Getty 30r
Four columns that do not make one argument: the throw that pairs with the Morgan's [S2H 54], a hold that immunizes you against both the takings of the sword and the locks, and then the first of the three takings with its result. The Getty's own columns run 30r-a = [S2H 62], -b = [S2H 55], -c = [S2H 75], -d = [S2H 76].
This play is done in this way: one goes with the middle blow (colpo mezano) against the middle blow on the backhand side, and immediately goes with a cover to the close, and throws the sword at the companion's neck, as is depicted here. He can throw him to the ground without fail.
- Middle blow against middle blow, on the backhand side.
- Immediately, a cover to the close.
- Throw the sword at his neck.
- Throw him to the ground, "without fail".
- What the Getty does not say: how the hands are joined, or where the feet go. The Morgan's version of this same movement ([S2H 54]) supplies both.
Read the Getty alone and nothing is amiss. Set the witnesses side by side and the same throw is told twice, at two plate numbers, once by each family — while the Morgan's own [S2H 55] is a different play again (see the comparison).
If I cross at the close with someone, I immediately make this hold, so that neither with a taking of the sword (tor di spada) nor with locks (ligadure) can he do me harm. Moreover I can strike him with thrust and with cut without danger to myself.
- Cross at the close with someone.
- Immediately make this hold. Fiore does not describe it — the figure carries it. He names only what the hold achieves.
- What it achieves: he can do you no harm with a taking of the sword (tor di spada), nor with a lock (ligadure).
- And from it you can strike him with thrust and cut, "without danger to myself".
A prophylactic plate, defined entirely by the two families of play it forecloses. Note the difference in degree from [S2H 68], which sits three plates away in the concordance and claims to break every taking; this one merely claims it cannot be taken. The section makes that claim at three strengths — immunity here, a break at [S2H 68], and a counter to one named member at [S2H 66].
This is the high taking of the sword (tor di spada soprano): with the handle (mantenir) of my sword I push forward, and with my left hand I squeeze his arms in such a way that he must lose his sword. And then I will deal him a bargain (derada) of great wounds. The scholar who is behind me shows in this play how the player's sword is put on the ground.
- This is the high taking of the sword (tor di spada soprano) — first of the three.
- With the handle (mantenir) of your own sword, push forward. Your sword is the lever, not the prize.
- With your left hand, squeeze his arms together.
- Between the push and the squeeze, "he must lose his sword" — Fiore states it as compulsion, not as likelihood.
- Then: a bargain (derada) of great wounds.
- The plate points forward to its own result — the scholar behind shows the sword on the ground ([S2H 76]).
Both verse witnesses sign this one in Fiore's name: the Pisani Dossi has him do it "a thousand times and more", the Paris in the first person — "I, Florius myself, have proven it many times". The Morgan gives that same boast to the middle taking instead ([S2H 77]).
By the hold that the scholar before me has made, your sword has fallen to the ground — you can feel it. Wounds enough I can give you, without lying.
- Not an action — a result. The plate shows the state produced by [S2H 75].
- His sword is on the ground.
- The scholar's line is diagnostic rather than instructional: "you can feel it" — the loss registers in the hands before the eyes.
- From here: "wounds enough I can give you, without lying."
Glossological analysis
- tor di spada soprano ([75]) — the high taking of the sword. Soprano = upper; the top of a triad completed by mezano ([S2H 77]) and sottano ([S2H 78]). Those are the same three adjectives that grade the locks (ligadura soprana / mezana / sottana) — and Fiore uses mezana of the lock in this very section ([S2H 64], [S2H 69]). The disarms are named on the locks' pattern.
- mantenir ([75]) — the handle, here of your own sword and used as a lever to push with. At [S2H 50] the same word named what you seize on his. The term is neutral as to owner; only [S2H 79] takes the other man's.
- tor di spada + ligadure ([62]) — the two families the hold at [62] forecloses. Naming them as a pair implies they are the two things a bound man most has to fear at the close — which is also what [S2H 48] promised the section would be full of.
- presa ([62]) — the hold. Fiore names it and never describes it: "immediately I make this hold". The section's habit of letting the figure carry the grip.
- derada ([75]) — the bargain; see [S2H 68]. Third of three appearances in the close play ([S2H 66], [S2H 68], [S2H 75]) — Fiore's stock phrase for more wounds than you bargained for.
- ale strette / "if I cross at the close" ([55], [62]) — the entry condition of the whole section in three words. It is [S2H 49] restated.
Manuscript comparison
- A four-witness page on which the Morgan agrees about half of it. [S2H 55]: the Morgan's text is a different play — it adds a push on the player's right elbow with the left hand, has the scholar grip his own sword at the middle, sets the right foot behind, and throws him "with little honor" and "together with his sword" (cum tuta la spada). [S2H 62]: the Morgan is a different play again — its counter seizes the player's hand at the joint, beneath his handle, turns his sword to the backhand, and strikes the chest or belly. Only [S2H 75] and [S2H 76] are substantially identical across Getty and Morgan.
- The Getty's [S2H 55] duplicates the Morgan's [S2H 54], while each family's other plate in the pair holds a play the other family lacks. Neither family is missing a technique; they are distributed differently. This is the concrete shape of the "loosest stretch" the translation flags at [S2H 54]–[S2H 57].
- The verse claims the counter-to-the-taking far more often than the prose does. The Pisani Dossi attaches some form of "I make the counter to the taking of the sword" to five plates — [S2H 62], [S2H 64], [S2H 66], [S2H 67], [S2H 68]. The Getty prose makes the claim at two, [S2H 62] and [S2H 68]. Either the verse is advertising a property the prose thinks obvious, or the couplet is a formula reused down the leaf; the Pisani Dossi's own 23a carries three of the five.
- [S2H 76] has no verse at all — Getty and Morgan only. Result-plates do not attract couplets: there is nothing left to boast that the previous plate has not already boasted.
- Illustrations. [55], [75] and [76] show the Getty's own plates (30r-b, -c, -d), with the Pisani Dossi alongside at [75]; [62] shows the Pisani Dossi alone (23a-c), so the Getty's 30r-a is not reproduced.
- Morgan leaf 15r carries three of these four ([S2H 75] = 15r-a, [S2H 76] = 15r-b, [S2H 55] = 15r-d; [S2H 62] is on 16v). In the Morgan's foliation the high taking of the sword is the first thing on the leaf — a full page before the rubric that announces the section (16r-t).