It may often be wondered where I obtain all the information that I publish on my blog concerning the Siege and Battle of Turin of 1706. Unlike the rest of Italy, Piedmont has a distinctly military tradition—indeed, it was once known as the “Prussia of Italy.” Until quite recently, and this was true in my own case as well, respectable families traditionally encouraged their sons to perform military service and, whenever possible, to become officers.
It is largely thanks to this deeply rooted tradition that the memory of those epic events of the spring and summer of 1706 has been preserved. Unfortunately, no commemorative works could be published in 1806, since Piedmont was then part of the French Empire. Nevertheless, many studies were written around 2006 to mark the three-hundredth anniversary of the battle, while a considerable number of works published for the bicentenary in 1906 can still be found today on second-hand bookstalls in Turin and the surrounding area.
Over time, almost without realising it, I found that I had become a compulsive collector of material on this subject. I have purchased virtually everything published in 2006 and continue to seek out as much material as possible from 1906—and, whenever possible, from even earlier periods.
In this post, I will begin by presenting some of the books in my collection. Later, however, I will be pleased to examine them individually and discuss their contents in greater detail. Naturally, I will be able to provide a more extensive treatment of the older works and reproduce more material from them, since they are no longer protected by copyright under Italian law. For the more recent publications, by contrast, I will necessarily have to limit myself to brief reviews. Here, then, is a quick overview of the books currently in my possession.
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