The highest rank in the Italian military, it was only granted to King Victor Emmanuel III and Duce Benito Mussolini.

This gave Mussolini a mortgage on the high command of the Italian military, a power of the King under the provisions of the Albertine Statute.

The King considered vetoing the law that created such rank and requested to be advised by Professor Santi Romano, President of the Council of State, who analyzed the law and found it to comply with the Statute; Victor Emmanuel vehemently protested against Romano's opinion, calling him "a pusillanimous opportunist whose job is to find arguments to justify the most absurd theses",[1] but eventually signed the law and had it promulgated on the Gazzetta Ufficiale.

[2] The title became obsolete with the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943 and was implicitely abrogated by the subsequent abolition of the monarchy in 1946 and the entry into force of the Italian Constitution in 1948.

The law establishing it was formally abolished on 22 December 2008 by the Fourth Berlusconi Cabinet.