Hi Brian and Shane;
Basically we seem to agree that while the Liechtenauer and Dei Liberi traditions have a lot in common, there are some differences (in both theory and execution).
This is good, and I think it is the 'normal' view held in the WMA world now.
Regarding Sydney Anglo's comments on Fiore - I must say that, having had the chance to have a brief conversation with him in John Clements' presence, he was honest about the fact that he had not spent much time looking at the three versions of Fior di Battaglia. He was surprised when I told him that the Morgan version contains things not in the Getty version, and that the Morgan is not simply an abridged version of Getty - rather they seem to share a common source.
Also, we should remember that when Sydney Anglo wrote his book it was early days in the study of WMA, and he could not do an in-depth analysis of all those treatises by himself - he wrote a pioneering work, but IMO it should only be used as a loose guide now, as there is a lot of knowledge out there now that supercedes it.
Going back to what Shane said:
Essentially I agree - however, i do think there is a fair amount of attacking and taking-the-initiative in Fiore. There are also a fair number of described feints, which of course involve attacking first and commanding the opponent ('Vor' basically). Also, the text of the Posta tell us a lot about how to attack - which attacks to use and which Posta work best against which other Posta (specifically discussed in the pollaxe section). So, I do agree that Fiore has *alot* more counter playing and waiting than Doebringer, Von Danzig or Ringeck. But that's not all the story - it just seems to be Fiore's preference in what he shows (in fact it is a preference we could loosely call 'Italian', as it runs through Vadi and the Bolognese school - so all the early Italian material we have), but the offensive stuff is there, mainly wrapped up in the text rather than the illustrated plays.
I will give one basic example:
Fiore states that if your opponent is standing in Posta Fenestra, then traverse to the side his weapon is on, and cut at his hands (on the outside).
This is simple, offensive and as it happens, quite similar to some of the advice in the Liechtenauer tradition (not surprisingly).
Anyway, I've droned on for too long <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />,
Regards,
Matt
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