Le navi di linea italiane-Volume I (1861 - 1875) by F.Gay

[Stefano Salesi]

Published by the Ufficio Storico Della Marina Militare (USMM), this volume is the remake of the historical volume by F. Bargoni, long gone from the bookshop shelves.
The author Admiral Franco Gay is an autority concerning italian ships.

The book covers the "ships of the line" of early Royal Italian Navy in all of theyr aspects: planning, building, technical charateristics and operational History. every chapter is dedicated to a class and contains about all the iconographic materials available.
The choiche to insert all of the documentation available led to some really comprehensive chapter and some really "poor", becouse no informations are available at the moment in archives.

The first part of the book covers the evolution of Ships of the line in other navies, with attention to most aspects of ship evolution, like machinery, armament, protection and so on.
The second part is the analysis of the classes of ships, which are in order of index:

Re Galantuomo (Vascello a elica di 3� ordine, screw ship of the line, third rank)
Formidabile Class (corvetta corazzata, armoured corvette)
Re d'Italia Class (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Regina Maria Pia Class (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Principe di Carignano Class (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Conte Verde (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Affondatore (ariete corazzato a torri, armoured turret ram)
Palestro Class (cannoniere corazzate a eliche, screw armoured gunship)
Roma (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Venezia (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)
Principe Amedeo Class (fregata corazzata ad elica, ironclad)

every class has at least one big, beautiful foldable coloured profile and where possibile even original parts of the construction plans.
For the modeler intrested in this kind of ship that served in Royal Italian Navy this book is the bible.
Language is italian only, so a dictionary o nautical terms and an italian-english (or whatever is your language) dictionary is necessary.
The book is elegant, the hardcover is in blue canvas with gold lettering and the format is around 25X28.5 cm, 378 pages, 122 b/w pictures, 24 colour, 13 foldable drawings with plan and profiles, 100+ drawings and schemes.

price in italy is 50 euros. not bas considering the high quality of printing, paper and contents.
heartly recomended.

[wefalck]

Any one with a recommendation for a bookshop in the Verona or Bergamo area ? The Navy's Web-site doesn't list any suitable shop. I'll be in that region later in spring and would love to buy this volume and perhaps the new edition of the one on the 'torpediniere' to complement the one I already have.

wefalck

[Stefano Salesi]

Wefalk, you can easily order the book from "tuttostoria"

http://tuttostoria.it/Apps/WebObjects/T ... 8&lang=ita

the navy site actually lists only conventioned bookshops, but don't mention the onlyne conventioned bookshops!

(they have even the torpediniere book, but the cost is killing me....
http://tuttostoria.it/ita/il-catalogo/ ... -1875-1917 )

[wefalck]

I know, they cost quite a lot, but they are nice books, the new editions. I bought the 'Navi Miste' shortly after it was published. The old editions, of which I have several volumes, are very informative, but by modern editorial standards, let's say, rather 'utilitarian'.

The new edition of the 'Torpediniere' has a lot more pages than the old one, but does it have really more information ? Any views on that ? Or would I pay �95 just to have nicer cover and colour illustrations ? I am particularly interested in the time up to say 1900.

Auguri,

wefalck

[Stefano Salesi]

never seen the torpediniere volume, both in old or new edition, so I can't help.