Once completed the entire course of studies with specialized institutes for the training of officers, from the rank of cadet to graduate school, it was considered appropriate to combine the different entities in a single entity. In September 1774, it was therefore decided to delete the Royal Academy, making its students merge with the Battaglione Real Ferdinando ones. The new institution that was so originated was called Reale Accademia del Battaglione Real Ferdinando (Royal Academy of the King Ferdinand Battalion), who from the original 270 cadets split into three companies, grew to 810, divided into nine companies. The students of the new Academy were distributed among the Palace of Panatica, where younger cadets were housed, and the aforementioned convents of the Croce and the Trinità di Palazzo, who housed all the others. Even the study programs were diversified in order to take account of differences in age and preparation, and for the first time the humanities were introduced for the younger cadets. The final exam was intended to verify that the aspirants to the rank of officer possessed "the extension of the theories of all the sciences that are necessary to know to comprehend the reason for what we do in the job for which you compete and theories of the same profession, the frankness of the intellectual faculties, which are well known for precise conduct cases in the data, and finally the degree of invention than is necessary to be able to find in the trade ". The new institution quickly proved a valuable source of officers, prompting a growingly public appreciation by the king. However, in April 1755 the General Pignatelli was obliged to inform the king, with a wealth of evidence, the existence of a Masonic lodge among the students: this discovery was a source of deep conflict between Ferdinand IV and his wife Maria Carolina of Habsburg Alsace-Lorraine, which was notoriously protective of the Masonic movement in Naples. Consistent with the seriousness of the facts, serious measures were taken against those who were involved.