Randall,
thanks for the response. I think this comes down to our definition of what constitutes an art - if we define it according the weapon set there clearly are great similarities between the two suggested traditions. If we look at context, there may be differences but generally I believe both would work in each others' context as well. If we look at footwork, Fiore gives perhaps a more clear description of what it consists of, but there is no reason to expect the footwork in both being radically different. However, if you look at the German sources you can see that the length of the step, for example, varies between various authors, generally becoming longer as time goes by.
In my opinion two different styles can be sketched out rather than one. While I agree that the first play of Fiore and the Zornhau plays are very similar there remain a large amount of differences as well.
For example, the nomenclature is not simply a matter of translation as the terms mean different things - this already could be used to define a different 'tradition'. The emphasis is also very different: Fiore includes a great deal of left-hand controls of the opponent's weapon and pommel strikes and other such things which, while present in the other sources, seem to be outshadowed by great amount of point-oriented play (winden etc.) which is absent in Fiore.
If we read Fiore's biography we can see that he learned form many people but that he says that he has ordered the information according to his own reasoning, and that he taught in secrecy and wasn't keen on letting other masters know his art (he had to fight 5 duels because he did not reveal his art to them). This all suggests to me that his art was not a widely known mainstream art, but something that was special. On the other hand, his teachings are not very complicated in a sense that his style is quite straightforward and easy to learn (not necessarily easy to interpret to us). So perhaps Fiore's specialty was more in his ability to reason the art and teach it. Teaching people of the caliber Fiore mentions in his prologue as his students must've been a difficult task, as they had to _already_ be of an impressive level of experience and skill.
There is a lot of things that Fiore only mentions in passing, or hints at, that are important in fighting, such as feints for example. How to perform them we need to learn from other sources or by experimentation since he does not describe how to do them. This is OK, but I think we need to be very careful of saying that Posta di Finestra and Ochs were the same thing. Both guards fill the same space in a quartered profile, but ochs can be held blade horizontally as a result of a zwerchau, an action not defined by Fiore.
We could say that 'well, if you do a zwerchau and you do Fiore, you would be in a fenestra with the blade oriented horizontally', and while that would be true in a sense it would also be a bit silly, mixing terminology from both sources. If Fiore had wanted us to perform such an action, surely he would've mentioned it in the text? Remember that, while not defined precisely, even the feints are hinted at and there are words for them we can use in Italian.
There is a case for creating a 'new' longsword art where a combination of various sources is used, and I have no problem with that. But before such can be attempted, I think it would be extremely important to be deeply familiar with the individual sources and keeping them separate from each other and any modern re-creation - or at least making an attempt to be as honest as possible.
By the way, is there a source that describes this "Scales" footwork? Or is it simply based on graphical evidence?
To answer Tyrone's question, some later compilations on copied artwork combine German sources with Italian, like von Eyb and codex 5278, but both of these are not original works, but rather scrap books including copies from all available sources. I don't know of any serious study made to connect these to any previous sources, but it is quite evident that the author had access to one of Fiore's works or a copy thereof.
- Ilkka
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