"The undersigned, in charge of the administration of the things of the sea of a State located in the middle of the Mediterranean, rich in enviable extension of coasts and a large maritime population, feels the duty to give the widest development to the naval resources of the Country".
Thus writes the Prime Minister, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, presenting the 1860 Navy budget. The Prime Minister himself, on the following 18 March, will follow up on these inspired words, personally assuming the leadership of the newly established Ministry of the Navy.
These are the conditions that will see the birth of the Italian Navy, through the Royal Decrees n. 4419, 4420 and 4421. It is November 17, 1860, exactly four months before the assumption of the title of King of Italy "by the grace of God and the will of the Nation" by Vittorio Emanuele II and the proclamation of national unity (Decree 4671 of March 17, 1861).
The Navy, defined in the decrees of the 17 November 1860, registered the following day at the Court of Accounts, "Navy", "Regia Marina" and "Navy of the State", maintains the laws and regulations in force in the ancient Provinces of the State for the Navy ", without differentiating the Sardinian Navy from the other pre-unification Marinas which, therefore, merge into a unicum which takes in itself, even formally, all the ancient traditions of Italian naval history, from the maritime republics to the pre-unification Tuscan, pontifical, Neapolitan, Napoleonic and Garibaldi republics as well as, of course, the Savoy.
The Navy thus maintains that millennial continuity that is reflected in only two other institutions in the entire world panorama, the Japanese Empire and the Catholic Church.
(in the picture: Vittorio Emanuele's visit to Naples - MSN Venice)
