claudio2574

Jonas, I have done some researches in Italian archives, and still do. However, in this case probably the official acts and the newspapers which are available online can help. I will try later with "La Stampa", the most important newspaper from Turin, which has online its full pages. Giolitti was a very important politician for Italian history. Many cities in Italy have monument and roads with his name.

Thru an Italian forum, I got the personal history of Emilio Marchiafava. In January 1911 he was transferred back to Cavalry. In the years 1909 and 1910 he was in the Guards of the King. This give more strength to Jonas's idea that this order was awarded during a State visit.

Thanks again Jonas

Thanks Jonas! Sorry for my mistake at the very beginning, thinking this was a Seraphim order.

That was not the case in Italy. Even if the king was of course the head of all the Orders (SS.Annunziata, the topmost, S.Maurizio e Lazzaro, Corona d'Italia, Militare di Savoia, Civile di Savoia, Merito coloniale, etc.) every award had the reference to the specific order being given to the recipient. I guess that there is no way to know why Marchiafava received this order. Another question is about the insigna. I've seen it in some auctions, but I haven't any expertise about them. This is an example: Where can I find infos about them?

I wonder the same... and I wonder also why the order of Sward is written by hand in a document referring to a much higher order. Is this normal?

Here is a wide picture. Actually the hand written words seem to refer to the Sward order, but the topmost picture and the beatiful wide paper seal say "Seraphim". Inside there is a second paper with the restitution rules (Swedish, French, German):

Hello everybody. I've just bought this diploma: It is a Swedish Order of Seraphim awarded in 1911 to an Officer of Italian Royal Army, whose name was Emilio Marchiafava. In the Official Gazette of January 1925 I find a Lieutenant Colonel with the same name, receiving the Order of St. Maurice and Lazarus (knight). Since the surname Marchiafava is not so common, I can imagine that he was the same officer. I would like to know for what reason he did receive the Order of Seraphim, if there is any official list for it. I know very a few about the order. Just reading Wiki, I've learnt that it is very important and that the coat of arms should have returned to Sweden. Is that true? Any info will be appreciated. Thanks

This is the Sachsen Hochwasser 2002, given to an Italian. I know him personally.

This is the law for the 1903 medal

Another medal to the merit, from Umberto I era. It has the number 974 in the Von Heyden catalog. Small size, silver, it is almost identical to the Vittorio Emanuele II medal already posted here.

Now the second medal for China campaigns: this one was created in 1903 for the military in service in China after 31 dec 1901 and later extended to military in service in Seoul 1904 during the Russian-Japanese war. It was not allowed to get both. This medal was made in bronze from the Royal Mint only, it was designed from Speranza, and according to Brambilla it was awarded to 736 people only, being much scarcer than the 1900-1901 one.

Andreas, that could be a good explanation. I'm planning a visit to the Historical Archive of the Italian Army in the near future for some researches; I will ask for this topic too. Regards Claudio

Andreas, this is the page from Brambilla's book (volume 2) about the 1900-1901 medal. Here I got the number 2325.

Third medal, 1910 again: commemorative medal. Given to anybody who was present at the event, it had for a short time a strange ribbon (33mm dark blue with a white line in the middle), but quite soon it had the "usual" 36mm white-green-white-green-white ribbon. Silver only, made from the Royal mint and other producers. Far more common than the first. Whoever received the merit medal could also receive the commemorative medal. Here is the official medal and its diploma: For some strange reason, the order of the medals in the medal bar is the opposite than expected: first the commemorative, then the merit. Nobody knows why...

In the same year (1910) a second medal was created for the organisations who gave help. This medal also was in gold, silver and bronze. It is larger than the previous one (40mm instead of 35mm) and is REALLY scarce; same ribbon than the first. Here is a bronze one from the Royal mint (as far as I know there were no private productions of it): I suppose that there were some sort of diplomas also, but I've never seen them.

May be there is something more to say about these medals. There are THREE medals: - merit medal for individuals - merit medal for organisations - commemorative medal The merit medal for individuals was given to any people who actually had great merit during the disaster. There were four degrees: - gold - silver - bronze - mention of merit (no medal). The full list of the people is included in the text of the law (see it here http://www.faleristica.it/gallery/RG1910_06_05_131_PM.pdf). More or less there were some 8800 names, having about 1% gold, 3% silver, 16% bronze and all the others a simple mention. This is only a statistical evaluation based on some pages of the document. The medal was 35 mm diameter, made by the Royal mint and other private producers. Here is the medal (private production, silver) and the diploma:

According to the 1901 law, this medal was awarded to all people who were involved in the Tien-Tsin facts. 2325 medals were assigned. Later (1903) a quite similar medal was created for the people being in China after 31 dec 1901 and in Seoul (during the Russian-Japanes war). This second medal is scarcer than the first (736 items). In 1908 a silver bar with CINA 1900-1901 was created to recognize the two medals which have the same front and the same ribbon. The Royal mint made only bronze medals. There are some private models (Johnson anf others) made of bronze or silvered metal.

Hello again, this time I wish to introduce another French medallion, of the same type of the pair Vittorio Emanuele II / Napoleon III. This one celebrates the passage of Nice and Savoia counties from the kingdom of Sardinia to the France, March 1860. It was somehow the price for the Italy to pay the help from France. Many people disagreed with it, for example Garibaldi, who was born in Nice. As a paradox, the King of Italy had his own family coming from Savoy, no longer in his domain.

An interesting book (Braglia - In esilio con il Duca - Il Cerchio - Rimini 2007) writes the history of the Estense Brigade: the story from the point of view of the loosers, with some facts that could be easily moved to the today's fact. It shows also an image of the ceremony held in Cartigliano veneto on 29th Sept 1863.

No more pictures in the document. However, if you have a loooooong time to waste, you can download the pdf document from http://www.faleristica.it/room/omsml.pdf

... Jean-Michel could you give me some suggestion for a SECOND purchase? I bought my ones in ebay, may be there are others also over there, but what could be the keywords? Or could you name other (web) places to dig in?

I totally agree with Elmar Lang. As far as I know, however, Mr Brambilla does not have a web site. May be I can introduce also Mr. Marco Ghedini from Bologna. He sells sometimes via ebay, but his best items never appear on ebay. In the exhibition in Rome, once a year, Brambilla and Ghedini are often one in front of the other...

Actually it is not "javascript" itself to give the problem. The fault is in the differences between the browsers, specially IE with all its versions (8 does some things, 9 others, 10 is similar but not equal to 8). Wish all be compliant with the same specs! Lot of time waste to check the compatibility. Anyway, this is the cyberworld we are living in.

Ach! Damned Internet explorer which is not compatible with itself! It ran flawlessly with Firefox and Chrome, but it was not enough. Corrected and thank you for the warning.