Institutional History of the Cisalpine and Italian Technical Corps

This chapter concentrates on the institutional history of the Italian technical corps. Though modelled on the French counterparts, they had features of their own. As in France, the Italian topographer corps were acknowledged belatedly. In general, one can trace three phases: a phase of internationalization, in which the administrative pattern was a confused one, and there was a major intake of officers not hailing from the Cisalpine or Italian Republics; an intermediate phase lasting between 1802–1803 and 1805–1806; and, finally, a nationalization phase in which the French model was consolidated though the policy went ahead of nationalizing cadres more and more.