Getty 26v
The section's central pair, and Fiore sets them side by side on purpose: [37] exchanges the thrust and [39] breaks it — the same attack, the same footwork, and one difference (arms low, or arms high) that decides everything downstream. [38] and [40] are their respective continuations.
This play is called the exchange of thrusts (scambiar de punta), and it is done in this way: when someone throws a thrust at you, immediately advance your front foot out of the way, and with the other foot pass across, also out of the way, crossing his sword with your arms low and with the point of your sword high, into his face or chest, as depicted.
- The name: the exchange of thrusts (scambiar de punta).
- The trigger: when someone throws a thrust at you.
- Immediately advance the front foot out of the way (acresse … fora de strada).
- With the other foot, pass across — also out of the way.
- Cross his sword — and here is the whole technique, in two conditions: - your arms low; - the point of your sword high, into his face or chest.
- That is the entire play. The cross and the strike are one action: because your arms are beneath and your point above, his thrust is carried aside by the same motion that delivers yours.
The name is exact. You do not parry and then riposte — you swap thrusts, and you arrive covered because of where your arms are, not because of anything extra you did. Contrast [S2H 39]: same footwork, arms high.
The Paris couplet here speaks only of suddenly turning the sword to strike head and hands; it does not describe the exchange of thrusts.
From this exchange of thrusts before me comes this play: if the scholar before me should fail to plant the point in the player's face — letting it go so that he plants it neither in the face nor in the chest, or because the player is in armor — the scholar should immediately pass forward with the left foot, and seize him in this way, and set his sword to strike well; for the player's sword is caught, and he cannot flee.
- This play is what the exchange becomes when it fails, and Fiore names three ways it can: - the scholar fails to plant the point in the face; - he lets it go, so it lands neither in the face nor the chest; - or the player is in armor, and the point simply does not do the job.
- In any of those cases, immediately pass forward with the left foot.
- Seize him in this way — the grip the illustration carries; the verse says it is his hilt (mantigner) that is taken.
- Set your sword to strike well.
- The result, stated as the reason it works: his sword is caught, and he cannot flee.
A failure-branch, and one of the most practically-minded plates in the section: it assumes the technique did not work and asks what you are still holding when it doesn't. Note that the third failure mode is not a mistake at all — armor is a fact about your opponent that the exchange cannot overcome, and Fiore says so rather than promising otherwise.
The Paris couplet is voiced in reverse ("though you hold me with your hands..."), speaking as the man who is held rather than as the scholar holding.
This is another defense that is made against the thrust: when someone throws a thrust at you — as I told you in the exchange of thrusts, the second play before me — one must advance and pass out of the way. The same should be done in this play, except that the exchange of thrusts goes with the point, with the arms low and the point of the sword high, as said before; but this one is called the breaking of the thrust (romper de punta), because the scholar goes with his arms high and takes the descending blow, with the advance and the pass out of the way, and strikes across the thrust almost at the middle of the sword, to beat it to the ground. And immediately he comes to the close.
- The framing is explicitly comparative: another defense against the thrust — and Fiore sends you back to read [S2H 37] first ("as I told you in the exchange of thrusts, the second play before me").
- The same beginning: advance and pass out of the way. The footwork is identical.
- The difference, and it is the only one: - the exchange goes with the arms low and the point high ([S2H 37]); - this one — the breaking of the thrust (romper de punta) — goes with the arms high.
- So: take the descending blow (pigla lo fendente), with the advance and the pass out of the way,
- and strike across his thrust, almost at the middle of the sword,
- to beat it to the ground.
- And immediately he comes to the close (ale strette).
The two plays are one play with a variable. Everything downstream follows from where the arms are: low, and you exchange points and stay in the wide play; high, and you beat his point into the earth and are in the close play by the next tempo (Tactical grouping §4). Fiore builds the branch by writing the second play as an amendment to the first — "the same should be done in this play, except that…".
The scholar before me has beaten the player's sword to the ground, and I complete his play in this way: his sword having been beaten to the ground, I set my right foot on his sword with force — or I break it, or I seize it in such a way that he will no longer be able to recover it. And this does not suffice me: as soon as I have set my foot on the sword, I strike him with the false edge of my sword under the beard, in the neck; and immediately I return with the descending blow of my sword at the arms or at the hands, as depicted.
- The state, inherited from [S2H 39]: his sword has been beaten to the ground.
- Set your right foot on his sword, with force. Two outcomes are offered and Fiore ranks neither: - you break it; or - you trap it — either way, "he will no longer be able to recover it".
- And this does not suffice me — the plate's own words. The disarm is not the finish.
- As soon as the foot is on the sword, strike with the false edge (falso), under the beard, in the neck.
- Immediately return with the descending blow at the arms or the hands.
The economy is the point: the foot does the disarming, so both hands stay on the sword and never stop working. And the finish is two blows on one line — up under the chin with the false edge, then straight back down at the arms with the fendente — the same up-then-down path the rising blows describe at [S2H 9].
Glossological analysis
- scambiar de punta ([37]; named already at [14], [15]) — the exchange of thrusts. Scambiare is to swap, to trade, and the name is literal: his thrust for yours, in one tempo. Not "to parry".
- romper de punta ([39]) — the breaking of the thrust. Rompere is to break, to smash: the point is beaten into the ground and taken out of the fight, not deflected. The two names encode two attitudes — trade, or refuse the trade.
- fora de strada ([37], [39]) — out of the way, off the line his thrust is travelling. Both plays begin with it; the strada is the one thing neither play contests.
- pigla lo fendente ([39]) — "takes the descending blow". Pigliare is to take or seize — but the object here is his own action: the scholar assumes the fendente, enters into it. A trap, because everywhere else in this section what you pigliare is the opponent's sword ([S2H 31]).
- ale strette ([39]) — to the close. The breaking of the thrust is the wide play's own door into the close play ([S2H 48]) — which is why choosing [S2H 37] over [S2H 39] is a choice of game, not of technique.
- mantigner (PD, [38]) — the hilt, the handle — the thing held. Same word as the mantener whose length was the entire subject of [S2H 4].
- falso ([40]) — the false edge, the short edge, as at [S2H 10]. Used here for a strike under the chin from a low sword: the edge that is available when the true edge is not.
- curare ([40], rendered "recover") — not "to cure". Elsewhere in this very section Fiore uses curare for caring about, concerning oneself with: the Iron Gate "does not curi about too much length" ([S2H 12]). At [40] — "he will no longer be able to curare it" — the sword is beyond his attending to: unreachable, and therefore nothing. Our "recover" reads the outcome; the word states the relationship.
Manuscript comparison
- The Morgan's wide play ends here. It carries [37] and [38] and then jumps straight to the close-play rubric at [S2H 48]. It has no breaking of the thrust ([39]), no foot-on-the-sword ([40]), and nothing at all of [S2H 41]–[S2H 47]. The Morgan knows how to exchange a thrust and has never been told how to break one — which removes, from that witness, one entire half of the branch Tactical grouping §4 is built on.
- The Paris couplet at [37] is about a different play. Where the Getty, the Morgan, and the Pisani Dossi all describe the exchange of thrusts, the Paris says only: "if, in playing, we suddenly turn our sword, then, playing, we can harm the head as well as the hands." No exchange, no thrust, no pass off the line. The Latin verse is aligned to this plate but is not describing it.
- The Paris couplet at [38] is voiced from the wrong side. The Getty's scholar seizes the player; the Paris speaks as the man being held — "although you hold me with your hands, what will it avail?" The same plate, narrated by the loser. (The same reversal the Grappling section produces at [Grappling 11].)
- The Pisani Dossi's page order inverts [39] and [40]. In the manuscript, 21a-a is [40] — the foot on the already-beaten sword — and 21a-b is [39], the breaking of the thrust that produces it. The verse witness prints the completion before the setup; the Getty (26v-c, then 26v-d) has them the right way round. Here the verse family's page order is not the play order.
- A scribal dittography in the Getty at [37]. The manuscript reads traversando la sua spada cum / cum gli toi brazzi bassi — "with with your arms low", the word repeated across a line break. A copying slip, not a variant; the transcription preserves it.
- Illustrations. [37], [38], and [39] each show the Getty and the Pisani Dossi together; [40] is the Getty's alone (26v-d). Note that at [39] the Pisani Dossi figure carries the label 21a-b — the out-of-order plate discussed above.