Alamanno Salviati (Salviati Alamanno)
23 April, 1509
San Piero

LETTER VII.

Magnificent Signori, etc.: —

This is merely to inform your Lordships that the pay of the lately arrived ninety-three men from Fojano runs from the 14th to the 25th, and that the money for it ought to be here by the 25th, as also the money for the pay of the artillerists and of the troops that are not counted as regulars by the constables. For all this three hundred ducats are required; and if your Lordships desire to make the third payment also, then it will be necessary to send the entire amount due to the constables, and I will give it to them in time. But sending only one third of a pay at a time causes confusion; for so soon as the time for the pay has come, and you are not ready at every moment with pen in hand to remind each of his account, they will be constantly after you, and yet will not find their money ready for them. I beg your Lordships, therefore, to send the money due to the supplementary force from the Val di Chiana; also for an entire pay of all the constables, so as to avoid the confusion above referred to. I shall also need the money for the pioneers to-morrow; and will send you by the first courier the accounts of the money I have had until now. It was intended to employ two hundred pioneers to devastate the country around the camp; but it seems now that it will be better to employ four hundred, so as to be able to do the work in two evenings, and thus get through the sooner with this business, which is very important, as we have to leave the camp almost entirely unprotected; and the more rapidly one proceeds in this sort of things the more securely it is done, for the men have to go up to the very walls of the town, where they are exposed to the fire of the artillery. I recommend myself to your Lordships.

Alamanno Salviati,

Commissary-General.
From the Camp at San Piero, 23 April, 1509.