indeed, that was supposed to be the whole point of the article. The entire issue of mezza spada is, as far as I can tell, about the situation where you have to deal with an opponent who does not let you simply strike him or her.

What I tried to say is that while we know this pretty well, and that we can point out what is largo and what is stretto, and we can point out what is mezza spada (a position of crossed swords, I’m not absolutely sure about this, but there seems to be evidence of the expression “come to the half-sword” even in relation to verbal dialogue! But I might be mistaken here and need to do more looking into the literature of the period…) what we are not sure about (at least I am not, and haven’t seen this demonstrated in a beautifully elegant, convincing manner) is the exact mechanisms, tactical decisions and configurations that lead to mezza spada, and of all things that may happen there that lead to the following actions.

It is evidently clear that there is no single one way of this happening, but we can’t dismiss that there was much to learn simply by stating that ‘it might happen’. I’m not by any means suggesting you were doing so, but simply want to reinforce the point I was trying to make. Hence I was referring to the lack of experience… count the hours spent by all modern day swordsmen in mezza spada and the number will be high, but probably not that impressive if you could compare it to the number of hours spent there in 15th or 16th century.

Where we today might wish we had detailed explanations might have been something back then that simply didn’t need that — “mezza spada” was at one point considered to refer to half-swording where you grab the blade by the middle, it has been seen to refer to a part of the blade where you should aim your parries and it is now seen as referring to the position of mutual advantage where swords are crossed. All of these can be true, depending on how the text reads at any given point, but the understanding of how the term is used is increasing as we learn more.

And even a fencing master might teach how to seek equality (maybe), but only if they chose to teach how to work from a position of disadvantage, since, perhaps it is the case that from a disadvantage the road to advantage goes through a moment of equality – or maybe therein lies a distinction between what Fiore describes as a counter and a simple cover, or maybe it is only a question of timing.

What I’m saying is that this sort of knowledge should eventually be intuitive and of such deep level, that the use of this vocabulary (stretto/largo/mezza spada &c.) comes naturally from our own experience and would need less debate.

At the moment we seem to either go for generalizations or try to look too closely for a detailed example from which to get a gripping surface to the concept, while the answer might be in getting more actual experience by executing the plays shown in the sources without worrying about the terminology too much.

If we look into the Bolognese sources (or, basically just the anonymous), we are told that the perfect fencing is done in largo, with extended arms, not stopping the sword in a guardia stretta, but letting it go from strike to strike (so that the preparations are not distinct from the strikes), using falsi, tramazzoni and molinetti, wide footwork and a longer distance, and doing all this with no fear for opponent’s sword. Might not work, and if your opponent is such a person they might force the fight into stretto – and if you don’t know how to work there, you are not going to have a good deal. But simply saying this is not enough – one needs to look for the knowledge necessary to be able to give numerous examples of this, and demonstrate the situations (even if they were infinite) that lead into the stretto with confidence and ease… who are there yet?

Interesting article. But one thing I beg you to consider is this: no fencing master teaches you to *seek* equality, but a good one teaches you to deal with it when it happens. And it does happen. Yes, the ideal is to dominate the situation with a minimum of effort, but life, and fencing, isn’t really like that!

Cheers,

Sean

I’m really happy it made sense to you! The exact reason why I wrote this was that it would made it easier for everybody to approach these terms which to us are somewhat ‘mystical’, but seemed to have been very ordinary to people back then.

Adam, that is highly interesting. To be honest I haven’t read Giganti (yet), but what you quote makes perfect sense and fits the general idea.. It seems as if you are both equally skilled you are more likely to end up in an equal situation, and in this case what often happens is that the tempi are not only taken but also broken… which is something that I wouldn’t really expect to happen so often if one fencer was of a much lesser level of skill. Then it would only happen in case of bad luck. Thanks for the quote, I really need to look at Giganti, all I’ve heard only positive things about it after Tom brough it to better light with his translation (even though it isn’t even publicly out yet!).

Thanks for taking the time time to write this article, it is not only very thought provoking it is also a very elegant read.

I also want to add that I like the new look of the blog.

It’s that last bit, and it may all just be that simple: 2 players who are skilled in theses arts are always seeking the advantage, so they often wind up “neutral” because they’re doing it at the same time.

Just a passing thought from a rapierist.