Moreover, drawing is of exceedingly
great use in war to show in sketches the position of distant places and
the shape of the mountains and the harbours, as well as that of the ranges
of mountains and of the bays and seaports, for the shape of the cities and
fortresses, high and low, the walls and the gates and their position, to
show the roads and the rivers, the beaches and the lagoons and marshes
which have to be avoided or passed; for the course and spaces of the
deserts and sandy pits of the bad roads and of the woods and forests; all
this done in any other way is badly understood, but by drawing and
sketching all is very clear and intelligible; all of these are great
things in warlike undertakings, and the drawings of the painter greatly
aid and assist the intentions and plans of the captain. What better thing
can any brave cavalier do than show before the eyes of the raw and
inexperienced soldiers the shape of the city that they have to attack
before they approach it, what river, what mountains and what towns have to
be passed on the morrow? And the Italians, at least, say that, if the
Emperor when he entered Provence had first ordered the course of the river
Rodano to be drawn, he would not have sustained such great losses, nor
retired his army in disorder, nor would he have been painted afterwards in
Rome as a crab, which crawls sideways, with the words borne by the columns
of Hercules, _Plus ultra_, for, wishing to go forward, he went back.
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