Folio 20 / 25
Pisani Dossi 23b (no Getty text)
The cover of the reversed hand and its two plays
Three plates carried by the Pisani Dossi and by nothing else — no Getty, no Morgan, not even the Paris. They form a complete miniature family: a named cover, a play from it, and a hold from it. It is the only technique-family in the sword section resting on a single witness.
[58] Cover of the reversed hand
Pisani Dossi · 23b-a
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 23b-a · Text: Pisani Dossi 23b-a
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
This is the cover of the reversed hand (riverssa mano),
for making plays of the strongest deception.
Flow of actions
- A cover, not a play. The couplet names it — the cover of the reversed hand (coverta dela riverssa mano) — and stops.
- What it is for: "making plays of the strongest deception" (zoghi de fortissimo ingano). Purpose, not mechanics.
- The text does not say what the reversed hand reverses — which hand, which grip, or how the cover is taken. There is no prose in any witness to supply it, and no Latin. The figure is the only evidence there is.
[59] Close play from the reversed-hand cover
Pisani Dossi · 23b-b
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 23b-b · Text: Pisani Dossi 23b-b
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
By the cover of the reversed hand I have shut you in here;
from close play and from wounds you shall not be protected.
Flow of actions
- Enter from the cover of [S2H 58].
- He is shut in (aserato) — the verse's word. Nothing states what is shut, or with what.
- The claim: "from close play and from wounds you shall not be protected" — the cover delivers you into the close play with him unable to answer.
Outcome without mechanics: a couplet asserting the result of a play no witness describes.
[60] Strong hold from the reversed hand
Pisani Dossi · 23b-c
Illustration: Pisani Dossi 23b-c · Text: Pisani Dossi 23b-c
Pisani Dossi · verse translation
This is a strong hold that comes from the reversed hand:
you are well furnished with wounds, and your sword is lost.
Flow of actions
- Again from the reversed-hand cover — the verse says "that comes from the reversed hand" (che ven de man riverssa), so this is a second branch off [S2H 58], not a continuation of [S2H 59].
- A strong hold (forte presa) is taken. That phrase is the verse's only technical word for it.
- Two results, both stated: he is "well furnished with wounds", and his sword is lost — so this branch of the reversed hand ends in a taking of the sword.
The sequence is therefore a proper family: one cover, two branches, one of them a disarm. Whatever the Pisani Dossi had in front of it was structured, not a stray plate.
Glossological analysis
- riverssa mano / man riverssa ([58]–[60]) — the reversed hand, given both ways on the one leaf. Riverso is the treatise's standard word for the backhand side ([S2H 34], [S2H 54]); applied to the hand rather than the blow it must name an inverted grip or an inverted cover — but no witness says which, and none can be consulted.
- coverta ([58]) — a cover. Note the structural weight it is carrying: a named cover generating a family of plays is what a Master-plate does elsewhere ([S2H 49]); here two lines of verse do it.
- ingano ([58]) — deception, trickery (one n in this scribe's hand). The verse family's constant register of praise for the art — cf. [S2H 17]'s Long Guard "full of falseness", [S2H 24]'s Two-Horned Guard with its "deceits in plenty". It is a compliment, not a complaint.
- forte presa ([60]) — a strong hold. The adjective pairs it with the grappling section's prese avantaçade ([Grappling 1]) and the Iron Gate's "strong holds" ([Grappling 4]) — the vocabulary here is grappling's, not the sword's.
- zogho streto ([59]) — the close play, advertised as the place the cover takes you to — the same role the Long Tail guard ([S2H 23]) and the left Woman's Guard ([S2H 22]) claim for themselves.
- "your sword is lost" ([60]) — a taking of the sword described without using the term. The verse family names the outcome where the prose family would name the play.
Manuscript comparison
- A single-witness family. [S2H 58]–[S2H 60] are carried by the Pisani Dossi alone (23b-a, -b, -c). No Getty, no Morgan — and, notably, no Paris, though the Paris normally Latinizes the Pisani Dossi's couplets almost line for line. Three consecutive plates unique to one manuscript is unmatched anywhere else in the sword section.
- Verse without prose leaves the technique unrecoverable. The section's standing division of labour — prose carries the mechanics, verse carries the outcome — is survivable everywhere the Getty is present. Here it is not. All three couplets state results ("shut you in", "furnished with wounds", "your sword is lost"); none states an action. There is no text in any manuscript from which the reversed-hand cover could be reconstructed.
- The Paris's silence is the interesting datum. The Paris has two plates of its own in this section that the Pisani Dossi lacks ([S2H 70], [S2H 71]); here the traffic runs the other way. The two verse witnesses are not a single family with one exemplar behind them — each carries material the other does not.
- Illustrations. All three are the Pisani Dossi's own (23b-a, -b, -c) — necessarily, since no other witness has the plays to illustrate.