Getty 31r
The entire Getty text of the section: the three attackers ([1]) and the Master's answer ([2]) — a problem and a posture, with no play to follow. The manuscript page is shared: 31r-c and 31r-d carry the staff-and-dagger Master of [Spear-Other 11]–[Spear-Other 12], so the Getty treats the two matchups as one lesson on one folio.
These are three companions who want to kill this Master, who awaits them with the two-handed sword. The first of these three wants to throw his sword against the Master. The second wants to strike the said Master with cut (taglio) or thrust (punta). The third wants to throw two spears that he has made ready, as is depicted here.
- This plate is a set-up, not a technique: it states who comes and with what. The Master here only stands and waits.
- The first will throw his sword at him.
- The second will strike with cut or thrust — the only one of the three who keeps his weapon and closes.
- The third will throw two spears he has "made ready" — prepared in advance, so he has a second throw where the others have one.
- Note the arithmetic the plate quietly sets up: of the four attacks coming, three are thrown. This is a page about missiles, and only one man in it intends to fence.
The Getty does not say what the sword-thrower does after his throw, nor how the Master is meant to count his opponents' order. The plate poses the problem and hands it to [Sword-Spear 2].
I await these three in this guard, that is, in the Boar's Tooth (dente di zenghiaro); and I could await in other guards — that is, in the Woman's Guard on the left (posta di donna la sinistra), and also in the Window Guard on the left (posta di finestra sinistra) — with the same method and defense that I will make in the Boar's Tooth. The said guards should make the same method and the same defense. Without fear I await them one at a time, and I cannot fail — not against cut, nor thrust, nor any handheld weapon thrown at me. The right foot that I have in front I advance out of the way (fora de strada), and with the left foot I step crosswise against the weapon that comes at me, beating it aside to the backhand side (in parte riversa). And in this way I make my defense. The cover made, I immediately make the offense.
- Take the Boar's Tooth (dente di zenghiaro) with the two-handed sword, and wait.
- Before doing anything, Fiore names two substitutes: the Woman's Guard on the left and the Window Guard on the left would make "the same method and the same defense". The guard is not the point — what it lets you do is.
- Await them one at a time, without fear. The condition [Spear-Other 16] makes the attackers agree to, this Master simply assumes.
- The claim: "I cannot fail" — not against cut, not against thrust, not against any handheld weapon thrown at me.
- The action, and it is one sentence for all three attackers: - advance the right foot — the front one — out of the way (fora de strada): off the line, not back from it; - step crosswise with the left foot against the weapon that comes; - beat it aside to the backhand side (in parte riversa).
- "And in this way I make my defense."
- The cover made, immediately the offense — and there the Getty stops. It never shows the offense. The section has no play; it ends on the promise.
This is the footwork of [Spear-Other 17], in almost exactly the same words — advance the right foot out of the way, cross with the left, beat. Fiore is not adapting a spear solution to the sword; he is quoting himself.
Glossological analysis
- dente di zenghiaro ([2]) — the Boar's Tooth, the low guard ([S2H 20]). It is Fiore's standing answer whenever a shorter weapon must await a longer one: the spear's backhand trio ([Spear 7]), the ghiavarina Master ([Spear-Other 17]), the dagger against the sword ([Dagger-Sword 1]). Wherever a man is outreached, this is where he stands.
- posta di donna la sinistra / posta di finestra sinistra ([2]) — the Woman's Guard and Window Guard on the left, offered as interchangeable with the Boar's Tooth for this job. What the three have in common is that they stand off the line and can beat across it; the name is incidental to the function (Technical grouping §1).
- fora de strada ([2]) — "out of the way": and note the front foot advances into it. Fiore's answer to superior reach is never to give ground — the step goes off the line, forward.
- ala traversa ([2]) — crosswise: the rear foot steps across the incoming line. The advance and the cross are two halves of one step, not two steps.
- in parte riversa ([2]) — to the backhand side, the left: where the beat sends the incoming weapon.
- arma manuale ([2]) — a handheld weapon, Fiore's category term (cf. [Spear 3]'s arma manuale longa). Here it is what "may be thrown at me" — the plate answers a whole class of threat rather than any named attack, which is why one sentence covers three men.
- taglio / punta ([1], [2]) — cut / thrust: the sword's two offenses, named as the pair this guard answers, and the only two things the second companion can bring.
- coverta / offesa ([2]) — the cover and the offense. The folio's last sentence welds them: "the cover made, I immediately make the offense" — Fiore's one-tempo rule in six words (Tactical grouping §2). It is also the section's only mention of an offense at all.
Manuscript comparison
- The Paris has nothing — not here, not anywhere in this section. The Latin verse witness omits sword-against-spear entirely; with the Baton, it is one of only two sections it skips (Manuscript comparison §4C).
- Neither does any verse witness carry this folio. [1] and [2] are Getty-only: no Morgan, no Pisani Dossi. The verse family's version of this Master exists, but at [3], and it says something rather different. No plate in this section is carried by both the Getty and a verse witness — the base text and the couplets never once meet.
- Three plays, and the smallest section in the book. The Getty's two here plus the Morgan/Pisani Dossi's one at [3] give a total of three (Manuscript comparison §2: Getty 2, Morgan 1, Pisani Dossi 1, Paris 0, any 3). Nothing else in the corpus is this thin.
- A shared folio, and both prose copies agree about the pairing. Getty 31r carries four plates in two matchups: 31r-a and 31r-b this swordsman, 31r-c and 31r-d the staff-and-dagger Master ([Spear-Other 11]–[Spear-Other 12]). The Morgan does the same on its own 18r — its [3] at 18r-b, its staff-and-dagger play at 18r-c, one folio, same order. Two witnesses independently keep the two matchups together; the section boundary is ours, not theirs.
- The Getty's [2] is its own [Spear-Other 17], nearly word for word. Here: "lo pe dritto ch'i'o denançi acresco fora de strada, e cum lo pe stancho passo ala traversa del arma che me incontra rebatendola…" There: "io acresco lo pe dritto fora de strada e cum lo stancho passo ala traversa rebattendo la lanza…" Same hand, same sentence, different weapon in it. This is the strongest textual evidence in these sections that the defense against reach is one defense wearing three weapons.
- Illustrations. Both figures are the Getty's own (31r-a, 31r-b), and Wiktenauer attributes both to [1]; [2] is left without an image of its own. The same forward-crowding of figures onto the earlier plate happens at [Spear-Other 11]/[Spear-Other 12] — on the other half of this very folio.