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

486 JOHN A. DAVIS
presence of soldiers and policemen, never mind the relations between them,
in the cities of the Italian peninsula in these years remain all the more
uncertain 5.
In generai terms, however it is clear that over the course of the 19th
century the business of urban policing became more specialised and
developed clearer divisions of labour between the different civil and military
agencies involved. As a result, the military's role in urban policing steadily
diminished, although this did not happen in a uniform way nor did it cease
altogether.
One of the earliest indications of the importance of the role assigned
to armies in urban policing dates back to the period of reform during the
Napoleonic era. During these years the rulers of the major Italian satellite
states embarked o n programmes of urban reconstruction and reorganization,
and a common feature of these undertakings was the the construction of
new roads, especially in the capi tal cities, to facilitate the movement of troops
into the popular quarters of the cities in times of disturbance 6. Recognition
that urban order depended ultimately on the presence of an army was
not in itself an innovation, and there were few major Italian cities that were
not dominated by some grim fortress or barracks that offered an unmistakeable
reminder of the 'internai security' functions of the Ancien Regime
armies. But like Hausmann' s reorganization of Paris later in the century, the
creation of improved communications linking city centres with military garrisons
by the Napoleonic rulers in Italy is evidence of the continuing recognition
of that role and the priority that was placed on adapting older intensions
to rapidly changing urban realities.
N or can there be any doubt that the character of the Empire itself gave
the army a new and centrai politica! importance which was again fully
reflected in the Italian satellite states. Contemporary accounts (for example,
De Nicola's Diario Napoletano) illustrate the prominence and frequency
of military parades, which served the dual purpose of an imposing show
of force which at the same time also transmitted the values and glories of
the Empire and of the new dynasties that it nurtured in Italy.
With the Restoration - and in particular after the revolutions of 1820-1
in Naples an d Turin in which sections of the respective armies were heavily
implicated- the army's role in the maintenance of public order and public
security became more ambiguous, however. The spread of seditious ideas
5 These wider issues are discussed in ]. A. DAVIS, Conflict and Contro!: Law and
Order in Italy in the 19th Century, Macmillan 1988.
6 Eg C. DE SETA, Napoli, (Le Città nella Storia d'Italia) Bari 1981, p. 214.
THE ARMY AND PUBLIC ORDER IN ITALIAN CITIES 487
and the successful expansion of secret societies amongst the officers of the
different Italian armies, no t to menti o n the no t far distant examples of military
pronunciamentos in Spain, caused the Italian rulers to look with suspicion
and uncertainty on their armies. Many, like the rulers of the Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies for example, turned to outside (i. e. Austrian) support or else
employed foreign mercenaries for greater security.
The same fears lay behind the attempts that were made in the 1820s
and 1830s to raise para-military popular militias, the most famous being those
which Prince Canosa create d for the Duke of Modena an d the Pope 7• But
these initiatives were also part of longer term attempts to reduce the army's
public order and public security duties. These can again be traced back to
the Napoleonic period. The French regimes brought to Italy not only clear
models of urban policing from metropolitan France but also an awareness
that public security functions distracted armies from their proper military
functions and made them military less effective. The creation of both civil
policing agencies and of volunteer militias with specific public security functions
was therefore seen as a matter of considerable importance First, the
delegation of public security functions to separate bodies was necessary if
the Italian armies were to meet their obligations to the Empire and serve
in the Emperor's campaigns. Secondly, it was already being argued that the
professionalization of the army as a fighting force made it desirable that it
should disengage as far as possible from ordinary internai security functions,
even thought its role in case of emergency or major break down of public
order was never questioned 8 .
It was symptomatic of these tendencies that the new urban and rural
policing agencies that had been introduced during the French period were
maintained - most obviously the Piedmontese Carabinieri that were
established in 1814. But the Carabinieri and the Gendarmeries that were
established in other states were seen primarily as rural policing agencies.
Much less is known about the ways in which the major cities were policed
in this period, although here too the French reforms had established clear
distinctions between the spheres of military and civil jurisdiction and
organization. In theory at least, urban policing became more bureaucratic,
more professional and more specific. The broad Ancien Regime concept
of policing that was synonymous with Buon Governo gave way to narrower
7 On this see eg F. LEONI, Storia della Controrivoluzione in Italia 1789-1854, Napoli
1979.
s Eg L. ANTONELLI, I Prefetti dell 'Italia Napoleonica, Milano 1983, pp. 215-223,
455-474.