I was scanning through the two-handed sword chapters for other reasons, when I landed on something I did not expect: Marozzo has an explicit strike with the flat!

Original

Settima stretta a filo dritto per filo dritto.

Ma sappi che essendo con el nimico a filo dritto con filo dritto, voglio che tu te carge forte adosso a lui per lo dritto, con le tue bracie ben distese inanci, e questo facio perchè lui habbia casion de tirare le sue bracie a sè. Ma sappi che tirando a lui le ditte bracie a sè el discoprirà la testa: allhora tu alcerai la mano mancha tua alinsuso & darali del piatto ditto della spada tua in su la testa sua; e se lui alcerà le sue bracie alinsuso per coprire la ditta testa, alhora tu li spingerai el pomo della spada in la facia tra le sue bracie e piglierai, se ti parerà, con el pomo de la ditta spada el suo bracio dritto per de dentro, voltandolo per de sopra, per modo che lui non se potrà movere delle ditte bracie sue & li converrà per forcia lassare la spada sua.

Seventh narrow play true edge to true edge

Know that if you are true edge to true edge with the enemy, I want you to push strongly on him, with your two arms well extended forward, this to give him a reason to pull his arms to himself. But know that pulling said arms to himself he will uncover his head: then you will launch the left hand upwards & strike him in the head with the flat of your sword; and if he lifts his arms up to cover his head, then you will shoot the pommel to the face between his arms and, if it suits you, you will catch his right arm from the inside with the pommel of the sword, turning from above, in such a way that he will not be able to move his arms & will be forced to let go of his sword.

Up to now, whenever the topic of striking with the flat came up, the classical and somewhat isolated example was Meyer, and specifically his prellhau, which is a specific application using the flex of the sword to bounce against a parry (and possibly hit, but not explicitly in this section). This gives another example which is quite different. This is a quick strike of opportunity done from the half-sword, which does not use the flex of the sword.

The exact context and even weapon covered in this section of Marozzo is not entirely clear; it is generally thought to be some sort of intermediate between the medieval longsword and the later bigger spadone. I do not know well how it was trained or whether there were sportive applications like the fechtschule in Meyer’s context. This strike, at any rate, looks like it would work just as well with any sword, whether sharp and stiff or blunt and flexible.

This might be old news to the Marozzo specialists, but I thought it was worth pointing out because I had never seen this brought up in the more general longsword discussions (or even flatly contradicted like here: “Achille Marozzo’s writings on the longsword [does not] include mention of striking flat blows. Marozzo mentions parrying with the flat at one point.”). Strikes with the flat were not just a German speciality!