esercito e città dall'unità agli anni trenta. tomo i - Sistema ...

ANTHONY L. CARDOZA
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN:
THE PIEDMONTESE NOBILITY AND THE MILITARY IN
LIBERAL IT AL Y
The dose association between the Piedmontese nobility and the military
profession in Liberai Italy offers an excellent opportunity to explore the place
of traditi o n an d custom in a peri od of seemingly dramatic transformations.
Historians of nineteenth century Italy, and Europe in generai, have focused
most of their attention on the great agents of change. Industrialization, urbanization,
bureaucratic rationalization, democratization, and meritocratic
trends have provided the main themes for scholarly research and debate.
As Arno Mayer has recently argued, however, concentration on the processes
of modernization has resulted in the neglect of those forces of traditi o n an d
continuity that remained surprisingly vigorous at least up to the Great War.
In particular, Mayer has asserted that certain branches of state service like
the army and diplomatic corps continued to be a " privileged preserve of
the old nobilities with their ascriptive claim to authority "· Accordingly, titled
officers not only enjoyed preferment in appointments and promotions, but
also effectively imprinted an aristocratic world view on their new bourgeois
colleagues 1 • In this context, my paper will address some of the issues
Mayer raises by looking at two interrelated themes: first, the presence and
influence of a traditional social elite in the Italian army officers corps; and
second, the role of the military profession in preserving aristocratic values
and styles of life within a prominent regional nobility.
l. The piedmontese nobility and the italian army ojjicers corps
An " aristocratic-military ,, culture had become a firmly established and
dominant feature of Piedmontese society long before the nineteenth cen-
1 ARNO J. MAYER, The Persistence oj the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War, New
York 1981, pp. 176-177.