itself but in another guard, still working. Note that the branches disagree about the feet — the first two pass forward off the line, the third steps back. The same guard answers the same attack in opposite directions.
This is the Long Tail guard (posta di coda longa), which is stretched out behind toward the ground. It can plant a thrust, and to the front it can cover and strike. And if he passes forward and throws the descending blow, he enters into the close play without fail. Such a guard is good for waiting, because from it one can quickly enter into the others.
- The Long Tail (posta di coda longa): the sword is stretched out behind, toward the ground.
- From there it can plant a thrust, and — to the front — cover and strike.
- Its committed line: pass forward and throw the descending blow, and you enter the close play without fail.
- Its stated office is waiting — and the reason given is mobility, not strength: from it one can quickly enter into the others.
A rear-weighted guard whose whole virtue is that it is on the way to everywhere else. Note that it is classed stabile while its own argument for itself is transitional: it is good to wait in because it leaves quickly.
This is the Two-Horned Guard (posta di bicorno), which stands so closed that it always stands with the point in the middle of the line. And what the Long Guard can do, this one can do; and I say the same of the Window Guard and of the Forehead Guard.
- The Two-Horned Guard (posta di bicorno) is defined by a single geometric fact: it stands so closed that the point is always in the middle of the line (per mezo dela strada).
- Its capabilities are then given entirely by reference, and Fiore does not restate one of them: - what the Long Guard can do, this one can do ([S2H 17]); - and the same of the Window Guard ([S2H 15]); - and of the Forehead Guard ([S2H 18]).
Doctrine by cross-reference — the shortest plate in the roster, and the only guard with no action of its own. And the reference is exact: the three guards it equates itself to are precisely the other three the Getty classes instabile, and no others. Fiore is naming a functional family here, and the Getty's labels track it.
This is the Middle Boar's Tooth (dente di cengiaro lo mezano). And because there are two Boar's Teeth — the one full, the other middle — this one is called "middle" because it stands at the middle of the body. And what the full Tooth can do, the middle Tooth can do. And in the way that the boar strikes slantwise, in that same way one works with the sword: it always strikes with its sword across the companion's sword. And it always throws thrusts and uncovers the companion, and always ruins his hands, and sometimes the head and the arms.
## Wide Plays
- The Middle Boar's Tooth (dente di cengiaro lo mezano) — and the plate opens by explaining the name: there are two Boar's Teeth, one full and one middle, and this is "middle" because it stands at the middle of the body.
- Capability by reference: what the full Tooth can do ([S2H 20]), the middle Tooth can do.
- Then the one thing that is its own — and it comes from the animal again: as the boar strikes slantwise, so one works with the sword.
- Which means, concretely: it always strikes with its sword across the companion's sword (ala traversa dela spada del compagno). The blade, not the man, is what the blow is aimed at.
- From that crossing: always throw thrusts, and uncover the companion.
- Its targets, in Fiore's own order of frequency: always the hands; sometimes the head and the arms.
This plate has no verse and no other witness — see the comparison. It is also the only guard in the roster that names the opponent's sword as what it strikes; every other guard describes hitting a man. It reads less like a guard than like the crossing-doctrine of the wide play ([S2H 27] onward), stated a page early.
Glossological analysis
- posta frontale / posta di corona ([18]) — the Forehead Guard, "called by some masters the Crown". The only plate in the roster to concede that another school's name exists for the same thing — evidence that Fiore names from a shared north-Italian vocabulary rather than inventing one.
- incrosar ([18]) — to cross, blade against blade. Named here as a guard's virtue ("for crossing it is good") before crossing becomes the organizing fact of the whole section ([S2H 27], [S2H 29], [S2H 49]).
- torni cum lo pe indredo ([18]) — return the foot backward: tornare, the second of [S2H 1]'s four things, used here as a defense in its own right. Yielding is a named action, not a failure.
- coda longa ([23]) — the Long Tail, the sword "stretched out behind toward the ground". Coda = tail; the same guard-name serves mounted ([Mounted 12]) — the tail hangs behind the horse as it hangs behind the man.
- per mezo dela strada ([24]) — through the middle of the line. Strada is again the line of the attack, not a road; the Two-Horned Guard's entire definition is that its point never leaves it.
- bicorno ([24]) — two-horned: the hands together and the point forward make the two horns. The name is a picture, where porta di ferro and dente di zengiaro are arguments.
- ala traversa ([25]) — slantwise, across. Applied first to the boar's strike and then to the sword's — and it is the same word as the passo ala traversa of [S2H 14]. Fiore has one adverb for "athwart the line", whether of a step or of a cut.
- lo tutto / lo mezo ([25]) — the full one / the middle one. The pairing that governs both the Iron Gates ([S2H 12], [S2H 16]) and both Boar's Teeth ([S2H 20], [S2H 25]); mezo names a height on the body, consistently, in all four.
Manuscript comparison
- [25] is the Getty's alone — and it is how the Getty gets to twelve. No other witness has the Middle Boar's Tooth: no verse, no Morgan text, no Paris. And the Getty is the only witness without the Queen's stance on the right ([S2H 19]). The arithmetic is exact and worth stating plainly: [12] promises twelve guards, and every witness delivers twelve — with different rosters. The Morgan, Pisani Dossi, and Paris count [S2H 12] and [S2H 14]–[S2H 24]; the Getty drops [19] and adds [25]. One guard swapped for another, and the total preserved on both sides of the swap.
- The Getty's page order finishes as it began. This folio runs [23] (24v-a), [24] (24v-b), [18] (24v-c), [25] (24v-d) — the Crown sitting third, where the numbering and the other three witnesses put it sixth. Across 23v–24v the Getty's physical sequence is 12, 14, 15, 22 | 17, 16, 21, 20 | 23, 24, 18, 25: it groups the twelve four to a page on a plan no other witness shares.
- The prose owns the mechanism at [18]. The Getty gives the Crown a full branching program — high thrust, low thrust, and the third answer that steps back into the Boar's Tooth and works on from there. The couplet says only that it pardons no one with cuts and thrusts, and the Paris says the same in Latin. Read the verse alone and the Crown is a boast; only the prose makes it a guard you could stand in.
- The verse expands at [23], unusually. The Pisani Dossi gives the Long Tail a four-line stanza where it gives most guards two, and the extra couplet carries real content — "if I pass forward and enter into the descending blow, I come to the close play without fail" — which the Getty's prose also has, nearly word for word. Another couplet visible inside the prose (Manuscript comparison §3).
- Illustrations. [24] shows the Getty (24v-b) beside the Paris (13v-d) — one of only two places in this whole section where the Latin manuscript's own figure is reproduced (the other is [S2H 45]). [25] is the Getty's (24v-d), necessarily, since no other witness has the plate. [18] and [23] are the Pisani Dossi's.