... le selle piccole, deboli e senza arcioni ...
The Cambridge companion to Machiavelli. 2010
Soderini acquiesced in Vettori’s appointment, but as mandatory, not ambassador, and at the end of 1507 Soderini succeeded in having Machiavelli sent as a second mandatory with supplementary instructions. Machiavelli’s collaboration with Vettori at the imperial court was one of his longest missions, from December 1507 to June 1508, allowing him to observe the ineffectual Maximilian (whose incompetence he recalls in Prince 23) and also to acquire firsthand knowledge of Germany and Switzerland to complement the acquaintance with France already gained during his legation there in 1500. The fall of Pisa in May 1509 was largely the result of the preoccupation of the major powers with the war of the League of Cambrai against Venice, depriving the Pisans of the foreign aid that had hitherto been their lifeline. Florentine military operations were nonetheless still needed, and from February to June Machiavelli was completely engrossed at the scene of the conflict, dealing with all aspects of the enterprise and supervising his militia’s battalions. In March, he made brief trips to the nearby independent cities of Lucca and Piombino to sound out possible peace negotiations. After Pisa’s surrender on 4 June, his friend and colleague Filippo Casavecchia wrote to Machiavelli: “I wish you a thousand benefits from the outstanding acquisition of that noble city, for truly it can be said that your person was cause of it to a very great extent.”4 This must have seemed to him, as it did to his friends, the high-water mark of his chancery career.
Late 1509 saw Machiavelli once more in a theater of military action, this time in northern Italy, as Venice began to recapture subject cities lost in the disastrous defeat inflicted by the League of Cambrai in May. Maximilian’s arrival in Italy required Florence to pay him the funds promised (through Vettori and Machiavelli) the year before, and Machiavelli was dispatched to Mantua to make a partial payment and report on the war. He stayed for the rest of the year in the Veneto, where he had the opportunity to ponder Venice’s recent military fiasco, Maximilian’s failings as a military leader, and the structural flaws of the Holy Roman Empire.
С такой вот базой Макиавелли составляет небольшой трактат - Ritratto delle cose della Magna/Ritratti delle cose dell'Alamagna, написанный в 1512-м.
Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli. IV. Milano. 1820 Еще - Opere di Niccolò Machiavelli. III. 1796
Le genti d'arme tedesche sono assai ben montate di cavalli, ma pesanti, ed altresì sono molto bene armate in quella parte che usano armare. Ma è da notare che in un latto d'arme contro ad Italiani o Francesi non farieno prova, non per la qualità degli uomini, ma perchè non usano a' cavalli armadura di alcuna sorte, e le selle piccole, deboli e senza arcioni, in modo che ogni piccolo urto li caccia a terra. Ecci un' altra cosa che li fa più deboli, cioè che dal corpo ingiuso, cioè cosce e gambe, non armano punto; in modo che non potendo reggere il primo urto, in che consiste la importanza delle genti e del fatto d'arme, non possono anche poi reggere con l'arme corta, perchè possono essere offesi loro e i cavalli nei detti luoghi disarmati, ed è in potestà d'ogni pedone con la picca trarli da cavallo o sbudellarli, e poi nello male agitarsi i cavalli per la gravezza loro non reggono.
Макиавелли благополучно оставил немецких всадников без конской брони, полных доспехов и седел с высокими луками.
Niccolo Machiavelli. The Prince and Other Political Writings. 1995 Tr. Stephen J. Milner.
Для сравнения.
Можно предположить, что дипломат насмотрелся на гештех низких сёдел (gemeindeutsche Gestech) и турнирный полудоспех-штейхцойг (Stechzeug).
Для сравнения - The usurpation of Richard the Third: Dominicus Mancinus ad Angelum Catonem De occupatione regni Anglie per Ricardum Tercium libellus. 1936. Также нужный фрагмент есть в Ralph Moffat. Medieval Arms and Armour. A Sourcebook. Volume III. 1450-1500. 2024.
Посетивший Англию в 1482-3 гг. итальянец описывает вооружение войска - практически все с луками и стрелами (arcu et sagictis), клинками (ensis), железными баклерами (ferreus vmbo), в шлемах (galea) и мягких доспехах (militum tunicas). Только немногие носят латы и вообще железные доспехи. Хорошо? Не очень. Итальянец ... терпимо описал лучников, но, к примеру, ни словом не упомянул столь же многочисленных билльменов.
- Antonio de Monserrate.