Getty 28r
The close play's Master-plate and the three plays that come straight off it. [S2H 49] is the position the whole section is said to descend from — the Getty is explicit that every play follows from this one crossing, and by either man — and [S2H 50]–[S2H 52] are the first three: a hold on the handle, and two strikes with the pommel.
We stand here crossed (incrosadi), and from this crossing that we make we can perform all the plays that follow us — the one of us as well as the other. And all the plays will follow one after the other, as was said before.
- Two Masters stand crossed (incrosadi) — swords bound, neither yet acting.
- This is a position, not a technique: nothing is done in it. Its content is a claim about what follows.
- The claim: every play of the close play can be launched from this crossing — and by either man, "the one of us as well as the other". The bind is symmetrical; the plays belong to no side.
- The plays run in sequence from here, "one after the other, as was said before" — the same chain-of-scholars device as the wide play.
- Note what the plate does not say: it names no measure of the crossing. Where each Master of the wide play declared his — at the point of the sword ([S2H 27]), at the middle ([S2H 29]) — this Master declares only that he is crossed.
The verse supplies the register the prose withholds: from this crossing "we are about to make the strongest counters". The Pisani Dossi announces the close play as counter-country before a single play has been shown.
From the crossing that the Master has made with his right foot forward, I complete the first play: that is, I step with my left foot, and with my left hand I pass over my right arm and seize the handle (mantenir) of his sword between his two hands — that is, at the middle of the handle. And with cut and with thrust I can strike him. And this hold can be made against the sword in one hand and in two; and whether the crossing is above or below the hands, such a hold can be made.
- Start from the Master's crossing ([S2H 49]), right foot forward.
- Step with the left foot.
- Pass your left hand over your own right arm — over, not under — and reach across.
- Seize the handle (mantenir) of his sword between his two hands, at the middle of the grip: the one span of his weapon that nothing of his is holding.
- His sword pinned by its own handle, strike him with cut or thrust.
- Scope, stated by Fiore himself: the hold works against the sword in one hand and in two; and it works whether the crossing is above or below the hands.
Point 6 is the plate's real payload. The first play of the close play is declared indifferent to the height of the bind — whatever separates close from wide, the Getty does not put it there.
the second line of the Paris verse (tam turpiter ipse gubernas / Jura tenedo meum) is grammatically garbled; the translation is conjectural.
This is another play that comes from the crossing of my Master. As he stands crossed he can do this play and the others that follow hereafter: that is, he can seize the player in this way and strike him in the face with the pommel of his sword. He can also strike him with a descending blow (fendente) to the head, before the player can make a quick cover.
- Same starting point: the Master's crossing ([S2H 49]).
- Seize the player as depicted. The text does not say with which hand, or where — the figure is doing that work.
- Strike him in the face with the pommel (pomo) of your sword.
- Or, instead: a descending blow (fendente) to the head — on the condition that you land it before he can make a quick cover.
This is another strike of the pommel, and it can be done quickly: if the face is uncovered, do it without hesitation, for it can be done in armor and unarmored. With such a play Fiore knocked four teeth out of a man's mouth — so has he tested it. And if I wished, I could throw the sword at your neck, as that scholar behind me does.
- Another pommel strike. The text's only stated requirement is speed: "it can be done quickly".
- The condition, and its immediate cancellation: if the face is uncovered, do it without hesitation — but Fiore then voids his own proviso, "for it can be done in armor and unarmored".
- Or, from the same position: throw the sword at his neck, "as that scholar behind me does" — which is [S2H 53].
This is the plate where Fiore steps out of the doctrine to vouch for it in person: with this play he "knocked four teeth out of a man's mouth — so has he tested it". Neither verse witness carries the anecdote.
Glossological analysis
- incrosadi ([49]) — crossed, swords bound; the participle. Its noun, incrosar, is what the Morgan's wide-play rubric qualifies as "little" ([S2H 27]) — the nearest either family comes to a definition by measure.
- mantenir ([50]) — the handle of the sword, the part held. Not "maintainer". The word is neutral as to whose sword: here it is the thing you seize on his, at [S2H 75] the thing you push with on your own. The Getty also spells it mantener ([S2H 4]) and mantigner ([S2H 38]).
- pomo ([51], [52]) — the pommel, used as a striking head. Distinguish from elzo, the hilt ([S2H 63], [S2H 68]). The Paris renders it capulus — properly "hilt" — blurring a distinction the Italian keeps.
- fendente ([51]) — the descending blow, defined at [S2H 8]: it cleaves the teeth and comes down to the knee. Offered here as the alternative to the pommel.
- uncovered face ([52]) — unvisored. The same armored/unarmored condition that branches [Grappling 21] and [S2H 38] — except that here Fiore states it and then withdraws it.
- scolaro / zugadore ([50]–[52]) — scholar / player: the one doing, the one done to. [52]'s "that scholar behind me" is the standard forward-reference — "behind" means the next plate, not the previous one; it points at [S2H 53].
Manuscript comparison
- The section's most concordant page — worth stating plainly, because it does not stay that way. All four witnesses carry all four plates, and the Morgan is "substantially identical to the Getty" on every one. From [S2H 54] onward that sentence never appears again without a qualification.
- Fiore's warrant is prose-only. [S2H 52]'s four knocked-out teeth, and "so has he tested it", are in the Getty (and so in the Morgan). The Pisani Dossi and the Paris both reduce the plate to the same two-line formula — another pommel blow, provided the art and the master are quick — with no anecdote and no armor clause. The Latin has "the master himself" where the Italian has "the masters" plural.
- The Paris supplies a motive the others do not. At [S2H 51] the Latin says why the pommel comes: "because you beat my blade with your lowest touches". Neither the Getty nor the Pisani Dossi gives a cause — the same habit of the Latin noted at [Grappling 11].
- A garbled line at [S2H 50]. The Paris runs to three lines against the Pisani Dossi's two, and its second (tam turpiter ipse gubernas / Jura tenedo meum) is grammatically broken; our rendering is conjectural. Flagged in Sword in Two Hands translation.
- Illustrations mix families. [49] and [50] show the Getty's own plates (28r-a, 28r-b), with the Paris figure alongside at [50] — one of only six Paris images in the whole section. [51] and [52] show the Pisani Dossi only (22a-c, -d); the Getty's 28r-c and 28r-d are not reproduced.
- Morgan leaf 16r. [S2H 49]–[S2H 52] are Morgan 16r-a…d, the same leaf as the rubric ([S2H 48], 16r-t) — and, in the Morgan's foliation, the leaf that follows the takings of the sword.