The works of the famous Nicholas Machiavel, citizen and secretary of Florence written originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully translated into English.

CHAP. X.

To range a Company in such order that it may be ready to face the Enemy, on which side soever he comes.

Fabr.

WHen you have marshalled your fourscore Files, five in a File; you are to put all your Pikes into the first twenty Files, and place five of your Corporals in the head of them, and five in the Rear. The other 60 Files which follow, are Bucklers all, and consist of 300 men. So then the first and last File of every Company, are to be Corporals; The Captain with his Ensign and Drum, is to stand in the midst of the first hundred of Bucklers, and every Centurion at the head of his Division. When they are in this order if you desire to have your Pikes on the left hand, you are to double them Company by Company from the right Flank; if you would have them on the right, you are to double from the left; and this is the way by which a Company turns with the Pikes upon one Flank, with their Officers at the Head and the Rear of them, and their Captain in the midst, and it is the form which is observed in a march. But upon the approach of an Enemy,

when they would make a Front of a Flank, they have no more to do but to command that all of them face about to that Flank where the Pikes are, and in so doing the whole Batta∣lia turns with its Files and Officers at the same time in the manner aforesaid; for (unless it be the Centurions) they are all in their old places, and the Centurions can quickly be there. But when a Battalia marches in the Front, and is in danger to be engaged in the Rear; the Files are to be so ordered, that the Pikes may be readily behind; and to do this there needs no more, but whereas usually in every Battalia, every Century has five Files of Pikes in the Front, those five Files may be placed in the Rear, and in all other places the same order to be observed as before.

Cosimo.

If my memory fails not, you said that this way of exercise is in order to the uniting these Battalia's into an Army, and that this practice is sufficient to direct them in that. But if it should happen this Squadron of 450 Foot should be to fight singly and by its self, how would you order it then?

Fabritio.

He who commands them is to judge where his Pikes are to be disposed, and place them as he thinks fit, which is not at all consistant with what I have prescribed before; for though that be a way to be observed in Battel upon an union or conjunction of several Squadrons, yet it may serve as a rule in what ever condition you fall into. But in showing you the two other ways which I recommended for the ordering of a Battalia, I will satisfie you farther.