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

488 JOHN A. DA VIS
and more specific tasks - the enforcement of urban regulations and byelaws,
the patrolling of public p laces an d a bo ve ali the contro l of vagabonds
and migrants. The day to day functions of the sbirri took place alongside
the activities of a range of other policing agents, such as the Customs and
Excise guards, which gave the Restoration cities a heavily militarized appearance,
even though the army proper remained a reserve force to be used
in times of emergency.
The separation between civil and military policing was as yet by no
means hard and fast. It is perhaps significant that the confusion between
the military and civilian spheres of authority was particularly pronounced
in the Savoyard states, where the military commandant in each town and
province retained ultimate responsibility for policing 9.
The fears aroused by the revolutions of 1848 and 1849 provided the
incentive for the next major step forward in the development of urban polìcing.
Partly in an attempt to rally the landowners around a platform of law
and order and so renew the alliance with the legitimist rulers, partly in imitation
of developments in Britain an d France w h ere new models of professional
urban police forces were being established in the 1830s and 1840s,
the rulers of the major Italian states embarked on a major reorganization of
urban policing (the Piedmontese Public Security regulations of 1852 and
1854; the Tuscan Police Codes of 1849 and 1853; the reorganization ofpolicing
in Rome in 1850 and in Modena in 1854). In the Savoyard states, 1847
saw the end of the mixed the civilian and military organization of policing
and the emergence of a new civil structure organized around the
Questori 10. But underlying these changes there was also a substantial shift
towards a new concept of policing, which was seen increasingly as question
of prevention an d protection of the social or der and the rights of property,
in place of the older concept of the regulation, mediation and fair
government. In the words of the Roman authorities, the police were now
to be 'the ever wakeful eyes of the state' 11.
Unification: The Army and the Cities
The circumstances in which Unification was achieved between 1860
and 1870 necessarily heightened the importance ofthe army's role in maintaining
public security an d made it a key instrument in the poli ti es of unifica-
9 R. ROMEO, Dal Piemonte Sabaudo all'Italia Liberale, Bari 1974, pp. 35/6.
1o ACSR; Carte Crispi, B. 78 (memo on PS 27.4.1887).
11 Se e eg G. SANTONCINI, Ordine Pubblico e Polizia nella crisi dello Stato Pontificio
(1845-50), pp. 25-9.
THE ARMY AND PUBLIC ORDER IN ITALIAN CITIES 489
ti o ns. The formation of volunteer forces an d National Guard militias a t first
blurred the distinctions between spheres of military and civil jurisdiction,
but these uncertainties were resolved mainly in favour of the former after
the disbandment of Garibaldi's vounteers and the purges of the National
Guard militias in the South.
With the exception of Palermo in 1866, the Southern cities - indeed
the Italian cities generally - remaineci remarkably quiet during the transition
from the legitimist dynasties to the new state, even though the imposition
of conscription for the first time in Sicily and the Papal States was in
itself a major cause of disorder, and opposition to the 'leva' was widespread
especially in the principal citi es 12 .
These problems have been studied almost exclusively from a rural
perspective, and little research has been done on the transition of power
in the major cities. Naples is a partial exception, even though the nature
of the intervention of Li borio Romano has often been wildly distorted. But
the evidence from Naples and elsewhere would suggest that armies played
a relatively slight role in the transfer of power from the legitimist dynasties
to the new state in the former capitai citi es. In the case of Naples there clearly
was a considerable degree of continuity in the organization of policing before
and after the fall ofthe Bourbon dynasty, while the extensive files that were
accumulate d o n public or der in Bologna- where the transfer of power was
accompanied by major disorders - also suggests considerable continuities
in both the structure an d the perso nn el of the civil poli ce forces 13.
The authorities did look on the army as the principal safeguard against
urban revolt, however, and the garrisoning of the newly annexed cities and
provincia! centres was given high priority. The events in Palermo in 1866
indicate that this was not necessarily effective, but during the earlier operations
against brigandage in the Mezzogiorno, the need to maintain adeguate
garrisons in the principal Southern cities was considered to be even more
important that the maintenance of proper levels of troops on the new
Kingdom's strategie defences along the Mincio 1 4 .
There can be no doubt of the hostility that was often aroused by what
were identified as foreign and indeed occupying troops. In 1860 the Gover-
12 See esp. G. OLIVA, Esercito, Paese e movimento operaio. L 'anti-militarismo dal
1861 all 'età giolittiana, Milano 1986.
13 Cf. ACSR, Min. Int., Gabinetto, B. 4, fascic. 10 'Condizione morale e politica della
Città di Bologna' 18.11.1861.
14 Eg F. MOLFESE, 'La repressione del Brigantaggio post-unitario nel Mezzogiorno
continentale 1860-70' in Archivio storico per le Provincie Napoletane, ser. 3, XXI, 1983,
pp. 44-5.