Thanks Fernando - I should add that in fact Marozzo does show halfswording with the ricasso being gripped (so it was done), but I think that this was not the primary purpose of these projections, because they seem to have developed from the flarred ricasso found on 15th century fencing longswords and in quite a lot of 16th-17th century examples it is not really practical to hold the ricasso because of the guard rings being in the way (or the spikes being too close to the hilt, as here).
Regards,
Matt
|