Saint-Bon and the Italian naval tradition

Simone Antonio Pacoret de Saint-Bon was a decorated officer, naval writer, minister, and institutional founder sometimes compared with Alfred Thayer Mahan. Born in March 1828, he died in Rome on 26 November 1892, making him a distinctly nineteenth-century naval figure. Saint-Bon used his writing to argue the political case for maintaining an Italian fleet, although the relevant work was unavailable for this account in either Italian or English. His central prescription was that Italy, unable to match larger powers ship for ship, should make each vessel conspicuous in combat power and presence. The episode traces that preference from the nineteenth-century Regia Marina into the design culture of the modern Italian Navy.