Getty 30v
The section's last page. [S2H 77] and [S2H 78] complete the triad opened by the high taking at [S2H 75] — high, middle, low, carrying the same three adjectives as the three locks — and then [S2H 79] adds a fourth taking that stands outside the grading altogether. Fiore withholds the mechanic until the third plate and then makes it retroactive.
This is the middle taking of the sword (mezano tor de spada), for whoever knows how to do it. The same turning of the sword is done in this as in the first, save that the holds are not equal.
- This is the middle taking of the sword (mezano tor de spada) — and Fiore qualifies it before he describes it: "for whoever knows how to do it".
- He then states the play almost entirely by reference: the same turning of the sword as in the first ([S2H 75]).
- The one stated difference: "the holds are not equal" (le prese non sono eguale). The turn is the same; the grips are not.
- He does not say what the holds are. The Getty's shortest close-play text stops here — three sentences, one of them a reference and one of them a disclaimer.
What the Getty withholds, the Morgan supplies in full — see the comparison. The Pisani Dossi adds only the taunt that will be worked out at [S2H 79]: "with my sword or with yours I will give you trouble."
This is another taking of the sword, called the low one (sottano). This one is taken in a similar manner to the low and the high — that is, with such a turning of the sword. Let this one go by the road of the others: with the right hand pressing forward a round turn (volta tonda) with the handle, and the left hand must follow the round turn.
- This is the low taking of the sword (sottano).
- The same turn again: "taken in a similar manner… that is, with such a turning of the sword". Fiore is explicit that all three takings are one mechanic.
- And here, finally, that mechanic is spelled out — on the third of the three, not the first:
- the right hand presses forward a round turn (volta tonda) with the handle (mantenir);
- and the left hand must follow the round turn.
- "Let this one go by the road of the others" — the instruction is retroactive: it is how [S2H 75] and [S2H 77] work too.
A slip in the Getty here, and it is in the Italian, not the translation: this taking is said to be "taken in a similar manner as does the low and the high" (como fa lo sottano e'l soprano) — but this is the low one. The comparison must be to the middle and the high ([S2H 77], [S2H 75]); as written, the text refers the play to itself.
Another taking of the sword done thus: when one is crossed at the close, the scholar should put his right hand under his own [sword] and seize the player's [sword] at about the middle, or well up high, and immediately let his own fall to the ground; and with his left hand he should seize the player's sword below the pommel and give it a round turn (volta tonda) to the backhand side — and immediately the player will have lost his sword.
- Entry: you are crossed at the close — [S2H 49] restated in three words, on the section's last plate.
- Put your right hand under your own sword and seize his sword — at about the middle, or well up high.
- Let your own sword fall to the ground. You disarm yourself, on purpose.
- With your left hand, seize his sword below the pommel.
- Give it a round turn (volta tonda) to the backhand side.
- "Immediately the player will have lost his sword" — and you are holding it.
The odd one out, and knowingly so. It carries no grade — not high, middle or low — and it inverts the triad's method: the other three use your own sword as the lever ([S2H 75]: "with the handle of my sword I push forward"), while this one throws it away. It is the only taking in which you arrive unarmed on purpose and leave with his weapon.
Glossological analysis
- mezano tor de spada ([77]) / sottano ([78]) / soprano ([S2H 75]) — the middle, low and high takings of the sword. The triad's adjectives are the locks' adjectives (ligadura soprana / mezana / sottana), and Fiore uses mezana of the lock twice in this very section ([S2H 64], [S2H 69]). The disarms are named on the locks' pattern, and mezano stands in the same place in each series. [S2H 79] is deliberately outside it.
- volta tonda ([78], [79]) — the round turn of the sword: the mechanic all the takings share. Distinguish carefully from the three turns defined at [S2H 1] — volta stabile, meza volta, tutta volta — which turn the man. This one turns the weapon. The Morgan's addition at [79] then reintroduces meza volta in the [S2H 1] sense, so both senses stand on one plate in that witness.
- mantenir ([78]) — the handle you press the round turn with. Across the triad the handle is always yours ([S2H 75], [S2H 78]) — except at [S2H 79], where you drop your sword and take his by the same part.
- le prese non sono eguale ([77]) — "the holds are not equal", i.e. not the same. Fiore's whole account of what separates the middle taking from the high, and a stock formula for a difference he declines to specify — cf. [Grappling 9]: "the plays are not equal, nor — save rarely — are the holds".
- "or well up high" ([79]) — the latitude left on the grip: at the middle of his blade, or high on it. As at [S2H 50] ("whether the crossing is above or below the hands"), the close play's holds are declared tolerant of height. The section opens and closes on the same concession.
- "crossed at the close" ([79]) — the entry condition of the whole section, named one last time. Every play from [S2H 49] to here presupposes it.
Manuscript comparison
- The Morgan answers the Getty's own disclaimer at [S2H 77]. The Getty withholds the holds ("save that the holds are not equal") and stops. The Morgan carries the Getty's text and then continues: "The first taking of the sword binds both arms — I do not want those hindrances: I separate the one arm and the hands, one away from the other. He is not so strong that he can hold it against me…". That is the missing distinction: the high taking squeezes the arms together ([S2H 75]: "with my left hand I squeeze his arms"), the middle taking prises them apart. The one witness that explains the middle taking is the one the verse family's counter to it ([S2H 66]) never consults.
- Fiore's signature migrates between witnesses. The Pisani Dossi and the Paris both sign the high taking in his name — "Fiore the Friulian has done [it] a thousand times and more"; "I, Florius myself, have proven it many times" ([S2H 75]). The Morgan gives that same boast to the middle taking instead: "I am the middle taking of the sword, which Fiore the Friulian (Fior furlano) has done a thousand times." Three witnesses, one formula, two different plays credited with it.
- A real divergence of direction at [S2H 79]. The Getty gives the round turn to the backhand side; the Morgan gives it to the forehand (a man dritta) — opposite directions for the same disarm, and no third witness to arbitrate, since neither verse names a side. The Morgan also adds a finish the Getty lacks: "the scholar, taking the sword with a half turn (meza volta), can strike the player."
- An apparent slip at [S2H 78], shared by the prose family. The low taking is said to be taken "in a similar manner to the low and the high", but it is the low taking; the sense wants the middle and the high. The Morgan is substantially identical here — so if the slip is the Getty's, the Morgan inherits it, which locates it upstream of both. The verse witnesses give two lines each and name no other taking, so they cannot arbitrate.
- The Paris is the most verbose witness on every plate of this page — three lines at [S2H 77] and [S2H 79] against the Pisani Dossi's two, adding at [S2H 77] the taunt that you may be disarmed "with your own [sword], which you believe is still at hand" and at [S2H 79] a fatalism no Italian witness has: "unless the fates oppose".
- Illustrations. All three plates show the Pisani Dossi alone (24a-c, 24a-d, 24b-a). The section's last page is illustrated entirely from the verse family; the Getty's own 30v figures are not reproduced.
- Morgan leaf 15v carries these three ([S2H 77] = 15v-b, [S2H 78] = 15v-c, [S2H 79] = 15v-d) together with [S2H 56] (15v-a) — and in the Morgan's foliation 15v stands before 16r, the leaf holding the rubric that opens the section. The Morgan ends the close play, in its own binding, a full leaf before it begins it.