Royal Sardinian Army

The Royal Sardinian Army is presented as the regular military institution that absorbs Tancredi Falconeri and Count Carlo Cavriaghi after the dissolution of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s volunteer force. Their transfer makes the army a vivid marker of political transition: they retain military service but exchange revolutionary irregularity for royal authority, new ranks, and uniforms that immediately alter how others regard them.

Identity and Political Transition

The army enters the narrative through the experience of two young officers, rather than through an account of its organization or campaigns. Tancredi explains that after Giuseppe Garibaldi’s army broke up, he and Cavriaghi could either return home or remain in the army of the King of Sardinia. They chose the latter, becoming officers in the Royal Sardinian Army. Their description of the sovereign’s title as temporary, with service soon to be under Italy, places the force at a hinge between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the emerging Kingdom of Italy.

That change of allegiance and institution unfolds against the novel’s depiction of the previous Bourbon monarchy. Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, recalls audiences with Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies in which royal friendliness gives way to political testing: the king asks what Sicilians think of his lieutenant-general, and Don Fabrizio avoids becoming an informant. The encounter ends in a dismissal framed by royal familiarity, while Don Fabrizio wonders whether a Piedmontese successor will bring anything more than a change of regional manners. This skepticism supplies a counterpoint to the Royal Sardinian Army’s promise of a new national structure: political sovereignty is changing, but the scale of that change remains in question.

Transfer, Rank, and Professional Status

The move into the regular army costs both young men rank. Tancredi says he has fallen from captain to lieutenant, while Cavriaghi has gone from lieutenant to second lieutenant; they are nevertheless pleased with the change. Their account distinguishes military experience from the standing conferred by institutional membership. They consider themselves proper officers now, and the new uniforms make them respected in a way they had not been before.

Their satisfaction is sharpened by their contemptuous recollection of the force they left. Tancredi and Cavriaghi call Garibaldi’s army a rabble and characterize its men as fit for ambush and looting. The narrative presents this as the young officers’ judgment, not as an independent account of the volunteer force. The contrast nevertheless shows how the transfer changes their preferred definition of military legitimacy: regular status and recognized insignia matter more to them than the experience they acquired in the earlier army.

Uniform, Authority, and Improvisation

The officers’ uniforms make their new status visible. Tancredi draws attention to the two stars on his shoulder straps, while the young men’s blue and black cloth and elaborate silver and gold sleeve decorations are described as a striking contrast to the severe frock coats and dark tailcoats familiar to the women around them. The army’s public identity is thus conveyed through clothing as well as rank: its insignia signal a recognized hierarchy, and its appearance marks a sharp change in the social scene.

Cavriaghi’s joke about people no longer fearing that the officers will steal their chickens reduces this new respect to its practical, comic edge. Their journey from Palermo offers another example. At post stations, they claimed to have urgent orders in the King’s service and received fresh horses; the papers they presented were actually hotel bills from Naples, wrapped and sealed. The episode does not describe an official military procedure. Instead, it shows the young men exploiting the authority attached to their new uniforms and royal service, while letting the ease with which the ploy succeeds expose how readily institutional prestige can command compliance.

Place in the New State

The Royal Sardinian Army’s significance lies in this combination of real institutional change and compromised performance. Tancredi and Cavriaghi have genuinely entered a regular force and accepted lower ranks, yet their story of the sealed hotel bills turns the signs of state authority into props for a practical deception. Respect is newly available to them, but the anecdote suggests that its visible tokens can carry more weight than scrutiny of the orders behind them.

The political transition is also visible in civilian institutions. After the union of Sicily and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the government considers Don Fabrizio for a seat in the Senate of the Kingdom. He declines, describing himself as belonging to an old ruling class caught between the old world and the new, and recommends Don Calogero Sedàra instead. The Senate proposal is not part of the army’s structure, but it places the officers’ transfer within a broader reorganization of authority: the new state is gathering military and political roles under its institutions even as individuals disagree about who can represent it and what those institutions will accomplish.