Getty 25v
A second crossing, and a second Master to own it: [29] crosses at the middle rather than at the points, and [30]–[32] are his scholars. This is the page where the wide play first reaches past the sword to the man — a blade seized in the hand, and a boot on his shin.
Again I cross here, in wide play, at the middle of the sword (a meza spada). And as soon as I am crossed, I let my sword run over his hands; and if I want to pass with the right foot out of the way, I can plant a thrust in his chest, as is depicted hereafter.
- Again I cross — the second Master, and "again" is doing real work: this is the same wide play, at a different place on the blade.
- The state: crossed at the middle of the sword (a meza spada), and still counted as wide play.
- As soon as the crossing happens — no pause:
- Let your sword run over his hands (lasso discorrer la mia spada sopra le soi mane). The blade slides along his and arrives at the hands. Nothing is beaten; the crossing itself delivers the cut.
- If you want more from it: pass with the right foot out of the way,
- and plant a thrust in his chest ([S2H 30]).
The mechanism is contact and gravity, not a blow: the sword runs. And note that Fiore explicitly files this crossing under wide play (per zogho largo a meza spada) even though it is at the middle of the sword. The tidy formula — points = wide, middle = close — belongs to the apparatus (Technical grouping §3), not to the plate: this Master crosses at the middle and stays wide.
The play of my Master I have completed: I have made his cover, and immediately done what he said — for I have first struck the arms, and then planted the thrust in his chest.
- The scholar reports the play complete, and enumerates it in order:
- the cover — made first, as the Master said;
- the strike to the arms — "I have first struck the arms";
- then the thrust planted in the chest.
- The sequence is the content: cover, arms, chest. Nothing is added to the Master's instruction.
Doctrine of tempo rather than technique. The Master at [S2H 29] gave the running cut and the thrust as if they were alternatives ("if I want to pass…"); the scholar does both, in one go, and calls that completing the play.
My Master before me has taught me that when I am crossed with someone at the middle of the sword, I should immediately advance forward and seize his sword in this manner (partido), to strike him with edge or point. Also, I can ruin his leg in the way that you can see depicted here: striking him with my foot on the shin of the leg (la schena dela gamba), or below the knee.
- The same crossing as [S2H 29] — at the middle of the sword — and the scholar names his Master as the source.
- Immediately advance forward (acresser inanci).
- Seize his sword in this manner (a questo partido) — the left hand leaves your own hilt and takes his blade.
- From the seizure, strike him with edge or point — Fiore does not choose for you.
- Also — a second, independent option from the same position: ruin his leg.
- The kick is specified: strike with your foot on the shin (la schena dela gamba), or below the knee.
The wide play's first departure from pure swordwork: a hand on his blade and a boot on his shin. The verse adds a motive the prose omits — do it before your sword escapes from my hand. The seizure is a wasting asset, and only the couplet says so.
The scholar before me says of his Master — and mine — that he has taught him this play; and as it was shown, I perform it. To do it, without doubt, is little trouble to me.
- No new action. The scholar states his lineage — the scholar before him spoke of his Master, and mine — and performs the play he was shown.
- His entire contribution is an assertion of ease: to do it "is little trouble to me".
A repetition plate, and pedagogical rather than technical: it shows the same play in a second body, and asserts that a play learned by watching transfers. Compare the identical device at [Grappling 8], where one scholar confirms another.
Glossological analysis
- a meza spada ([29], [31]) — at the middle of the sword: the crossing point, half-way along the blades. Set against in punta de spada ([S2H 27]). Note that this page files it under wide play; see the flow at [29].
- discorrer ([29]) — to run along, of a blade sliding down another. Not a cut delivered but a cut arrived at. The same verb serves at [S2H 33] for letting the peasant's sword run off to the ground — in both cases a blade travelling along a surface it is already touching, unopposed.
- partido ([31]; also [36]) — a set piece, a particular manner of doing a thing. Rendered "in this manner" here and "device" at [36]; the sense is a self-contained trick with its own conditions, exactly as in grappling ([Grappling 14], [Grappling 16]). Not "party" and not "departure".
- acresser inanci ([31]) — advance forward: the front foot gains ground and the seizure follows it. [S2H 1]'s acressere, here as the entry to a disarm.
- la schena dela gamba ([31]) — the shin. A trap: schena is the back, the spine, and Fiore uses it in exactly that sense thirteen plates later ("an open wound in the schena", [S2H 44]). Here "the schena of the leg" is the leg's ridge — the bone down the front. Same word, opposite sides of the body.
- croiio villano (PD, [31]) — a base churl. The word villano appears here, two plates before the play Fiore names the Peasant's Blow ([S2H 33]) — and the verse family uses it only here, never for the play that bears the name.
- per vizuda ([32]) — "by what was seen", from having watched it done. The scholar's claim to competence is spectatorial: he saw the Master do it, therefore he can do it.
Manuscript comparison
- The Paris drops out here. It carries [29] and [30], then stops: no text for [31] or [32], and none for [S2H 33]–[S2H 36] either. From the seizure of the blade onward, the Latin witness follows only the point line of the wide play and abandons the hands-on plays entirely.
- A real divergence at [29]. The Getty's Master lets his sword run over the hands and then offers a thrust to the chest. The Pisani Dossi says something else: "by crossing at half sword, I will strike your left arm — because the time is short, I will do it very quickly." The Paris follows the Pisani Dossi (the left arm, the shortness of the time) and expands on it. The prose names the hands and the chest; the verse names the arm and the tempo. Neither carries the other's claim.
- Only the verse supplies the urgency. At [31] the Pisani Dossi gives the seizure a shelf-life — strike "before your sword escapes from my hand". The Getty describes the grip and its options and never suggests it is temporary. As at [29], the couplets carry the time and the prose carries the geometry.
- [32] is a plate about nothing, in all three witnesses. Getty, Morgan, and Pisani Dossi carry it and all three say the same: the play before is correct, and I am doing it. There is no divergence to report because there is no content to diverge over — the plate exists to be a second body performing [S2H 31].
- Illustrations. [29] is the Getty's (25v-a); [30], [31], and [32] are the Pisani Dossi's (19b-d, 20a-a, 20a-b).