Risorgimento Uniform Guides

Obscure projects can lead to challenges in painting and fielding combatants.  Such is the situation with the 1859 Risorgimento / Second Italian War of Independence / Franco-Austrian War (or whatever you might call it) conflict.

While Osprey Publishing provides a handful of useful booklets for the Austrians and French, information on the Sardinian Army is difficult to obtain.  A number of resources are available on the Internet (I must have several score of images captured from the web) but uniform booklets are much more rare.  That is, until recently.

Soldiershop Publishing in Italy has produced two very useful books for the Sardinian forces present in this war.  In 2012, Soldiershop published Volume 14 in their Soldiers & Weapons series focusing on the foot forces.  Melani and Ricciardi's book is 159 pages packed with useful information.  Included are unit organizations, uniform plates, tables of unit regimental facing colors, and more.  Comprehensive.  The uniform plates are brilliantly executed in color including equipment, rank distinctions, saddle clothes, and armaments.  The downside for native English readers is that the text is in Italian.  Photo and illustration captions are bilingual in both Italian and English.    

When I first saw Volume 014, I wondered if the concentration on infantry and artillery suggested that a separate book covering the cavalry might be forthcoming.   That was indeed the case as a second volume highlighting the cavalry arm was recently published.  Volume #2 has been added to my Wish List while I wait for my favorite international book vendor to get the book in stock.

In addition to the resources shown above, Historica publishes a one volume book on the Austrian army for the 1859 conflict.  Like the Soldiershop series, this book is similar to Osprey in size and scope.  At 88 pages, it carries a little more heft than an Osprey and contains similar content.  As similar to the Soldiershop series, L'esercito Austriaco ne 1859 is printed in Italian.  Fortunately, all captions, illustrations, and uniform plates have English descriptions.  In the back of the book are English translations of the Italian text.  Another very useful resource for studying the 1859 conflict.

Of course, no mention of Sardinian forces during this conflict can be complete without mentioning my long time reference.  That reference is Campaign Booklet #8 of Casali's The Second Italian War of Independence 1859 published (at the time) by Freikorps 15s.
In Casali is a brief history of the campaign,unit organization, painting guides for each of the major combatants, and orders of battle.  Great little resource!

My well worn copy of Casali