Having run headlong into the end of Capitolo 187 ("Of the Qualities that are Sought in Singular Battles") during my previous translation run, I sensibly put down the transcript for a time to clear my head.
...I did not mean to do over a year's worth of head-clearing, but here we are.
That said, about a month ago, I picked this project back up and began translation of Capitolo 187 anew--only to smack my head against the very end of the listicle yet again a second time.
I really am nearing the end of translating this chapter as I type this. If all goes well, you will get a Bella Translation Translation sometime this week.
In the meantime, because it has been a dog's age, and because my esteemed fellow scholars of Scherma Nova Studiorum also made faces about it, I want to show you what I'm currently working on. And so I present for your edification: The Untranslated End of Marozzo's Law Listicle.
Here's what Marozzo has written, specifically as just Number Five of his judicial elements listicle:
"la quinta & ultima cagione è che della differentia per la quale è causata la battaglia non habia la corte iudiciale avuta notitia, perchè essendo andato al iudice della publica Corte & non havendo provato quello che apponeva, non se potria più pervenire a le arme, nè al giudicio militare, sì come Federico Imperatore scrive alla sua constitutione; & in queste diverse consuetudini, quantunque per lo mondo se trovano, niente di meno il delitto manifesta non havere loco tale bataglia, attento se non recercasse prova alcuna, essendo per lui medesimo provato per l’autorità della cosa, reservando s’el provocato allegasse havere iustamente el suo delitto adoperare & quello in battaglia se disponesse per la sua causa più manifestamente iustificare, alhora per battaglia se potria provocare, se la scusatione fusse vera; dilchè appresso mostraremo che havendo uno in publico loco amazato uno armigero & allegando iustamente haverlo amazato per sua defensione o per altra iusta occasione, combattere se potria, per dimostratione di tal defensione & haverlo con giustitia fatto."
"Bella," you may be asking at this juncture, as did my esteemed colleagues, "Is that all one sentence?"
YES. YES IT IS.
If I am charitable to my favorite dead maestro, the semicolons can be read as periods--which means it is three sentences. Within those three sentences, at the point at which I am currently... shall we say, a bit paused...Marozzo goes on an entire tangent about the constitution of Emperor Frederick.
"But Bella," you may be asking at this juncture, if you are well-read on the Holy Roman Empire, "wasn't Holy Roman Emperor in Achille Marozzo's time Charles V?"
YES, YES HE WAS.
"So which constitution was he referencing?" you may be asking. "For that matter, which Frederick?"
And that, dear Reader, is a very good question! After diving down several different rabbit holes with an entire page of research notes, I'm still not fully sure of its answer--all I'm really sure of is that it wasn't either of the two different Frederick IIIs. Sadly, this only gets us halfway there, because both Frederick I Barbarossa and Frederick II were responsible for contributing major legal documents during their reigns. (For those who are curious and playing the home game, Frederick I re-established the Corpus Juris Civilis, while Frederick II is responsible for the Constitutions of Melfi. We're probably talking about the Constitutions of Melfi, since among other things they restricted the right to bear arms. But Marozzo also references civil law alongside the Lombarda Laws during Item #4 of his law listicle, so... shrug emoji?)
Suffice to say, now you know why this is taking so long!
