FABRICIO. I tell you agayne, that the manners and orders of the warre,
throughe oute all the worlde, in respecte to those of the antiquitie, be
extinguesshed, and in Italye they bee altogether loste, for if there bee
a thing somewhat stronger then the ordinarye, it groweth of the insample
of other countries. You mighte have understoode and these other may
remember, with howe muche debilitie before, that king Charles of Fraunce
in the yere of our salvation a thousande CCCC. xciiii. had passed into
Italie, they made the batelmentes not halfe a yarde thicke, the loopes,
and the flanckers were made with a litle opening without, and muche
within, and with manye other faultes whiche not to be tedious I will let
passe: for that easely from thinne battelments the defence is taken
awaye, the flanckers builded in the same maner, moste easylye are
opened: Nowe of the Frenchemen is learned to make the battelment large
and thicke, and the flanckers to bee large on the parte within, and to
drawe together in the middeste of the wall, and then agayn to waxe wider
unto the uttermost parte without: this maketh that the ordinaunce
hardlye can take away the defence. Therfore the Frenchmen have, manye
other devises like these, the whiche because they have not beene seene
of our men, they have not beene considered. Among whiche, is this kinde
of perculles made like unto a grate, the which is a greate deale better
then oures: for that if you have for defence of a gate a massive
parculles as oures, letting it fall, you shutte in your menne, and you
can not though the same hurte the enemie, so that hee with axes, and
with fire, maye breake it downe safely: but if it bee made like a grate,
you maye, it being let downe, through those holes and through those open
places, defende it with Pikes, with crosbowes, and with all other kinde
of weapons.
BAPTISTE. I have seene in Italye an other use after the outelandishe
fashion, and this is, to make the carriage of the artillery with the
spokes of the wheele crooked towardes the Axeltree. I woulde knowe why
they make them so: seeming unto mee that they bee stronger when they are
made straighte as those of oure wheeles.
[Sidenote: Neither the ditche, wall tillage, nor any kinde of
edificacion, ought to be within a mile of a toune of warre.]