that thei maie make their front againste thenemie of whiche flanke thei
list; How a band of man oughte to be ordered, when in marchyng thei
should bee constrained to faighton their backes.]

FABRICIO. You saie truth, but surely thoccasion hath been the affection,
whiche I beare to these orders, and the grief that I feele, seyng thei
be not put in use: notwithstanding, doubt not but that I will tourne to
the purpose: as I have saied, the chief importaunce that is in
thexercise of the battailes, is to knowe how to kepe well the armies:
and bicause I tolde you that one of these battailes, ought to bee made
of fower hundred men heavie armed, I wil staie my self upon this nomber.
Thei ought then to be brought into lxxx. rankes, and five to a ranke:
afterward goyng fast, or softly, to knit them together, and to lose
them: the whiche how it is dooen, maie bee shewed better with deedes,
then with wordes. Which nedeth not gretly to be taught, for that every
manne, whom is practised in servise of warre, knoweth how this order
procedeth, whiche is good for no other, then to use the souldiours to
keepe the raie: but let us come to putte together one of these
battailes, I saie, that there is given them three facions principally,
the firste, and the moste profitablest is, to make al massive, and to
give it the facion of two squares, the second is, to make it square with
the front horned, the thirde is, to make it with a voide space in the
middest: the maner to put men together in the first facion, maie be of
twoo sortes, tho together in the first facion, maie be of twoo sortes,
thone is to double the rankes, that is, to make the seconde ranke enter
into the first, the iiii. into the third, the sixt into the fift, and so
foorth, so that where there was lxxx. rankes, five to a ranke, thei maie
become xl. rankes, x. to a ranke. Afterward cause theim to double ones
more in thesame maner, settyng the one ranke into an other, and so there
shall remain twentie rankes, twentie men to a ranke: this maketh twoo