Carabinieri
Carabinieri is the collective name for an ancient Italian military corps with police functions.
The corps was created in by Victor Emanuel I, King of Sardinia, in the aim of providing the Piedmont with a police corps similar to French Gendarmerie. Police duties were then managed by the Dragoni di Sardegna corps, created in 1726 and composed of volunteers.
After the French soldiers had occupied Turin in the end of 18th century and later abandoned it to the Savoy family, the corps of Carabinieri Reali was instituted with the Regie Patenti (royal law) of July 13, 1814.
Both a military and a police corps, Carabinieri fought in every conflict in which Italy was involved, reporting losses and one of the brightest collection of medals of the world for their many heroic acts.
Carabinieri are particularly proud of the memory of brigadier Salvo D'Acquisto, who died in Palidoro, near Rome, in WWII, executed by Germans, having exchanged his life for the life of innocent citizens that were going to be executed as a retaliation for the murder of a German soldier. Brigadier D'Acquisto falsely claimed guilt, this way saving the innocent citizens, and was shot for the offense.
The history of Carabinieri is replete with other altruist examples, which earned them the deepest respect that an armed force can get during peacetime. The nickname of the corps is La Benemerita (the Meritorious).
They are organised in a territorially (which covers capillarily the national territory in its entirety) and in many specialised parties, some of which have international reputation, such as the Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Artistico (specialised in the protection of artworks and in the recovery of stolen pictures). Carabinieri's elite corps is GIS - Gruppi di Intervento Speciale, with the same duties and training as the more famous NOCS (of the State Police).
Carabinieri recently became an armed force (alongside the Army, Navy and Air Force), thus ending a glorious fame as the first corps (Arma) of the Army (Esercito). It is likely that Carabinieri will remain the Arma by antonomasia, unrivalled in the popular affection and in the national pride.
Carabinieri traditionally are a model of serious behaviour in Italian culture and are tributed a strict formal respect, even if in recent times they were made protagonists of jokes (in the role that blondes play in American jokes). The first time they appeared in a fictional context was in Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, not without a certain scandal.
Since the last century, many cinematographic works and even tv series have seen Carabinieri's presence, even acting as protagonists. The Racconti del Maresciallo, La Tenda Nera, Il Maresciallo Rocca and Carabinieri are some of the titles produced, mainly by RAI fiction division, in the last few years.
