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."
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.
Quick aside about Manciolino, incidentally: He wrote his own treatise on the same subject, with the same name, probably about a decade before Marozzo published "Opera Nova." It seems likely that he was salty about being overshadowed when he wrote first, which probably colored his opinion about the extra section. You can read more about him here: https://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Antonio_Manciolino
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