Contenuto principale

Torino Turistica

The Military Academy

Its history

Military AcademyTurin's Military Academy, the Scuola di Applicazione Militare, originates from the Royal Schools of Artillery and Fortifications (later the School of Artillery and Military Engineering) founded by Carlo Emanuele II King of Sardinia in 1739, the cradle of the originally Piedmontese and later Italian oldest and most glorious military traditions. Its foundation comes from the merger of these schools with the famous Parma Infantry School and Pinerolo Cavalry School.
It was Europe's first academy of this type, the same record being held by the Military Academy found at Turin in 1677 by Madama Reale Giovanna Battista of Savoy Nemours.
This Institute's influence on Italy's history was enormous, as many of the personages such as Camillo Cavour, Luigi Menabrea, Alessandro Lamarmora, Luigi Lagrange, Angelo Saluzzo, Giovanni Plana, Vittorio Alfieri, Ignazio Bertola, Giovanni Cavalli, Luigi Cadorna, Armando Diaz, Pietro Badoglio and many others who played an important role in the cultural life and political, economic and social development of Turin and Italy were trained here.

The headquarters

The imposing military complex built in 1736 on a project by Architect Captain Felice De Vincenti is the core of the structures making up the new Arsenal of Turin. At that time, the area facing the Citadel had been chosen since it was Turin's best defended one and therefore the place where Arsenal operations were in the greatest demand.
The building contains great prestigious reception halls, reading and recreational areas, a beautiful and well-stocked library of technical, scientific and military matters as well as teaching and training rooms. The School is the venue for many cultural events and the ample courtyard hosts concerts and various events which continue to maintain and reinforce pleasant ties between the Institute and the people of Turin.

Its tasks

The Institute's basic task has always been the training of officers regularly serving the Sardinian-Piedmontese Army first and the Italian Army later. Today, the Scuola di Applicazione continues training officers of the various Italian Armed Forces (Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers and Transmissions) as well as Administration, Commissioners and Technical Officers.
The Academy holds specialist courses for officers, technical and scientific studies and research work besides the normal courses in six different University specialities operating in some fifty laboratories and class-rooms, some fitted with simultaneous translation equipment for as many as four different foreign languages.
To give an idea of the complexity of this organisation directed at two-yearly training of several hundreds of Italian and foreign officers it can be mentioned it requires the yearly commitment of no less than a hundred military and University teachers, for instance

Other military aspects

Piedmont and Turin have closer ties with Italy's military history however, since the Italian Army is the expansion and development of what the Piedmontese Army was once. Not just the Military Academy and the Scuola di Applicazione were created in the small Savoy State but many military corps and specialities of the most prestigious components of our country's army originated in Piedmont as well, notably:

The Alpini, an special corps created at Turin in 1872 by General Giuseppe Perrucchetti. It consists of troops trained to operate on the Alps and therefore assigned to defend our country's mountain frontiers.
The Granatieri, a corps created at Turin in 1659 by Duke Carlo Emanuele II. It is the oldest infantry corps of the Italian Army. The tall height required to belong to this corps, together with their long arms, meant these soldiers could throw the heavy grenades of those days over a very long distance.