Morgan 12v (no Getty text)
A single plate, and the one place in the roster where the Getty is silent: three witnesses carry a second right-side Woman's Guard, posted between the Crown ([S2H 18]) and the Boar's Tooth ([S2H 20]). It stands here as its own page because the Getty has no folio for it.
This is the Woman's Guard (posta de donna), who can make all seven blows of the sword, and can cover herself from every blow. And she breaks the other guards through the great blows she can make; and to exchange a thrust she is always ready. The foot that is in front advances out of the way, and the one behind passes across; and she makes the companion remain uncovered, and can then strike him at once for certain.
- The Woman's Guard again (posta de donna) — a second one on the right, distinct from [S2H 14] by its matchup, not by anything in its body.
- The Morgan's prose for it is [S2H 14]'s prose, so the capabilities are identical: all seven blows; cover from every blow; breaks the other guards with great blows; always ready to exchange a thrust.
- And the same footwork: front foot advances out of the way, rear foot passes across — leaving the companion uncovered, and struck at once for certain.
- The one thing that is this plate's own comes only from the verse: this Woman's Guard is set against the Boar's Tooth ([S2H 20]), and what she brings to that matchup is malice and deceit — "plenty of trouble I have to give it".
Not a new guard but a posting: the same guard, named by its opponent. It is the roster's only entry defined relationally — and the Getty, which drops it, is the only witness that never lets a guard be defined that way.
The Getty omits this play. The Morgan's prose here repeats its text for [14] nearly verbatim; only the verse versions describe the guard as set opposite the Boar's Tooth.
Glossological analysis
- posta de donna ([19]) — the Woman's Guard, here for the second time on the right (cf. [S2H 14]), and the fourth appearance of the name in the section counting [S2H 1] and [S2H 6]. Fiore needs more of these than of any other guard.
- contra dent de zenchiar (PD, [19]) — "against the Boar's Tooth". Contra here is positional — set opposite, posted against — and this is the only guard in the roster identified by what it stands across from.
- malicie e ingani (PD, [19]) — malices and deceits, the standing pair (cf. [S2H 7], [S2H 15]). What this Woman's Guard offers against the Boar's Tooth is not force but guile.
- briga (PD, [19]) — trouble, not "brigade". "Plenty of trouble I have to give it" — the same idiom the Full Iron Gate uses of anyone who troubles it ([S2H 12], chi gli da briga).
- versuto pectore (Paris, [19]) — "with a cunning heart". The Latin renders the Italian malicie e ingani as an interior quality rather than a pair of tactics — the verse family's habit of moralizing what the prose mechanizes.
Manuscript comparison
- The Getty omits this plate outright, and it is the only one of the twelve guards it lacks. The Morgan (12v-c), the Pisani Dossi (18b-c), and the Paris (13r-c) all carry it, in the same slot, between the Crown ([S2H 18]) and the Boar's Tooth ([S2H 20]). Our base text here is therefore the Morgan's — one of the few places in this section where the Getty is not the witness of record.
- The Morgan's prose is not new writing. Its text for [19] repeats its own [S2H 14] nearly verbatim: the same seven blows, the same advance-and-pass, the same certainty. The Morgan has an illustration and a slot to fill, and fills it by copying the neighbouring guard's paragraph. Only the verse gives the plate a reason to exist.
- What only the verse says. The Pisani Dossi and the Paris agree, independently of the prose, that this guard stands against the Boar's Tooth — contra dent de zenchiar / Oppositus denti… apri. That single relational fact is the entire content of the plate, and no prose witness carries it.
- The roster arithmetic. Because the Getty drops [19] and adds the Middle Boar's Tooth ([S2H 25]) that nobody else has, all four witnesses arrive at the twelve guards [S2H 12] promises — by two different routes. See the comparison at Getty 24v.
- Illustration. The Pisani Dossi's figure (18b-c). The Morgan's own 12v-c plate — the one its text was written to caption — is not the one reproduced.