Let's get this festa started

In a likely vein attempt to keep my work on this enterprise slow and steady, I'm going to aim to work on one capitolo per week--the planned schedule is enterprising, but so am I, and we'll see who cracks first!

But the introductory paragraph to Book 5 is gloriously short, so I can offer it up now and resist the urge to keep tweaking my notes on it forever.

I've decided to use the side-by-side translation style favored on wiktenauer, simply because I really like the style and it encourages people to compare notes.  We'll see if that remains practicable for the longer capitoli.

Also, because nobody can stop me, I'm adding some footnotes post-translation for your amusement.  It's better to get it out of my system now. :)

BOOK 5 The following is the fifth book of the occurring cases in single battle, which the armiger knights will do, whether from examples of antiquity & authority of consulting our great law* or our most serene Emperors** or our other predecessors if they will govern as well as the constitution of arms, consulted with deliberation by very experienced combatants, with approval of ancient martial fighters, if they will guide us, not discounting the faithful history by truthful and approved authors.

LIBRO QUINTO Seguita il quinto libro de gli occorrenti casi nelle singulari battaglie, che gli armigeri cavalieri faranno, se da antiqui exempli & autorità de eximii juris consulti o serenissimi Imperatori o altri predecessori nostri se governaranno e se per constitutione d’armi, consultata deliberatione de espertissimi combattenti, con aprobatione de’ vetusti martiali, se reggeranno, non postergando le fideli historie di veridichi & approbati autori.

*Nota bene prima: Eximii juris can be roughly translated as “our great law” in Latin, and it is definitely Latin rather than Italian--the only place in the paragraph where Marozzo obviously changes languages. It likely references rules of law under the historical contexts of the Holy Roman Empire. The habit of using Latin as a legal language goes back much further than Marozzo's time, but we still do this in American contexts today.  (See, e.g., parens patriae doctrine, res ipsa loquitur, juris doctor.)

**Nota bene seconda: “Serenissimi Imperatori,” or “Most Serene Emperors,” is an epithet used for Holy Roman Emperors that can be seen in several other places as well.  In 1522, Martin Luther used the same epithet to address Marozzo’s contemporary emperor, Charles V, at the Diet of Worms.  (Technically, when Luther used this title for Charles V the latter hadn’t yet been recognized by the Pope, only by Luther’s home country of Germany--but the papal coronation occurred right in Bologna only a few years before Marozzo was writing.)  Its use can be found in several other eras before and after, as well as a few contexts other than the HRE:  As an early example, a 922 Leonese charter begins with the phrase “Ego serenissimus imperator Ordonius” (“I am the Most Serene Emperor Ordoño” in Latin), though this was not the general fashion for Spanish kings at the time.  A much later example can be seen in the 1633 title “Enchiridion Leonis Papae Serenissimo Imperatori Carolo Magno: In Munus Pretiosum Datum”, which uses it for Charlemagne to reference Pope Leonis gifting Charlemagne with a prayer book in the 800s.

Buona serata e benvenuto!

Hello, kind reader!  I have been persuaded to document my attempts to tackle a new translation project, which will be very ambitious but I am excited about it.  Before I launch into some pretty technical stuff, let me tell you a bit more about the background of the project, my specific focus, and why I am attempting to scale this particular literary mountain.

In 1536, Italian fencing master Achille Marozzo wrote a comprehensive five-book treatise he simply titled "Opera Nova" ("A New Work").  It covers a great deal of ground regarding contemporary Italian fighting technique, and most of its sections have been credibly translated several times by fellow students of historical fighting.  There is, however, a section in Book 5, the final book, that covers dueling rules and points of honor as they pertained to local law.  To my knowledge, this section has not been translated by a modern reviewer, largely because it is qualitatively different from the other sections of the book--the book largely covers individual plays and questions of what and how to fight, rather than when and why.

A friend of mine, upon picking up a translated compilation containing Marozzo's "Opera Nova," promptly sent me the translator's "In My Defense..." preface about the missing section of Book 5.  I'm sharing it here, without naming any particular names, because it amused me so much:

"The reader should also be informed that this translation omits almost the entirety of the Fifth Book of the text, which is to say the material dealing with laws and points of honor regarding the duel. I have however translated and included the introduction and the final portion of the Fifth Book (the latter of which deals with defense against attacks with a dagger). This translation does encompass the remainder of Marozzo's work, and thus the entirety of the material dealing with practical aspects of combat.  I freely admit that this omission is due solely to my own limitations; I lack the necessary background to properly contextualize the omitted content, and moreover, the time necessary to complete it would have been prohibitive.  I derive some small sense of expiation from the words of Marozzo's contemporary, Antonio Manciolino, who so eloquently argued against the typological validity of treating fencing law and fencing technique in the same book.  Whether one agrees with Manciolino on this point or not, I ask for forgiveness for this omission born of my shortcomings, and trust that the material herein will suffice for the purposes of most readers."

In other words:  "Look, I'm not a lawyer, and the dang thing is almost one hundred capitoli long, and why is this section here in a fencing manual in the first place?"

So what makes me competent to take this on, when more experienced fighters have flat-out refused?  Well, for one thing, I am a lawyer, though I don't practice during the decline of the Holy Roman Empire in Bologna.  I like to think I'm a student of history, and I do passably read Latin and Italian.  (And for those gaps in my knowledge, I know where John Florio's dictionaries and the Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini can be found online.)  But more to the point, I'm intrigued by the same question that seems to turn my fellow translator away:  Why did Marozzo include this very different section in Book V of a fencing treatise?

I believe that studying this section will give us a better understanding of what Marozzo was thinking that can inform study of the other sections. To use a simple example: Marozzo wrote about God at least seventeen times in his other four sections, almost in passing. This makes contextual sense, given the time and place from which he was writing--and we have a section of the book that is literally about that time and place.  I think we can gain a deeper understanding of the plays by looking at the cultural context of his school, and a primary source of that information is his writing about to use his other sections with honor.