1848 PIEDMONTESE (SARDINIAN) ARMY - Drummer and Caporal Drummer of the Regiment Aosta

 For whom, who love details and precisions in uniforms, I have the pleasure to show you my last efforts: the Drummer ("Tamburino") and Caporal Drummer ("Caporale Tamburino") of the Aosta Infantry Regiment.

I know that my sources are quite direct, being a (proud) Piedmontese, nontheless I have to admit that on Internet or in the Osprey Publishing Nr. 512 "Armies of the Italian Wars of Unification 1848 -70 (1) Piedmont and the Two Sicilies there is no part of it dedicated to the the uniforms, but just some ideas of the organization of the Piedmontese Army. Quite deceiving. 

The chapter (?) trating of the Piedmontese Army is from half page7 to page 8, and to be more precise, the part that speaks about this Army in 1848 (so first part of the War, with battles like Goito, Pastrengo, Santa Lucia and Custoza) remains in the skimpy half page 7, without any details on uniforms. 

My sources are - at the contrary - the two fantastic books "L'Armata Sarda e le Riforme Albertine" and "Dall'Armata Sarda all'Esercito Italiano 1843-1861"  by Stefano Alis, published by the Stato Maggiore dell'Esercito - Ufficio Storico" that are full of unbelivable details taken directly from the documents of the Piedomontese Army of the epoch. Like 100 to 5!

So my uniforms of the Piedmontese Army in 1848 are all taken from these super books.

Just to give you an idea of the details (and consider what I am going to write is all from this books) I post here some pictures of the drummers. In the Osprey book for the year 1848-49 you have just plate A with 4 figures (1 Grenadier, 1 Infatrimen, 1 gunner of the Piedmontese Army and 1 of the National Guard of Milan that really did not partecipate to any battle;

 The books I just mentioned have 24 figures (!) plus several photos and drawing of original badges, colours weapons, investigating any detail as you will see.

Here I give you some examples just of the musics for the period 1848-1849. This will give you the idea of the difference:

So just for this period you have 6 figures for the musics. So to say: if you want to know about this Army, and you master somehow the language of Dante Alighieri these books are a must-to-be-bought. Great!

Finally, I come to my figures that I was able to reconstruct, going into the details of all the info I collected from the two books. This because some details of the musics remained the same since 1830.

1848 - Aosta Brigade. Drummer of the Grenadiers' Company

(Copyright Michele L. SAVASTA FIORE)

It is interesting now to enter the details of the above drummer. In particular drummers used the normal uniform of their companies (i.e. fusiliers, chasseurs or grenadiers), with all the distinctions in use since 1833 (hence I checked the first book). So they mainteined the "tamburine" the collars with white (or red for the Brigades La Regina and Casale) edges and the same to the hadguards (pattes de paramains) and "scaglioni" (reversed arrow) on the sleeves. 

1848 - Aosta Brigade. Caporal Drummer of the Fusiliers' Company

(Copyright Michele L. SAVASTA FIORE)

The Caporal-Drummers had the same uniforms as the drummers (they commanded the drummers of each company) but whit a green "nappina" i.e. tassel that was the colour of the Regimental Staff of every regiment. On the top of it they wore a dark green quilt,, with feathers falling down

1848 - Aosta Brigade. Drummer-Major of the Fusiliers' Company

(Copyright Michele L. SAVASTA FIORE)

To command all the drummers there was the Drummer-Major ("Tamburino Maggiore") that had the uniform of the musicant but of the colour of the troops. They wore the particular cap as in the picture with a red/white quilt. They had a baton to lead the drummers. 

There were 2 drummers per company and 1 caporal-drummer. So  a battalion had 8 drummers, 4 caporal-drummers and 1 Drummer-Major.