Italian Presidential Guards: Flaunt It If You Got It

“The President is coming!”

“Oh. How interesting.”

To be fair, I was clearly told that the President was coming to the conference.  I assumed this meant the president of the university, or the president of some large company.

I finally understood that my colleagues were trying to tell me the President of Italy was coming when these dudes showed up:

This is not my photo, because I had NO IDEA that there was going to be a soldier fashion show at an economics conference.

“What the.. what?  Who are those guys? What are those helmets? Why do they have swords?”

“Ah, those are the corazzieri, the official guards of the President” my Italian friend told me. “They are very tall.”

Giorgio Napolitino, the President of the Italian Republic, can only be protected by soldiers who meet a certain height requirement.  Those under 190 cm need not apply for the horse hair helmet.

“It is a rule you must be tall,” my colleague emphasized.

“Huh. We just have the Secret Service in my country.”

4 thoughts on “Italian Presidential Guards: Flaunt It If You Got It

  1. jann says:

    I went into the President’s Quirinale Palace once (it’s open to the public some Sundays–not sure of the schedule) and I was blown away by these giants. Who knew they grew Italians that tall?

  2. Sara says:

    I had lived here for almost 5 year before I realized that Italy had a president AND a prime minister! Who knew? Love your sense of humor, I am also a transplanted Californian living in Florence. I am going to ad you to my blog roll. Ciao-Sara

  3. Monica says:

    How can I reach the members of the carabinieri? Email possibly? I’m just looking to send email or something of the like to ask some follow-up questions about the formation & the training of the Carrabinarri Group. Thank You in advance for your time & attention. Monica Rome

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.