THE SPANISH CAVALRY REGIMENTS IN ITALY 1701 - 1707

 I admit — with a certain amount of embarrassment — that I had doubts about whether to publish this chart or not. The reason is simple: this is the very first chart ever produced showing the uniforms — extraordinarily colourful ones — of Philip V of Spain’s army operating in Italy. I began researching some of these regiments for pleasure, others out of curiosity, and in the end, step by step, I found myself with the entire chart completed.

For those who value precision, investigation, and the opening of new avenues of research, this is a real gem.

Then I reflected on it. And I said to myself: I know this is only a drop in the ocean compared with the world’s problems, and that it will be of interest to barely 0.01% of the global population, who have lived through this uniformological gap for 300 years without giving it a thought. Even so, I would like some trace of this work to remain, so that if anything should happen to me, someone might still benefit from it.

Too decadent? Perhaps.

Copyright Michele Savasta Fiore

In any case, this is my work, and I am very pleased to share it.

I will not explain here how I arrived at the reconstruction of each individual uniform, where the various pieces of information came from, or the exact formation and evolution of every regiment. Partly because doing so would require an enormous amount of additional work, and partly because I would prefer to reserve that material for a future booklet devoted specifically to the subject.

That booklet would also include an appendix on the Italian regiments that served in Flanders.

I must also confess that this is an army that has always fascinated me in particular, and one that has remained somewhat overshadowed in the history of the War of the Spanish Succession by its powerful French ally.

Back in 2020, during the height of the lockdown, I had already prepared the Spanish Dragoon regiments for Kronoskaf. And the spirit of Kronoskaf — where culture and the sharing of knowledge come before everything else — still remains, for me, the guiding principle behind making these researches available to the small number of people who love History in all its details.

From now on, I will try to remain focused on my existing projects. But for me, research of this kind has a very particular attraction: every regiment that still has to be investigated becomes a personal challenge to be solved.

The judgement, as always, is yours.