Why Did Italian Sword Makers Die Out?

[Philip]

Originally Posted by MForde

Thank you, gentlemen. It's certainly true that Italy was a patchwork in the 1800s and many states lacked significant funds to dedicate to establishing industrialised weapons production.

Philip, thank you for writing such a comprehensive answer. I suppose importing Solingen-made blades was more cost-effective than actually setting up proper centres of production, natively. However, many 'Italian' government-issued, German-made blades of the 1800s were married to their hilts and stamped by inspectors in 'Italian' factories so there were clearly large-scale official processes underway throughout the Peninsula. I also suspect that these hilts were made locally - and made to high enough standards. Those wholesale German prices must have been rather good.

Another thing that has always puzzled me is why the Sardinians adopted so many French models in the late-1700s and early-1800s, especially considering the great hatred for Napoleon amongst the upper echelons. Sure, France is close but Spain isn't too far away, either.

You hit the nail on the head. A bunch of small producers with pre-mechanized technology couldn't compete with a modern factory when it came to pricing. Recall that the steam driven textile factories in England exported so much cheap and uniform-quality cloth to India that it drove a lot of cottage-industry weavers out of business during the Raj. Which is why Mahatma Gandhi used home looms as such a potent symbol of India's return to economic self-sufficiency under the independence he envisioned. (We also see English corduroy covering the scabbards of Tibetan knives and swords, goes to show you the reach of such manufacture!) Metal and ceramic crafts in China also suffered with the import of cheaper factory made Western goods beginning at the close of the 19th cent. -- the flip side of today's situation.

You can imagine that military purchasers of the time would be thinking along similar economic lines. If Solingen came in cheaper than Milan, why not go easy on the budget and buy accordingly? Italy as a whole did not have the wealth that, say, France commanded at the time of is unification.

Regarding the Sardinians, maybe they liked the Spanish even less. Spain ruled the island, as they did Sicily and the southern half of Italy for centuries. As in Mexico and the Philippines, the Spanish rulers milked their territories and responded brutally to any sign of resistance. Poverty and corruption were the general legacy in these lands.

Pragmatism often wins out when it comes to things like buying arms. During the period you mention, France was a leader in arms design and either supplied or influenced native design in many areas. The Russians hated Napoleon for good reason yet the regulation pattern swords and muskets of the Czar's troops of the era are unmistakably French in design. American relations with France were far more cordial so many of the first standard-issue US military arms, including swords, look very Frenchified. even up to the Civil War. (some of the earliest tooling supplied to US military arsenals was imported from France, and believe it or not the screw threads were in metric pitch). Look at the regulation sabers of some Latin American countries -- hilts, again very French looking although the weapons themselves may have been made in Germany. In Europe, the German kingdom of Bavaria, the Italian state of Piemonte, and other areas all used military weapons of heavily French design.