With the intention of celebrating those who had taken part in the battles that had led to the constitution of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, Vittorio Emanuele II, with Royal Decree no.

The medal consists of a silver disc, with a diameter of 32 mm and a thickness of 1 mm, suspended from a ring, with on the obverse: on the reverse: The medal was to be worn hanging on the left side of the chest with a silk ribbon 33 mmi wide, bearing the Italian tricolor repeated six times (eighteen vertical red, white and green lines).

In addition, those who had taken part in the Sapri expedition of 1857 or in the agro-roman enterprise in 1867 could boast the new medal; the qualifications proving this participation had to be submitted to the examination of a special Commission, provided for by the founding measure and appointed in 1883[7].

The medal was to be distributed free of charge to the low-strength soldiers present in service in 1883, for the others instead the purchase price from the Royal Mint of Rome was 4.60 lira.

After the end of the First World War with the conquest of Trentino and Trieste, King Vittorio Emanuele III considered the reunification of the peninsula under the Kingdom of Italy complete and decided to "refound" the medal.

The authorization took the form of a sort of stamp, printed by casa Benvenuto Cellini (C B C), which was sent by the Ministry of War and which, to be valid, had to be "(...) applied on the patent of the medal of the 1915–1918 campaign'.

(10] Other companies, such as Stefano Johnson, produced the medals in numerous variations in size (31, 32 or 33 mm), in the design of the king's head, laurel branches, wording and acronyms.