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The battle of Pharsalus, which sealed Pompey’s defeat against Caesar in 48 BC, gave birth to an important textual tradition ever since the account given by the victorious general himself in his De bello civili. From antiquity to the Renaissance, truth has evidently not constituted a major concern for the authors who referred to the Thessalian battle. In fact, during the sixteenth century, the narrative of the battle represented, in the eye of Italian writers of military books, a kind of raw material they had to exploit in order to reach a certain number of goals, by bringing into play precise textual and rhetorical strategies. Used as a repertory of topical elements, Pharsalus was a particularly emblematic battle. The various ways in which the narrative and the ancient knowledge have been exploited show the writing skills of authors of military books such as Mario Savorgnano’s Arte militare terrestre e maritima, and demonstrate how thin the line is between utilitarian and literary works in Renaissance culture.