Hmmm
Never thought about that. I suppose it rather comes from the most vulnerable part of your body, your throat. Cut that and it is finito....
Most nations I believe (at least in Europe) went for that when dealing with capital punishment. But I agree there were plenty of other "popular" methods....
With regard to to Italian serial numbers, I am frightfully short of data, but the little I have at least seems to indicate that the Italians kept the already given numbers from their Allies. I find photos of various Nieuport in Italian service which lack Italian serials but have French SFA numbers on their fins. I thus have no information about re-serialled aircraft. It could of course boil down to far too little data...
So, forced to stick my neck out again, I would say the Farman seen here do have an Italian serial number (not an SFA number).
Cheers
Stig
PS. Having rambled the above, I immediately spotted a photo of a Nieuport 27 N7994 carrying an Italian serial Ni.19927, so I guess it is back to the drawing board again...