In 2007, Vittorio Emanuele and his son Emanuele Filiberto requested formally that the state pay financial damages of 260 million euros and initiate full restitution of all properties and belongings that had been confiscated from the royal house after the abolition of the monarchy. The financial damages claim is based on having suffered moral injustice during the exile. The Italian government has rejected the request and, in response, indicated that it may seek damages for historic grievances.


Vittorio Emanuele's patriline is the line from which he is descended father to son.


Patrilineal descent is the principle behind membership in royal houses, as it can be traced back through the generations, which means that Vittorio Emanuele is a member of the House of Savoy.


Charles Emmanuel IV (Carlo Emanuele Ferdinando Maria; 24 May 1751 – 6 October 1819) was King of Sardinia from 1796 to 1802. He abdicated in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel I.


Carlo Emanuele Ferdinando Maria di Savoia was born in Turin, the eldest son of Victor Amadeus III, King of Sardinia and of his wife Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain.


From his birth to his own succession to the throne of Sardinia in 1796, Charles Emmanuel was styled "Prince of Piedmont".


In 1775, Charles Emmanuel married Marie Clotilde of France, the daughter of Louis, Dauphin of France and Princess Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, and sister of King Louis XVI of France. Although the union was arranged for political reasons, Charles Emmanuel and his wife became devoted to each other. Their attempts to have children, however, were unsuccessful.


At the death of his father (14 October 1796), Charles Emmanuel succeeded as King of Sardinia. The kingdom included not only the island of Sardinia but also significant territories in northwest Italy including all of Piedmont.


At his succession to the throne in 1796, Sardinia had been forced to conclude the disadvantageous Treaty of Paris (1796) with the French Republic, giving the French army free passage through Piedmont. On December 6, 1798, the French under Joubert occupied Turin and forced Charles Emanuel to abdicate all his territories on the Italian mainland and to withdraw to the island of Sardinia, which stayed out of the reach of the French army. The following year he tried unsuccessfully to regain Piedmont. He and his wife lived in Rome and in Naples as guests of the wealthy Colonna family.


On 7 March 1802, Charles Emmanuel's wife Marie Clothilde died. He was so moved by her death that he decided to abdicate, June 4, 1802, in favour of his brother Victor Emmanuel. Charles Emmanuel retained the personal title of King. He lived in Rome and in the nearby town of Frascati.


In Frascati he was a frequent guest of Henry Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York, last member of the Royal House of Stuart, who was his cousin. Charles was descended from Henrietta Anne Stuart, the youngest daughter of Charles I, whereas Henry Benedict Stuart was descended from James II who was the second son of Charles I.


When Henry died in 1807, Charles Emmanuel became the senior heir-general of King Charles I of England and Scotland.


Indeed, in 1815 at the age of sixty-four Charles Emmanuel took simple vows in the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He was never ordained to the priesthood but lived the rest of his life at the Jesuit novitiate in Rome.


Charles Emmanuel died at the Palazzo Colonna in Rome on 6 October 1819. He is buried in the Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale.


Emanuel Filibert of Savoy (16 April 1588 – 4 August 1624) was the third son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and was Viceroy of Sicily between 1622 and 1624.


Born in Turin, Emanuel Filibert of Savoy was the third son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain.


He was destined for a career in the Church and entered at the age of 12 in the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, but later he pursued a military career. In 1603 he and his elder brothers, Philip Emanuel and Victor Amadeus, traveled to Madrid, to complete their education. After the death of Philip Emanuel, they returned to Savoy in 1606, where the second brother Victor Amadeus became hereditary prince.


In 1610, Emanuel Filibert returned to Madrid, and entered in the service of King Philip III of Spain, who made him Grand Admiral of Spain. Under the next King Philip IV of Spain, Emanuel Filibert was appointed in 1622 viceroy of Sicily. His reign came to an end when he died at the age of 36 in the Plague epidemic of 1624. He was buried in the crypt of the lower church of the palatine chapel of the Norman Palace in Palermo.


Anthony van Dyck made a painting of him in 1623, after being invited by the Viceroy to Palermo. The painting is now conserved in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.


Charles Emmanuel II (); 20 June 1634 – 12 June 1675) was the Duke of Savoy from 1638 to 1675 and under regency of his mother Christine of France until 1648. He was also Marquis of Saluzzo, Count of Aosta, Geneva, Moriana and Nice, as well as claimant king of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia. At his death in 1675 his second wife Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours acted as Regent for their nine-year-old son.


He was born in Turin to Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, and Christine of France. His maternal grandparents were Henry IV of France and his second wife Marie de' Medici. In 1638 at the death of his older brother Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel succeeded to the duchy of Savoy at the age of 4. His mother governed in his place, and even after reaching adulthood in 1648, he invited her to continue to rule. Charles Emmanuel continued a life of pleasure, far away from the affairs of state.


Only after the death of his mother in 1663, did he really assume power. He was not successful in gaining a passage to the sea at the expense of Genoa (Second Genoese–Savoyard War, 1672–1673), and had difficulties in retaining the influence of his powerful neighbour France.


But he greatly improved commerce and wealth in the Duchy, developing the port of Nice and building a road through the Alps towards France. He also reformed the army, which until then was mostly composed of mercenaries: he formed instead five Piedmontese regiments and recreated cavalry, as well as introducing uniforms. He also restored fortifications. He constructed many beautiful buildings in Turin, for instance the Palazzo Reale.


He died on 12 June 1675, leaving his second wife as regent for his son. He is buried at Turin Cathedral.


Charles Emmanuel first met Marie Jeanne of Savoy in 1659 and fell in love with her. However, his mother disagreed with the pairing, and encouraged him to marry Françoise Madeleine d'Orléans, daughter of his maternal uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the younger brother of his mother Christine Marie. They were married 3 April 1663. The couple had no issue. His mother died at the end of 1663, and his first wife died at the start of 1664. This left him free to get married on 20 May 1665 to Marie Jeanne of Savoy. They had one son:


Charles Emmanuel II also recognized five of his illegitimate children by three different mistresses.


Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy-Aosta, Infante of Spain, Count of Turin (24 November 1870 – 10 October 1946) was a grandchild of King Victor Emmanuel II and a member of the House of Savoy. He was a cousin of Victor Emmanuel III.


Vittorio Emanuele was born in Turin just before his father Prince Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta was about to leave for Spain where he had been elected king. His mother was Maria Vittoria del Pozzo della Cisterna. With his father's accession to the Spanish throne he gained the additional title Infante of Spain.


In 1897 Vittorio Emanuele challenged Prince Henri of Orléans to a duel, after Henri described, in several articles in the newspaper "Le Figaro", the Italian soldiers being held captive in Ethiopia during the First Italo–Ethiopian War as cowards. The dispute was widely echoed in Italy and Europe. It was agreed on the use of the sword as weapon of choice, as the Italians thought duels with pistols, favored by the French, were worthy of betrayed husbands, not of princes of royal blood.


The duel with swords, directed by the Count Leontieff and the Count Avogadro, lasting 26 minutes, took place at 5:00 am on 15 August 1897 in the Bois de Marechaux at Vaucresson, France. Vittorio Emanuele defeated Henri after five reprises. Henri received a serious wound to his right abdomen, and the doctors of both parties considered the injury serious enough to put him in a state of obvious inferiority, causing the end of the duel and making Vittorio Emanuele famous in Europe.


The public response for Vittorio Emanuele in Italy was triumphant. In Turin King Umberto I welcomed him saying, "I want to be the first to congratulate you with all my heart on the example you set and the success you scored".


In April 1898 Vittorio Emanuele set out on a tour of world. His first stop was New York City in the United States of America. After spending a day at the Newport Country Club he presented the club with a silver cup which is presented to the winner of the annual Count of Turin golf tournament. After his stay in the United States he visited China and Japan on the next leg of his world tour.


Vittorio Emanuele pursued a career in the Royal Italian Army and became the Commander in Chief of the Italian Cavalry. He held this position during the First World War. Following the armistice he was awarded the Croix de guerre by France.


Vittorio Emanuele died in Brussels four months after the proclamation of the Italian Republic. He was the last surviving son of Amedeo I.


Prince Eugenio of Savoy, 5th Duke of Genoa (Eugenio Alfonso Carlo Maria Giuseppe; 13 March 1906 – 8 December 1996) was a member of the House of Savoy, Duke of Ancona from birth, and the 5th and final Duke of Genoa. Prince Eugenio was the sixth and youngest child of Prince Thomas of Savoy, 2nd Duke of Genoa and his wife Princess Isabella of Bavaria.


Prince Eugenio married Princess Lucia of the Two Sicilies, fifth child and fourth-eldest daughter of Prince Ferdinand Pius of the Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria and his wife Princess Maria Ludwiga Theresia of Bavaria, on 29 October 1938 at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, Germany. The bride and groom were second cousins once removed in descent from King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Prince Eugenio and Princess Lucia had one daughter:


After the dissolution of the Kingdom of Italy in 1946, Prince Eugenio and his family relocated to Brazil where the Duke ran a farm. Upon his death on 8 December 1996, the male line of the Genoa branch of the House of Savoy became extinct as did the Royal Dukedom of Genoa. In 2006, the ashes of the Duke and Duchess of Genoa were transferred to the Royal Crypt of Superga near Turin.


Victor Emmanuel II (; full name: "Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso di Savoia"; 14 March 1820 – 9 January 1878) was King of Sardinia from 1849 until 17 March 1861, when he assumed the title of King of Italy and became the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878. Borrowing from the old Latin title "Pater Patriae" of the Roman emperors, the Italians gave him the epithet of "Father of the Fatherland" ().


Victor Emmanuel supported the Expedition of the Thousand (1860–1861) led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, which resulted in the rapid fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in southern Italy. However, Victor Emmanuel halted Garibaldi when he appeared ready to attack Rome, still under the Papal States, as it was under French protection. In 1860, Tuscany, Modena, Parma and Romagna decided to side with Sardinia-Piedmont, and Victor Emmanuel then marched victoriously in the Marche and Umbria after the victorious battle of Castelfidardo over the Papal forces. He subsequently met Garibaldi at Teano, receiving from him the control of southern Italy and becoming the first King of Italy on 17 March 1861.


In 1866, the Third Italian War of Independence allowed Italy to annex Veneto. In 1870, Victor Emmanuel also took advantage of the Prussian victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War to conquer the Papal States after the French withdrew. He entered Rome on 20 September 1870 and set up the new capital there on 2 July 1871. He died in Rome in 1878, and was buried in the Pantheon.


The Italian national Victor Emmanuel II monument in Rome, containing the Altare della Patria, was built in his honor.


Victor Emmanuel was born as the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. His father succeeded a distant cousin as King of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1831. He lived for some years of his youth in Florence and showed an early interest in politics, the military, and sports. In 1842, he married his cousin, Adelaide of Austria. He was styled as the "Duke of Savoy" prior to becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont.


He took part in the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849) under his father, King Charles Albert, fighting in the front line at the battles of Pastrengo, Santa Lucia, Goito and Custoza.


He became King of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1849 when his father abdicated the throne, after being defeated by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara. Victor Emmanuel was immediately able to obtain a rather favorable armistice at Vignale by the Austrian imperial army commander, Radetzky. The treaty, however, was not ratified by the Piedmontese lower parliamentary house, the Chamber of Deputies, and Victor Emmanuel retaliated by firing his Prime Minister, Claudio Gabriele de Launay, replacing him with Massimo D'Azeglio. After new elections, the peace with Austria was accepted by the new Chamber of Deputies. In 1849, Victor Emmanuel also fiercely suppressed a revolt in Genoa, defining the rebels as a "vile and infected race of canailles."


In 1852, he appointed Count Camillo Benso of Cavour ("Count Cavour") as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia. This turned out to be a wise choice, since Cavour was a political mastermind and a major player in the Italian unification in his own right. Victor Emmanuel II soon became the symbol of the "Risorgimento", the Italian unification movement of the 1850s and early 60s. He was especially popular in the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont because of his respect for the new constitution and his liberal reforms.


Following Victor Emmanuel's advice, Cavour joined Britain and France in the Crimean War against Russia. Cavour was reluctant to go to war due to the power of Russia at the time and the expense of doing so. Victor Emmanuel, however, was convinced of the rewards to be gained from the alliance created with Britain and, more importantly, France.


After successfully seeking British support and ingratiating himself with France and Napoleon III at the Congress of Paris in 1856 at the end of the war, Count Cavour arranged a secret meeting with the French emperor. In 1858, they met at Plombières-les-Bains (in Lorraine), where they agreed that if the French were to help Piedmont combat Austria, which still reigned over the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia in northern Italy, France would be awarded Nice and Savoy.


Later that same year, Victor Emmanuel II sent his forces to fight the papal army at Castelfidardo and drove the Pope into Vatican City. His success at these goals led him to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Then, Giuseppe Garibaldi conquered Sicily and Naples, and Sardinia-Piedmont grew even larger. On 17 March 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was officially established and Victor Emmanuel II became its king.


Victor Emmanuel supported Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand (1860–1861), which resulted in the rapid fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in southern Italy. However, the king halted Garibaldi when he appeared ready to attack Rome, still under the Papal States, as it was under French protection. In 1860, through local plebiscites, Tuscany, Modena, Parma and Romagna decided to side with Sardinia-Piedmont. Victor Emmanuel then marched victoriously in the Marche and Umbria after the victorious battle of Castelfidardo (1860) over the Papal forces.


The king subsequently met with Garibaldi at Teano, receiving from him the control of southern Italy. Another series of plebiscites in the occupied lands resulted in the proclamation of Victor Emmanuel as the first King of Italy by the new Parliament of unified Italy, on 17 March 1861. He did not renumber himself after assuming the new royal title, however. Turin became the capital of the new state. Only Rome, Veneto, and Trentino remained to be conquered.


Victor Emmanuel died in Rome in 1878, after meeting with Pope Pius IX's envoys, who had reversed the excommunication, and received last rites. He was buried in the Pantheon. His successor was his son Umberto I.


In 1842 he married his first cousin once removed Adelaide of Austria (1822–1855). By her he had eight children:


In 1869 he married morganatically his principal mistress Rosa Vercellana (3 June 1833 – 26 December 1885). Popularly known in Piedmontese as "Bela Rosin", she was born a commoner but made Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda in 1858. Their offspring were:


In addition to his morganatic second wife, Victor Emmanuel II had several other mistresses:


—Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, who, as the mistress of Napoleon III, pleaded the case for Italian unification.


—Laura Bon at Stupinigi, who bore him two children:


—Virginia Rho at Turin, mother of two children:


Charles Albert (; 2 October 1798 – 28 July 1849) was the King of Sardinia from 27 April 1831 until 23 March 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constitution, the Albertine Statute, and with the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849).


During the Napoleonic period, he resided in France, where he received a liberal education. As Prince of Carignano in 1821, he granted and then withdrew his support for a rebellion which sought to force Victor Emmanuel I to institute a constitutional monarchy. He became a conservative and participated in the legitimist expedition against the Spanish liberals in 1823.


He became king of Sardinia in 1831 on the death of his distant cousin Charles Felix, who had no heir. As king, after an initial conservative period during which he supported various European legitimist movements, he adopted the idea of a federal Italy, led by the Pope and freed from the House of Habsburg in 1848. In the same year he granted the Albertine Statute, the first Italian constitution, which remained in force until 1947.


Charles Albert led his forces against the Imperial Austrian army in the First Italian War of Independence (1848–1849), but was abandoned by Pope Pius IX and Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and was defeated in 1849 at the Battle of Novara, after which he abdicated in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Charles Albert died in exile a few months later in the Portuguese city of Porto.


The attempt to free northern Italy from Austria represents the first attempt of the House of Savoy to alter the equilibrium established in the Italian peninsula after the Congress of Vienna. These efforts were continued successfully by his son Victor Emmanuel II, who became the first king of a unified Italy in 1861.


Charles Albert received a number of nicknames, including "the Italian Hamlet" (given to him by Giosuè Carducci on account of his gloomy, hesitant and enigmatic character) and "the Hesitant King" ("Re Tentenna") because he hesitated for a long time between the establishment of a constitutional monarchy and the reinforcement of absolute rule.


Charles Albert's father, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano, had studied in France and had been an officer in the French army. Sympathetic to liberalism, he travelled to Turin in 1796, in the wake of the French invasion of 1796 and King Charles Emmanuel IV's flight into exile. There Charles Emmanuel of Carignano and his wife joined the French cause. Despite this, the pair were sent to Paris, where they were placed under surveillance and forced to live in poor conditions in a house in the suburbs. These were the circumstances in which their children, Charles Albert and his sister Maria Elisabeth (born 13 April 1800), grew up.


On 16 August 1800, Charles Emmanuel of Carignano died suddenly. It was up to Charles Albert's mother to deal with the French, who had no intention of recognising her rights, titles or property. She nonetheless refused to send her son to the Savoy family in Sardinia for a conservative education. In 1808, Maria Christina married for a second time, to Giuseppe Massimiliano Thibaut di Montléart, whose relationship with Charles Albert was poor.


When he was twelve years old, Charles Albert and his mother were finally granted an audience with Napoleon, who granted the boy the title of count and an annual pension. Since it was no longer appropriate for him to be educated at home, Charles Albert was sent to the Collège Stanislas in Paris in 1812. He remained at the school for two years, but did not attend regularly; instead, he attended only to sit exams, apparently with success. In the meantime, Albertina had moved to Geneva, where Charles Albert joined her from March 1812 to December 1813, and she was married to the Protestant Pastor, Jean-Pierre Etienne Vaucher (1763–1841), a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


After Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the family left Geneva, fearing the arrival of Austrian forces and returned to France. At the beginning of 1814, Charles Albert enrolled in the military school in Bourges, hoping to become an officer in the French army. He was sixteen years old. Napoleon named him a lieutenant of dragoons in 1814.


After Napoleon was defeated for good, the new king Louis XVIII celebrated the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty in Paris on 16 May 1814. Among those present at the festivities were Princess Maria Christina di Carignano and her children Charles Albert and Elisabetta. Despite their past, the family was treated well, although Charles Albert had to renounce the title of Count of the Empire, which had been conferred upon him at the military school in Bourges and the annuity which Napoleon had granted him.


The re-establishment of peace in Europe meant that Charles Albert could return to Turin, and he was advised to do so by his tutor, count Alessandro Di Saluzzo di Menusiglio, and by Albertina. He left Paris (and his step-father) and arrived in Turin on 24 May. There he was welcomed affectionately by King Victor Emmanuel I (Charles IV had abdicated in 1802) and his wife Queen Maria Theresa, by birth a Habsburg archduchess. His property and lands were restored to him and he was granted the Palazzo Carignano as a residence. Given the dynastic situation (neither Victor Emmanuel nor his brother Charles Felix had male children Charles Albert was now the heir presumptive.


Thus he was assigned a mentor to counter the liberal ideas that he had learnt in France. The first of these was Count Filippo Grimaldi del Poggetto, and after he had failed, the dragoon, Policarpo Cacherano d'Osasco. Although he was better equipped for the task, he was not able to influence the mindset of Charles Albert, who began to suffer from anxiety at this time.


The court decided that marriage would provide the prince with internal equilibrium. The chosen bride, accepted by Charles Albert, was the sixteen-year-old daughter of Ferdinand III of Tuscany, Archduchess Maria Theresa, a relative of Queen Maria Theresa. Charles Albert traveled to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and then to Rome on 18 March 1817 and, after a 6-month engagement, married Maria Theresa on 30 September in Florence Cathedral.


The wedding was followed by a ball organised by the Sardinian embassy in Florence. After that, on 6 October, the couple departed for Piedmont. On 11 October, they reached Castello del Valentino and from there they made their formal entrance into Turin.


The young Maria Theresa was very shy and religious - quite different from Charles Albert's temperament. The couple resided in the Palazzo Carignano, to which Charles Albert began to invite young intellectuals with whom he shared liberal ideas. The most intimate of these friends were Santorre di Rossi de Pomarolo, Roberto d'Azeglio, Giacinto Collegno, Cesare Balbo, Guglielmo Moffa di Lisio Gribaldi and Carlo Emanuele Asinari di San Marzano.


In these years, Charles Albert also suffered from a deep religious crisis. This led to a friendship with the French diplomat Jean Louis de Douhet d'Auzers and a visit by the prince to Rome in 1817 to visit the former king Charles Emmanuel IV, who had retired to a monastery. In the years following his marriage, however, Charles Albert had extramarital affairs with several women, including Marie Caroline de Bourbon, widow of the Duke of Berry.


Maria Theresa had two miscarriages – the second in 1819 as a result of a carriage accident – but gave birth to a son on 14 March 1820, Victor Emmanuel, the future king of Italy.


After the 1820 uprising in Cadiz, King Ferdinand VII of Spain was forced to grant the Spanish Constitution of 1812. Hope of obtaining similar constitutions arose in many European states. Insurrections broke out in Naples and Palermo. On 6 March 1821, Santorre di Rossi de Pomarolo, Giacinto Provana di Collegno, Carlo di San Marzano and Guglielmo Moffa di Lisio (all military officers, officials, or sons of ministers) and Roberto d'Azeglio met with Charles Albert. The young liberals were ready to act and had identified the prince as a new type of man for the House of Savoy - one ready to break with the absolutist past.


The conspirators had no desire to abolish the House of Savoy, but claimed, on the contrary, that they hoped to force it to grant reforms which would grant it the gratitude of the people. During the months of preparation, Charles Albert had assured them of his support and on 6 March he confirmed this, declaring that he supported armed action. They were to raise troops, surround King Victor Emmanuel I's residence at Moncalieri and demand that he grant a constitution and declare war on Austria. Charles Albert was to play the role of mediator between the conspirators and the king.


On 14 March, the regent decided to form a Junta which would be able to act as guardians of the parliament. The head was Canon Pier Bernardo Marentini, a Jansenist, who was Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Turin and had been chosen as Bishop of Piacenza in 1813 but denied the role by the Pope. Charles Albert replaced the minister of war he had appointed the previous day with Santorre di Rossi, the leader of the armed uprising. On 15 March, in the presence of the Junta, Charles Albert swore to observe the Spanish Constitution, which had been amended with a few clauses requested by Victor Emmanuel I's queen, Maria Theresa.


Meanwhile, the representatives of liberals of Lombardy had arrived: , , and . They asked Charles Albert to declare war on Austria in order to free Milan, but the prince refused. Instead, he accepted the advice of Cesare Balbo, who reported the discipline of the armed forces, stopped excesses and firmly established the troops loyal to the king. Charles Felix himself, however, had responded very badly to the news of his brother's abdication, which he considered an "abominable act of violence" and, from Modena, he sent an order to Charles Albert, ordering him to come to Novara, and declaring any actions taken in the name of the king after the abdication of his brother, including the concession of the Spanish Constitution, to be null and void.


At midnight on 21 March 1821, Charles Albert secretly departed from the Palazzo Carignano. His departure was not discovered by the revolutionaries until the next day. From Rondissone, on 23 March he made for San Germano, from which he intended to travel to Novara, which remained loyal to the king. At Novara he remained for six days before a dispatch arrived from Charles Felix on the 29th, ordering him to depart immediately for Tuscany.


On the afternoon of 2 April 1821, the prince arrived in Florence. His wife and son, who had been in France, followed on the 13th. The Prince's father-in-law, Grand Duke Ferdinand III granted them the Palazzo Pitti as a residence. In May, Charles Felix, who had successfully secured Austrian assistance to restore order, met with Victor Emmanuel I at Lucca. The two discussed Charles Albert's conduct for a long time and, although the new queen Maria Christina spoke in his defense, they decided that he was responsible for the conspiracy.


As a result of this decision and the circumstances, Charles Albert decided to disavow his liberal ideas - especially as Charles Felix had entertained the idea of eliminating him from the line of succession and passing the crown straight to his son Victor Emmanuel. Charles Felix asked the opinion of Metternich on this, who was unexpectedly opposed to the idea.


On 16 September 1822, the infant Victor Emmanuel barely escaped from a fire in his cot, exposing the tenuous nature of the line of succession, which was taken out of danger by the birth of a second son, Ferdinand, on 15 November. In Florence, Charles Albert cultivated various cultural interests. He became a collector of old books, but was also interested in contemporary authors, acquiring the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine and the conservative Joseph de Maistre.


At the beginning of 1823, Duke Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême assumed command of the French expeditionary force which the European powers had entrusted with the task of suppressing the liberal revolution there and restoring King Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne, after he had been captured by Spanish revolutionaries in Cadiz. Charles Albert wished to demonstrate his penitence and therefore asked to be part of the contingent. He wrote to Charles Felix on this subject for the first time on 20 February 1823, but only received permission to depart on 26 April.


At the end of August 1823, with the French fleet aiding from the sea, the troops launched an assault on the Trocadero. Charles Albert fought at the head of the troops crossing the canal - the sole point of entry to the fortress. He plunged into the water holding the flag of the 6th regiment of the royal guards, forded the canal and leapt into the enemy trenches. He sought to prevent the enemy prisoners being killed, and the French soldiers gave him the epaulettes of an officer killed in the assault, so that he might be distinguished from a regular grenadier.


He remained at his post until nightfall and the next day he was among the first to break into Trocadero. King Ferdinand VII and queen Maria Josepha, his cousin, were freed and embraced him in joy at seeing him. On 2 September there was a grand military parade, after which the Duc d'Angoulême decorated Charles Albert with the Cross of the Order of Saint Louis.


Visit to Paris and return to Turin.


With the dissolution of the expeditionary force, Charles Albert travelled from Seville to Paris, arriving on 3 December 1823. In the French capital he participated in balls, receptions, and parties, and developed a close relationship with Marie Caroline, widow of the Duc de Berry. On 15 December, King Louis XVIII held a grand reception for the victors of Trocadero, at which Charles Albert was among the guests of honour.


King Charles Felix of Sardinia decided that, as a result of his success, it was time for Charles Albert to return to Turin. The prince was required, however, to swear "to respect and religiously maintain all the fundamental laws of the monarchy when I ascend to power, which have led to fortune and glory over the centuries." On 29 January 1824, Charles Albert received permission to depart for Turin. At a final meeting with Louis XVIII, he received some advice on rulership and was enrolled in the Order of the Holy Spirit, the most prestigious chivalrous order of the French monarchy.


On 2 February, Charles Albert departed and on the 6th he reached Mont Cenis, where he received orders to enter Turin by night, in order to avoid protests. Charles Albert did so, probably on the 23rd.


Despite the conservative attitudes of the period, Charles Albert also supported literati who held liberal ideas, such as Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta, whose books were banned in Piedmont. He owned the works of Adam Smith and the "Collection of Classic Italian Writers on Political Economy", edited by , a supporter of Napoleon.


In 1830, Charles Felix became very ill. He summoned Charles Albert to his sick-bed on 24 April 1831. The entire government was present in the room as the king said to the ministers, "Behold my heir and successor, I am sure that he will act for the good of his subjects."


Charles Felix died on 27 April at 2:45 pm. Charles Albert closed the corpse's eyes and kissed its hand and then assumed the throne. He received the dignitaries of court and brought his sons into the Royal Palace. At 5:00 pm, the troops in rendered their oaths to the new king at the direction of Governor , who published the proclamation relating to this. Thus the throne passed to the house of Carignano and the direct line of Savoy came to an end.


Thus Charles Albert came to the throne aged 33. His health was poor; he suffered from a liver disease. His faith added to his suffering; he wore a cilice and slept alone on an iron bed, waking at 5:00 am every morning and celebrating two masses per day. He worked from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm everyday without interruption. He ate little and suffered from frequent religious crises, but never renounced extramarital affairs even so. The most significant of these was his relationship with Maria Antonietta di Robilant (1804–1882), daughter of Friedrich Truchsess zu Waldburg (1776–1844), the Prussian ambassador to Turin and wife of Maurizio di Robilant (1798–1862).


The new king was affected by the July Revolution, which had deposed Charles X of France and led to the accession of Louis Philippe, an ex-revolutionary, and as a result, he decided to make an alliance with the Austrian Empire. The treaty, signed on 23 July 1831 and ratified in 1836, entrusted the defence of the Kingdom of Sardinia to Austria. However, in the event of war, the commander of the joint forces was to be Charles Albert. He wrote to the Austrian ambassador, Ludwig Senfft von Pilsach (1774–1853), "... the most beautiful day of my life will be the day on which there is war with France and I have the good fortune to serve in the Austrian army."


In accordance with this legitimist position, Charles Albert lent support to his close friend Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, duchesse de Berry in December 1823 when she sought to place her son, Henri, on the French throne. She was the widow of the Duc de Berry, second son of Charles X, whose eldest son, Louis Antoine had renounced the throne. Henri's claim to the throne had been denied by the king.


Despite the advice of the French ambassador to exercise prudence, in 1832, Charles Albert loaned Marie-Caroline a million francs and placed a steamer at her disposal for transporting legitimist volunteers to France. The plot was discovered and failed; the steamer was stopped at Marseilles and the volunteers were defeated at Vendée in a few hours. Marie-Caroline fled, but was soon arrested in Nantes and imprisoned in the Citadel of Blaye, near Bordeaux.


Charles Albert displayed similar conservativism in internal politics. When the minister of war, Matteo Agnès Des Geneys (1763–1831) died, he replaced him with Carlo San Martino d'Aglie, who was not very popular at the time. He retained as Minister of Foreign Affairs until 1835, when he replaced him with the extremely conservative Clemente Solaro. These appointments were made with the intent of restoring a ministerial oligarchy. In 1831 he appointed Gaudenzio Maria Caccia, Count of Romentino (1765–1834) as minister of Finance, as Minister of Justice, and the reformer, Antonio Tonduti, Count of Escarèna (1771–1856), as minister of the Interior. On 5 April 1832, d'Aglie was replaced as Minister of War by .


In June 1831, Giuseppe Mazzini, who was in exile in Marseilles, addressed a letter to Charles Albert as "an Italian," in which he encouraged him to focus on the unification of Italy, in vain. For the moment, the new King of Sardinia cleaved to almost the same ideas as his predecessors.


Charles Albert accompanied these measures with an economic policy of liberalisation of commerce. In 1834, the tax on grain was reduced and the next year, the export of raw silk was made legal. Duties on the import of raw materials (coal, metals, textiles) were subsequently reduced and the acquisition of industrial machinery from abroad was supported. Despite having impinged on some minor sources of state income, the balance of the kingdom was positive from 1835, and it was possible to entertain ambitions for the improvement of agriculture, roads, railroads, and ports.


Charles Albert also reformed the army, reformed the law codes, instituted a Court of cassation, and eliminated feudalism in Sardinia, in 1838. He enabled the opening of institutes of credit, he reformed the public agencies and the state, and reduced the control of the religious hierarchy somewhat. The royal court, however, was full of clerics - at least fifty of them - and the court was sumptuous for such a small kingdom. There were a great number of cooks, butlers, waiters, carpenters, squires, stallers, pages, footmen, masters of ceremonies, etc.


After the death of king Ferdinand VII of Spain, the nation was divided into two factions: the anti-liberal reactionaries who supported the legitimist aspirations of Don Carlos and the constitutionalists who defended Maria Christina's regency on behalf of Isabella II. The Holy Alliance of Russia, Austria, and Prussia supported Don Carlos; Great Britain, France and Portugal supported the constitutionalists. Charles Albert sides with the former group, but in the Carlist War of 1833–1840, the constitutionalists prevailed.


Similarly, in the Portuguese Liberal Wars (1828–1834), which followed the death of John VI, Charles Albert sided with the absolutists under Dom Miguel, who spent time in Piedmont. In this case, too, the liberals, led by Dom Miguel's brother Dom Pedro, enjoyed the support of Great Britain and Louis-Philippe's France and were ultimately successful.


At the time of Charles Albert's ascent to the throne in 1831, there were riots in Rome, the carbonari revolt of Ciro Menotti in Modena, and an insurrection in Bologna and Parma which led to the flight of Francis IV and Marie Louise. But Austria was able to restore order and Charles Albert decided that his alliance with the Habsburgs was essential.


The Kingdom of Sardinia was also troubled by the plots of revolutionaries in these years, and even by an attempted invasion. In April 1833 in Genoa, two low-ranking officers were arrested for a scuffle and it was discovered that they belonged to Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy. They supplied various names and investigations were expanded to other garrisons. Charles Albert, who considered Mazzini's association the "most terrible and bloody," ordered the investigation to continue until it got to the bottom of the matter, acting in accordance with the law, but with utmost severity.


In the end, twelve people were executed by firing squad and two committed suicide in gaol. Twenty-one were condemned to death but could not be executed because they had escaped or, like Mazzini, had been abroad the whole time. Charles Albert granted no pardons, and the ambassadors of France and Britain in Turin protested at court about the severity of the punishment and the lack of any mercy. The King of Sardinia showed his gratitude to the investigators by granting honours to those who had played a leading role in the repression.


In these circumstances, Charles Albert realised the necessity of granting reforms to make the kingdom more modern and to satisfy the needs of the populace. Immediately on ascending to the throne he had named a commission which had been tasked with creating new civil, criminal, commercial and procedural laws.


This process of reform took a very long time, but eventually, on 20 June 1837, the new civil code, partially inspired by the Napoleonic Code, was promulgated. The king also participated in the drafting of the new criminal code, which was published on 26 October 1839. During the process, Charles Albert insisted on the concept of corrective justice, limiting the death penalty as much as possible. Nevertheless, he ordained very severe penalties for those guilty of sacrilege or suicide (whose last wills and testaments had no legal power). In 1842, finally, the commercial code and the code of criminal procedure, with innovative guarantees of the rights of the accused, were promulgated.


In 1840 the Oriental Crisis, which placed Louis Philippe's France in conflict with the other European great powers, inspired Charles Albert to begin thinking about a programme of territorial expansion in the Po valley. In the same year, a commercial crisis erupted between Turin and Vienna, regarding an old treaty in which the Kingdom of Sardinia undertook not to provide salt to Switzerland. Following the breach of this treaty, Austria increased the customs duty on Piedmontese wine entering Lombardy-Veneto by 100%. Charles Albert's response was to threaten to build a railroad from Genoa to Lake Maggiore, in order to capture the German commerce which sustained the Austrian port of Trieste for the Ligurian ports.


These were still only minor disputes and diplomatic relations between the two states continued to be generally good, culminating in the magnificent wedding of Charles Albert's eldest son, Victor Emmanuel and Adelaide of Austria, daughter of Ranier Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, who was the Austrian Viceroy in Lombardy-Veneto and Charles Albert's brother-in-law, since he had married his sister Elisabeth in 1820. Victor Emmanuel and Adelaide were thus first cousins.


In 1845, revolutionary movements erupted in Rimini and in the Papal States. To Massimo d'Azeglio, who had gone to report on the events, Charles Albert said, "that on the day of conflict with Austria, he would throw himself in with his sons, with his army, with all his substance, to fight for the independence of Italy."


Understandably, on 8 June 1846, on the orders of Chancellor Metternich, the Austrian ambassador to Turin, Karl Ferdinand von Buol, asked Charles Albert to clarify his position - was he with Austria or with the revolutionaries? The King of Sardinia hesitated. In the meanwhile, on 16 June, Pope Pius IX had been elected as Pope. His first order of business was to grant an amnesty to those condemned of political crimes. The new pope then protested against Austria for having occupied Ferrara, in the Holy See, without its consent. Charles Albert, who saw in Pius IX a way of reconciling his loyalty with his old liberal ideas, wrote to him offering his support.


In the same way, in September 1847, , Charles Albert's secretary, was authorised to write a letter on 2 September, in which the king expressed his hope that God would grant him the power to undertake a war of independence in which he would take command of the army and the Guelph cause. These declarations made Charles Albert far more popular. However, he continued to break up anti-Austrian demonstrations because the court and government remained divided. De La Tour, Foreign Minister Solaro della Margarita, and Archbishop considered the anti-Austrian policy exceptionally dangerous, but it was supported by Minister of War , Cesare Alfieri di Sostegno, Cesare Balbo, Massimo and Roberto d'Azeglio, and the young Count Cavour.


Meanwhile, the demands of the people became pressing and were not always accepted. In this period, for example, Charles Albert did not accept a Genoese delegation which called for the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Kingdom, whom he had already banned from political writings. He did, however, implement the so-called Perfect Fusion of the Savoyard state on 29 November 1847, which extended the reforms carried out on the mainland to the island of Sardinia.


At the beginning of 1848, news arrived that following the outbreak of the Spring of Nations, Ferdinand II had granted a constitution in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In Turin there were acclamations for the King of Naples and the Pope, while Charles Albert remained bound by the oath he had sworn to Charles Felix to respect religiously all the fundamental laws of the monarchy, and to retain absolutist rule.


On 7 January 1848, at the hotel "Europa" in Turin, there was a meeting of the city's journalists at which Cavour, director of the "Risorgimento", proposed to request a constitution from the king. The majority of the ministers were also in favour of the concession of a constitution, and of ensuring that one was not imposed by the people. Charles Albert was not sure what to do, unwilling to make the wrong decision and considered abdicating as Victor Emmanuel I had in similar circumstances. He sent for his son to prepare him for the succession, but his son managed to convince him to retain his position.


On 7 February, an extraordinary Council of State was convented. Seven ministers, the holders of the order of the Annunciation, and other high dignitaries were present. All of them spoke and the discussion went on for many hours. Charles Albert, pale, listened in silence. De La Tour, , and were opposed to the constitution. During the lunch break, Charles Albert received a delegation from the capital, which asked for the constitution for the good of the people and in order to safeguard order.


It was now necessary to make a decision and, at last, Giacinto Borelli, Minister of the Interior, was appointed to draft the Constitution immediately. The document was approved and was named the "Statute." Charles Albert had stated that he would not approve the document if it did not clearly state the pre-eminent position of the Catholic religion and the honour of the monarchy. Since he had received these things, he approved it. The meeting was dissolved at dawn.


Around 3:30 in the afternoon on 8 February, a royal edict was published in the streets of Turin, which laid out the 14 articles which formed the basis of the Statute for a system of representative government. By 6:00 pm, the city was entirely lit up and massive demonstrations in favour of Charles Albert were held.


The edict specified that the Catholic faith was the sole state religion, that executive power belonged to the king, as did command of the armed forces. Legislative power was vested in two chambers, one of which would be elected. The free press and individual liberty were guaranteed. The full version of the Statute, with all its articles, was finally agreed on 4 March 1848 and approved the same day by Charles Albert. The announcement of the Statute was met with great enthusiasm throughout Piedmont. The first constitutional government, presided over by Cesare Balbo, was sworn in on 16 March 1848, two days before the beginning of the Five Days of Milan.


Elected in 1846, the new pope Pius IX had caught the imagination of the liberals of Italy when he began to dismantle the archaic Vatican institutions: granting a free press, instituting the civic guard in place of foreign mercenaries, and creating a council of ministers. On 12 January 1848, there was a revolt in Palermo and King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies was forced to concede a constitution, but all Europe was further convulsed when, on 22 February 1848, there was a revolt in Paris, King Louis-Philippe was deposed, and a Republic was established. The revolution spread to Milan on 18 March, then to Venice, and finally to Vienna, where riots forced Metternich and Emperor Franz Joseph I to flee.


In Milan, it was expected that Charles Albert would take the opportunity to declare war on Austria. A clear message from Turin was delivered the Milanese liberal, on 19/20 March:


Although the Kingdom's resources were small, the Piedmontese army began to mobilise. The majority of the troops were deployed on the western border, since the eastern border was safeguarded by the treaty of alliance with Austria. But Charles Albert realised that this was a unique opportunity to expand his holdings into Lombardy. Thus he told the Milanese that he would intervene on their behalf if they agreed to join the Kingdom of Sardinia.


On 23 March 1848, the Piedmontese embassy to Milan returned to Turin with news that the Austrians had been forced to evacuate the city and that a provisional government headed by Gabrio Casati had been established, which asked Charles Albert to become an ally. Clearly not very enthusiastic about the idea of annexation, the Milanese asked the king to keep his troops outside the city and to adopt the tricolor of the Cisalpine Republic as his flag.


On 23 March 1848, the proclamation of Charles Albert to the people of Lombardy and Veneto was published, in which he assured them that the Piedmontese troops, "... go now to offer, in the final trials, that help which a brother expects from a brother, a friend from a friend. We will comply with your just requests, trusting in the aid of God, who is clearly with us, of God, who has given Italy Pius IX, of God, whose miraculous prompting places Italy in the position to act for itself." Thus, the war began.


The federalist Carlo Cattaneo was not impressed, "Now that the enemy is in flight, the king wants to come with the whole army. He should have sent us anything - even a single cart of powder - three days ago. There was heard, in Piedmont, for five days, the thundering of the guns which consumed us: The king knew and did not move."


At the opening of hostilities, on 8 and 9 April, Italian sharpshooters had achieved success in the first battle of the campaign at the Battle of Goito Bridge. After crossing the Mincio with his army, Charles Albert achieved another victory on 30 April at Pastrengo, where he saw the front lines. The units under his command attacked some Austrians who had been dispersed by a charge of the carabinieri on horseback. On 2 May, in the midst of this triumphant atmosphere, news arrived that Pius IX had withdrawn his military and political support for the Italian cause.


Nevertheless, the Papal soldiers in the army did not withdraw, choosing to remain to fight as volunteers, but Charles Albert had lost the moral justification for his mission. His dream of becoming the sword of the papacy and king of an Italy united under the Pope, as Vincenzo Gioberti had proposed, was thwarted. Yet the king was undiscouraged and continued to advance towards Verona, where a harsh and indecisive battle was fought with the Austrians at Santa Lucia on 6 May.


In the meantime, on 8 June, the Milanese and Lombards had voted with an overwhelming majority to join the Kingdom of Sardinia, as had the citizens of the Duchy of Parma on 2 May. But for Charles Albert, things were going sour: the soldiers were angry about the recent defeat and were hungry and exhausted. A council of war suggested seeking a truce.


Events in Milan and the armistice of Salasco.


On the evening of 27 July 1848, the Austrians agreed to grant a truce if the Piedmontese withdrew to the west bank of the Adda (a little more than 20 km east of Milan), surrendered all the fortresses, including Peschiera and yielded the Duchies of Parma and Modena, whose rulers had been forced into exile. Charles Albert, who disagreed with his son Victor Emmanuel on the conduct of the war, exclaimed "I would rather die!" and prepared to make a stand at the Oglio (about 25 km further east than requested by Radetzky).


Although the Austrian proposal had been rejected, his troops ended up having to withdraw to the Adda anyway, because the Oglio was judged to be an inadequate defensive line. At the Adda, some manoeuvres taken by a general on his own initiative left a division isolated and made it necessary to withdraw again, in order to retreat inside the walls of Milan. Charles Albert went to the , ignoring the Milanese desire to resist, he negotiated the surrender of the city to the Austrians in exchange for permitting the safe withdrawal of the army to Piedmont.


The day after, the Milanese learnt of the agreement and revealed their fury. The crowd protested in front of the Palazzo Greppi and when the King came out on the balcony, they fired their rifles at him. According to the noblewoman Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, who participated actively in the riots in Milan:


The Charles Albert's second son, Ferdinand and general Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora carried the king to safety. In the night he departed from Milan with the army.


On 8 August, general returned to Milan and negotiated an armistice with the Austrians, known as the Armistice of Salasco, which was signed on 9 August. Charles Albert ratified the armistice despite some opposition, including from Gioberti, who remained confident of aid from France. The king said that the former French foreign minister, Alphonse de Lamartine, had declared that the French would only give such aid to Republicans.


The king was not proud of the campaign and, once he had written a record of the first campaign, Charles Albert decided to break the armistice. On 1 March, at the inauguration of the legislature, he spoke clearly about war and Chamber responded positively. For the imminent resumption of hostilities, the king was convinced to renounce effective command of the army, which he continued to hold formally. Rather than appointing a Piedmontese general, he selected the Polish general Wojciech Chrzanowski as commander of the army. On 8 March, the council of war in Turin decided that the armistice would be broken on the 12th. According to the terms of the armistice, hostilities would then begin eight days later on 20 March.


The war did indeed resume on that day. On 22 March, Charles Albert arrived at Novara and a day later, Radetzy attacked the city from the south with superior numbers, near the village of Bicocca. Chrzanowski made some significant tactical errors and despite the bravery of the Piedmontese and Charles Albert himself, who fought along with his son Ferdinand in the front lines, the Battle of Novara proved a disastrous defeat.


Returning to the Palazzo Bellini in Novara, the king declared, "Bicocca was lost and retaken three or four times, before our troops were forced to yield... the Major General [Chrzanowski] employed all his strength, my sons did everything they could, the Duke of Genoa [Ferdinand] lost two horses from under himself. Now we have withdrawn within the city, on its walls, with the enemy below, with an exhausted army - further resistance is impossible. It is necessary to request an armistice."


Austria's conditions were very harsh: occupation of the Lomellina and the fortress of Alessandria, as well as the surrender of all the Lombards who had fought against Austria. Charles Albert asked the generals if it was possible for a final push to open a path to Alessandria. They said it was not: the army was in pieces, discipline had crumbled, many soldiers fighting in the campaign were despoiling the houses in the countryside and they feared an attack on the king himself.


At 9:30 pm on the same day, Charles Albert summoned his sons, Chrzanowski, generals Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora, , Giovanni Durando, (who had negotiated the armistice) and minister Carlo Cadorna. He confessed that he had no choice but to abdicate. They tried to dissuade him, but, in the hope that Victor Emmanuel could get better terms, he ended the discussion, "My decision is the fruit of mature reflexion. From this moment, I am no longer the king; the king is Victor, my son."


Charles Albert's eldest son became king of Sardinia as Victor Emmanuel II and agreed to an armistice with Radetzky on 24 March 1849 at Vignale, effectively obtaining more favourable terms than previously offered. The Austrians were to occupy Lomellina for a while and only half of the fort of Alessandria, with "permission" rather than "by right."


The former king continued via Moncalvo, Nizza Monferrato, Acqui, Savona, Ventimiglia and Monaco, which he reached on 26 March. At Nice in France, he dispatched instructions to organise his family affairs, without adding any information for his wife. On 1 April he was at Bayonne, near the Atlantic coast, and on 3 April he received a message from Turin in order to get him to legally confirm his abdication.


Charles Albert continued through Torquemada, Valladolid, León, and A Coruña, which he reached on 10 April, and which was the end of the carriage road. On horseback, suffering from illness, he reached Lugo on 15 April and entered Portuguese territory at Caminha. From there he went to Viana do Castelo, Póvoa de Varzim and, finally, on 19 April, at noon, he arrived in Oporto. From there he may have planned to travel to America, but he was forced to stop because he had become ill with a liver complaint.


Once his arrival in Oporto became known, Charles Albert was hosted at the "Hotel do Peixe", where he remained for two weeks, as his condition worsened. Then he accepted a new residence from a private individual on the "rua de Entre Quintas", with a view of the ocean. On 3 May, he hosted Giacinto Provana di Collegno and Luigi Cibrario, who brought him greetings from the Piedmontese government. To them he said:


During this time, Charles Albert suffered from progressive decay, coughing and abscesses. He had two heart attacks, but the doctors considered the condition of his liver the most serious issue, for which the former king abstained from eating very much and fasted on Wednesdays. He read the letters and newspapers which arrived from Italy. He wrote occasionally to his wife, but regularly and with feeling to the Countess of Robilant. He forbade his mother, wife, and children from visiting.


His body was embalmed and displayed in the Cathedral of Oporto. On 3 September, the ships, "Mozambano" and "Goito" arrived under the command of his cousin Eugene Emmanuel. On 19 September the corpse was brought on board the "Monzambano", which departed for Genoa that evening. It arrived on 4 October. The funeral took place in Turin Cathedral on 13 October, with , Archbishop of Chambéry, presiding along with five Piedmontese bishops, and was well-attended by the people. The day after, the body was solemnly interred in the crypt of the Basilica of Superga, where it still lies.


Among the indigenous princes, the number one enemy of Italian freedom was and is Charles Albert. Italians should bear in mind and repeat every hour the old saying: "God watch over my friends, so that I can watch over my enemies". From Ferdinand of the House of Bourbon, there is nothing to fear; he has for a long time been discredited. Charles Albert, on the other hand, calls himself pompously the "liberator of Italy" while on the very people he is supposed to be liberating he imposes as a condition the yoke of his rule.


A strange pathetic being, at odds with himself and his time; compounded of monkish asceticism and soldierly courage; autocratic, but irresolute; holding his honor dearer than his life, yet pursued through life by accusations of dishonor: such was Charles Albert, to whom when he had passed beyond the reach of their praises or their blame, his countrymen gave the epithet 'magnanimous'.


In 1817, Charles Albert married his second cousin once removed, Maria Theresa of Austria, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Princess Luisa of Naples and Sicily. The couple had the following children:


Victor Amadeus of Savoy, 3rd Prince of Carignano (1 March 1690 – 4 April 1741) was an Italian nobleman who was Prince of Carignano from 1709 to 1741. He was the son of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, Prince of Carignano and his wife, the Maria Angela Caterina d'Este.


Born in Turin, he was the third child of four and the eldest son.


Made a Knight of the Annunciation in 1696, he married, at Moncalieri on 7 November 1714, Marie Victoire Françoise of Savoy (1690–1766), legitimised daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, King of Sardinia and of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue.


His father-in-law showed affection for him but ended up depriving him, in 1717, of his 400,000 livres of annual income because of excessive spending. It was then that he ran away to France, at the end of 1718, in order to take possession of his inheritance.


Since he had lost the Château de Condé to Jean-François Leriget de La Faye when it was confiscated from his family by Louis XIV on 6 March 1719, he established himself in the hôtel de Soissons, which he transformed, with his wife who had followed him there, into a "sumptuous gaming house" which for a time sheltered the economist John Law. He died, ruined, and his hôtel was razed to construct in its place a grain-trading hall, now the site of the Bourse de commerce de Paris.


Next to his mother-in-law, Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue, he counted in the 1730s among the most influential amateurs and art collectors in Paris. He gathered in an important painting collection which was sold after his death in 1742 partly to Louis XV, King of France, and to August III of Poland, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.


He had a passion for the Paris Opéra, and was named intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs by Louis XV. He brought about the disgrace of the tax farmer Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière after he caught him in the company of his mistress, the actress Marie Antier.


Victor Amadeus I (; 8 May 1587 – 7 October 1637) was the Duke of Savoy from 1630 to 1637. He was also known as the "Lion of Susa".


He was born in Turin, Piedmont to Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Catherine Micaela of Spain, daughter of King Philip II of Spain. He spent much of his childhood in Madrid at the court of his grandfather Philip II. He stayed there until the king's death in 1598, when Victor Amadeus was eleven. When his brother, Filippo Emanuele, died in 1605, he became heir-apparent to the Duchy of Savoy and received the homage of the court at Racconigi on 21 January 1607.


Victor Amadeus became Duke of Savoy after his father's death in 1630. Charles Emmanuel's policies had brought a great instability in the relationships with both France and Spain, and troops were needed to defend the Duchy. As money was lacking to recruit mercenaries or train indigenous soldiers, Victor Amadeus signed a peace treaty with Spain.


With the Treaty of Cherasco, Savoy was forced to give Pinerolo to France. This gave France a strategic route into the heart of Savoy territory and on into the rest of Italy. The rulers of Savoy from that point resented this loss, and worked for decades with the goal of regaining that loss. Subsequently, under the direction of Cardinal Richelieu, Victor Amadeus attempted to create an anti-Spanish league in Italy. He achieved two victories against the Spanish: In 1636 in the Battle of Tornavento and on 8 September 1637 in the Battle of Mombaldone.


On 25 September 1637, Victor Amadeus fell ill after a dinner offered by the Duke of Créqui. He was carried to Vercelli, where he died on 7 October, aged 50.


In 1619, he married Christine Marie of France (1606–1663), a daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici. Following his death, she served as regent of the Duchy from 1637 to 1663. They had children including:


Victor Amadeus of Savoy, 5th Prince of Carignano (31 October 1743 – 10 September 1780) was a member of the House of Savoy and Prince of Carignano. He was the brother of the murdered "princesse de Lamballe" and grandfather of King Charles Albert of Sardinia.


Born in Turin to Louis Victor of Savoy and his wife Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg, he was the couple's second child and eldest son. As a male line descendant of the Duke of Savoy, he was a "Prince of Savoy" by birth. He was named after his cousin King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia. At his father's death he succeeded to the style of Prince of Carignano. Expecting to find military glory, his namesake created him Lieutenant General of the Sardinian Army. His career was cut short by his death.


On 18 October 1768 at Oulx Victor Amadeus married Princess Joséphine of Lorraine, daughter of Louis de Lorraine, Prince of Brionne and Louise de Rohan. The couple had one child who succeeded Victor Amadeus as Prince of Carignano in 1780. In 1786 he was moved to the Royal Basilica of Superga outside Turin. The current Prince of Naples is a direct male line descendant.


Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; , , "Vītoriyo Āmanu’ēli"; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) reigned as King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. In addition, he was Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–1941) and King of the Albanians (1939–1943). During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of Italian Fascism and its regime.


During the First World War, Victor Emmanuel III accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Paolo Boselli and named Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (the "premier of victory") in his place. Following the March on Rome, he appointed Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister and later deposed him in 1943 during the Allied invasion of Italy of the Second World War.


Victor Emmanuel abdicated his throne in 1946 in favour of his son Umberto II, hoping to strengthen support for the monarchy against an ultimately successful referendum to abolish it. He then went into exile to Alexandria, Egypt, where he died and was buried the following year in St. Catherine's Cathedral of Alexandria. In 2017 his remains were returned to rest in Italy, following an agreement between Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.


Victor Emmanuel was also called by some Italians "Sciaboletta" ("little saber"), due to his height of , and "il Re soldato" (the Soldier King), for having led his country during both world wars.


Unlike his paternal first cousin's son, the 1.98 m (6-foot 6") tall Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, Victor Emmanuel was short of stature even by 19th-century standards, to the point that today he would appear diminutive. He was just 1.53 m tall (just over 5 feet). From birth until his accession, Victor Emmanuel was known by the title of the Prince of Naples.


On 24 October 1896, Prince Victor Emmanuel married Princess Elena of Montenegro.


On 29 July 1900, at the age of 30, Victor Emmanuel acceded to the throne upon his father's assassination. The only advice that his father Umberto ever gave his heir was "Remember: to be a king, all you need to know is how to sign your name, read a newspaper, and mount a horse". His early years showed evidence that, by the standards of the Savoy monarchy, he was a man committed to constitutional government. Indeed, even though his father was killed by an anarchist, the new king showed a commitment to constitutional freedoms.


Though parliamentary rule had been firmly established in Italy, the Statuto Albertino, or constitution, granted the king considerable residual powers. For instance, he had the right to appoint the prime minister even if the individual in question did not command majority support in the Chamber of Deputies. A shy and somewhat withdrawn individual, the King hated the day-to-day stresses of Italian politics, though the country's chronic political instability forced him to intervene on no fewer than ten occasions between 1900 and 1922 to solve parliamentary crises.


When World War I began, Italy at first remained neutral, despite being part of the Triple Alliance (albeit it was signed on defensive terms and Italy objected that the Sarajevo assassination did not qualify as aggression). However, in 1915, Italy signed several secret treaties committing her to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente. Most of the politicians opposed war, however, and the Italian Chamber of Deputies forced Prime Minister Antonio Salandra to resign. At this juncture, Victor Emmanuel declined Salandra's resignation and personally made the decision for Italy to enter the war. He was well within his rights to do so under the "Statuto," which stipulated that ultimate authority for declaring war rested with the crown.


The economic depression which followed World War I gave rise to much extremism among Italy's sorely tried working classes. This caused the country as a whole to become politically unstable. Benito Mussolini, soon to be Italy's Fascist dictator, took advantage of this instability for his rise to power.


In 1922, Mussolini led a force of his Fascist supporters on a March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law. After some hesitation the King refused to sign it, citing doubts about the ability of the army to contain the uprising without setting off a civil war.


Fascist violence had been growing in intensity throughout the summer and autumn of 1922, climaxing in rumours of a possible coup. On 24 October 1922, during the Fascist congress in Naples, Mussolini announced that the Fascists would march on Rome "take by the throat our miserable ruling class". General Pietro Badoglio told the King that the military would be able without difficulty to rout the rebels, who numbered no more than 10,000 men armed mostly with knives and clubs whereas the "Regio Esercito" had 30,000 soldiers in the Rome area armed with heavy weapons, armoured cars, and machine guns. During the "March on Rome", the Fascist "squadristi" were halted by 400 lightly armed policemen, as the "squadristi" had no desire to take on the Italian state.


By midday on 30 October, Mussolini had been appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister), at the age of 39, with no previous experience of office, and with only 32 Fascist deputies in the Chamber. Though the King claimed in his memoirs that it was the fear of a civil war that motivated his actions, it would seem that he received some 'alternative' advice, possibly from the arch-conservative Antonio Salandra as well as General Armando Diaz, that it would be better to do a deal with Mussolini.


Victor Emmanuel was disgusted by what he regarded as the superficiality and frivolity of what he called the "so-called elegant society" of Rome, and as such, the king preferred to spend his time out in the countryside where he went hunting, fishing and reading military history books outside. A taciturn man who felt deeply uncomfortable expressing himself in conversation, Victor Emmanuel was content to let Mussolini rule Italy as he regarded "Il Duce" as a "strong man" who saved him the trouble from meeting various politicians as he had done before 1922.


In 1926, the king allowed Mussolini to do what he prevented Orlando from doing in 1919, giving permission to open negotiations with the Vatican to end the "Roman Question". In 1929, Mussolini, on behalf of the King, signed the Lateran Treaty. The treaty was one of the three agreements made that year between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See. On 7 June 1929, the Lateran Treaty was ratified and the "Roman Question" was settled.


The Italian monarchy enjoyed popular support for decades. Foreigners noted how even as late as the 1930s newsreel images of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders.


On 30 March 1938, the Italian Parliament established the rank of First Marshal of the Empire for Victor Emmanuel and Mussolini. This new rank was the highest rank in the Italian military. His equivalence with Mussolini was seen by the king as offensive and a clear sign that the ultimate goal of the fascist was to get rid of him.


As popular as Victor Emmanuel was, several of his decisions proved fatal to the monarchy. Among these decisions was his assumption of the imperial crown of Ethiopia, his public silence when Mussolini's Fascist government issued its notorious racial purity laws, and his assumption of the crown of Albania.


Prior to his government's invasion of Ethiopia, Victor Emmanuel travelled in 1934 to Italian Somaliland, where he celebrated his 65th birthday on 11 November. In 1936, Victor Emmanuel assumed the crown as Emperor of Ethiopia. His decision to do this was not universally accepted. Victor Emmanuel was only able to assume the crown after the Italian Army invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.


Ethiopia was annexed to the Italian Empire. The League of Nations condemned Italy's participation in this war and the Italian claim by right of conquest to Ethiopia was rejected by some major powers, such as the United States and the Soviet Union, but was accepted by Great Britain and France in 1938. In 1943, Italy's possession of Ethiopia came to an end.


The term of the last acting Viceroy of Italian East Africa, including Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, ended on 27 November 1941 with surrender to the allies. In November 1943 Victor Emmanuel renounced his claims to the titles of Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania, recognizing the previous holders of those titles as legitimate.


The crown of the King of the Albanians had been assumed by Victor Emmanuel in 1939 when Italian forces invaded the nearly defenceless monarchy across the Adriatic Sea and caused King Zog I to flee. The Italian invasion of Albania was generally seen as the act of a stronger nation taking unfair advantage of a weaker neighbour.


In 1941, while in Tirana, the King escaped an assassination attempt by the 19-year-old Albanian patriot Vasil Laçi. Later, this attempt was cited by Communist Albania as a sign of the general discontent among the oppressed Albanian population. A second attempt by Dimitri Mikhaliov in Albania gave the Italians an excuse to affirm a possible connection with Greece as a result of the monarch's assent to the Greco-Italian War.


As Italy's fortunes worsened, the popularity of the King suffered. One coffee-house ditty went as follows:


On the night of 25 July 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism voted to adopt an "Ordine del Giorno" (order of the day) proposed by Count Dino Grandi to ask Victor Emmanuel to resume his full constitutional powers under Article 5 of the "Statuto." In effect, this was a motion of no confidence in Mussolini.


The following afternoon, Mussolini asked for an audience with the king at Villa Savoia. When Mussolini tried to tell Victor Emmanuel about the Grand Council's vote, Victor Emmanuel abruptly cut him off and told him that he was dismissing him as Prime Minister in favour of Marshal Pietro Badoglio. He then ordered Mussolini's arrest. Victor Emmanuel had been planning this move to get rid of the dictator for some time.


On 8 September 1943, Victor Emmanuel publicly announced an armistice with the Allies. Confusion reigned as Italian forces were left without orders, and the Germans, who had been expecting this move for some time, quickly disarmed and interned Italian troops and took control in the occupied Balkans, France and the Dodecanese, as well as in Italy itself. Many of the units that did not surrender joined forces with the Allies against the Germans.


Fearing a German advance on Rome, Victor Emmanuel and his government fled south to Brindisi. This choice may have been necessary to protect his safety; indeed, Hitler had planned to arrest him shortly after Mussolini's overthrow. Nonetheless, it still came as a surprise to many observers inside and outside Italy. Unfavourable comparisons were drawn with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who refused to leave London during the Blitz, and of Pope Pius XII, who mixed with Rome's crowds and prayed with them after Rome's working-class neighborhood of Quartiere San Lorenzo had been destroyed by bombing.


On 12 September, the Germans launched Operation Eiche and rescued Mussolini from captivity. In a short time, he established a new Fascist state in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic ("Repubblica Sociale Italiana"). This was never more than a German-dominated puppet state, but it did compete for the allegiance of the Italian people with Badoglio's government in the south.


By this time, it was apparent that Victor Emmanuel was irrevocably tainted by his earlier support of the Fascist regime. At a 10 April meeting, under pressure from ACC officials Robert Murphy and Harold Macmillan, Victor Emmanuel transferred most of his constitutional powers to his son, Crown Prince Umberto. Privately, Victor Emmanuel told General Noel Mason-MacFarlane that by forcing him to give power to Umberto, the Allies were effectively giving power to the Communists.


By this time, however, events had moved beyond Victor Emmanuel's ability to control. After Rome was liberated on 4 June, when he turned over his remaining powers to Umberto and named him Lieutenant General of the Realm, while nominally retaining the title of king.


In any event, once the referendum's result was certified, Victor Emmanuel and all other male members of the House of Savoy were required to leave the country. Taking refuge in Egypt, where he was welcomed with great honour by King Farouk, Victor Emmanuel died in Alexandria a year later, of pulmonary congestion. He was interred behind the altar of St Catherine's Cathedral. He was the last surviving grandchild of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. In 1948, "Time" magazine included an article about "The Little King".


On 17 December 2017, an Italian air force military plane officially repatriated the remains of Victor Emmanuel III, which were transferred from Alexandria to the sanctuary of Vicoforte, near Turin, and interred alongside those of Elena, that had been transferred two days earlier from Montpellier, France.


The abdication prior to the referendum probably brought back to the minds of undecided voters the monarchy's role during the Fascist period and the King's own actions (or lack of them), at the very moment monarchists hoped voters would focus on the positive impression created by Umberto and his wife, Maria José, over the previous two years. The "May" King and Queen, Umberto and Maria José, in Umberto's brief, month-long reign, were unable to shift the burden of recent history and opinion.


At one point, there was an avenue in Paris named Avenue Victor-Emmanuel III, but the king's support of the Axis Powers led the road to be renamed Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue following the end of World War II.


In 1896 he married princess Elena of Montenegro (1873–1952), daughter of Nicholas I, King of Montenegro. Their issue included:


Reference 4: James Rennell Rodd [British Ambassador to Italy before and during the Great War].


Social and Diplomatic Memories. Third Series. 1902–1919. London, 1925.


Philip II (5 February 1438 – 7 November 1497), surnamed the Landless, was the Duke of Savoy for a brief reign from 1496 to 1497.


He spent most of his life as a junior member of the ducal family. His original apanage was the district of Bresse, close to the French and Burgundian border, but it was lost and therefore Philip received his sobriquet "the Landless", or "Lackland".


He married Margaret of Bourbon (5 February 1438 – 1483) and had:


He married Claudine de Brosse of Brittany (1450–1513), daughter of Jean II de Brosse and Nicole de Châtillon, and they had:


He also had eight illegitimate children by two mistresses.


Philip is an ancestor, through an illegitimate daughter of Honorat II of Savoy, of Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon.


Victor Amadeus III (Vittorio Amadeo Maria; 26 June 1726 – 16 October 1796) was King of Sardinia from 1773 to his death. Although he was politically conservative, he carried out numerous administrative reforms until he declared war on Revolutionary France in 1792. He was the father of the last three mainline Kings of Sardinia.


Born at the Royal Palace of Turin, he was a son of Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia and his second wife Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg. He was styled the "Duke of Savoy" from birth until he succeeded to his father's throne. He was the eldest son of his parents and was the heir apparent from birth which was greeted with much celebration. His father had had a son with his first wife, Countess Palatine Anne Christine of Sulzbach who was also named Victor Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, but died in 1725. His education was entrusted to Gerdil Giacinto Sigismondo, with a particular emphasis on military training. Throughout his life he would have a great interest in the state military on which he lavished attention.


As a young prince, he surrounded himself with intellectuals and ministers, many of whom would come to prominence in his reign. He was privately conservative and very religious person, who, as a young boy, stayed far from public life. His father felt him to be unsuitable to hold power.


Good-natured but naive, Savoy would be loved by his subjects for his generosity.


He married Infanta Maria Antonia of Spain (1729–1785), youngest daughter of Philip V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese. They were married on 31 May 1750 at Oulx and later had twelve children. He had a loving relationship with his wife who exerted little influence over her husband. The marriage had been arranged by Maria Antonietta's half brother, the ruling Ferdinand VI of Spain. The Spanish Infanta had been previously rejected by Louis, Dauphin of France. The union was used to strengthen relations between Madrid and Turin having fought on opposing sides in the War of the Austrian Succession. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war.


When Victor Amadeus came to the throne in 1773 he started working on bureaucratic and military aspects of the reign. He was suspicious of anything innovative. However, he did implement several public works as well as paying a great deal of attention to his administration and armed forces. He approved and set up two new important cultural state institutions on the advice of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy alike. He started works of improvements in the port of Nice, and had dams in the Arce and the road of the Côte built.


He died on 16 October, 1796 at the Castle of Moncalieri having suffered an attack of apoplexy. Victor Amadeus died leaving an economically damaged kingdom and two key provinces – Savoy and Nice – devastated having suffered at the hands of French revolutionary forces. He was buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin.


In 1786 Victor Amadeus III moved the remains on many of his ancestors and kinsmen to the Basilica of Superga, where he himself rests today. He established the Gold Medal of Military Valor 21 May 1793. Like his parents, he carried out improvements to the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi outside Turin. Victor Amadeus III also encouraged the extension of the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Torino as well as the Società Agraria di Torino, which he created in 1785. His first cousin the Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg was named after him.


Charles III of Savoy (10 October 1486 – 17 August 1553), often called Charles the Good, was Duke of Savoy from 1504 to 1553, although most of his lands were ruled by the French between 1536 and his death.


He was a younger son of Philip (Filippo) the Landless, an aged younger son of the ducal family, and his second wife Claudine de Brosse of the family that unsuccessfully claimed the Duchy of Brittany. His grandparents were Duke Louis of Savoy and Anne of Cyprus. As a child, there were next to no expectations for him to succeed to any monarchy. He was christened as a namesake of the then-reigning Duke, Charles I of Savoy, the Warrior, his first cousin.


However, when he was ten years old, his father unexpectedly succeeded his grandnephew Charles II of Savoy as duke and head of the Savoy dynasty, which had now also received the titles of the kingdoms of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia. However, Charles's father was not the heir general of the deceased duke, only the male heir. Jerusalem, Cyprus and certain other claims and possessions could go to a different heir, and they did, in principle, going to Charles II's sister Yolande Louise. Charles's father was not ready to relinquish those, and he took such titles to his own titulary, staking a claim. He also had Yolande marry his son, Philibert the Handsome, in 1496, to ensure the male line of succession.


In 1497, Charles's half-brother Philibert succeeded their father as Duke of Savoy, etc. Philibert however died childless in 1504, surprisingly, and now Charles succeeded, at age eighteen.


Charles faced down challenges to his authority, including from Philibert Berthelier.


After Yolande's death in 1499, the "de jure" rights of Jerusalem and Cyprus were lost to the Savoy family. Charles however, as some sort of heir-male, took those titles, which his successors also used. In 1713, Charles's great-great-great-grandson Victor Amadeus II of Savoy received confirmation to that title from the Kings of Spain and France, who also claimed it. The rights, according to succession of heirs general, i.e. not excluding female lines, had gone, until Charles's death, to the House of La Trémoille, the French lords of La Tremoille, Princes of Talmond and Taranto.


In response to the riots between Catholic and Protestants within Geneva, Charles launched a surprise attack in July 1534, but his army was beaten back. A second siege in October 1535 was attempted, and again Charles' army was defeated when forces from Berne arrived to assist Geneva. Charles was allied with the Habsburg camp in Western European politics, where Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V battled for ascendancy. France invaded Savoy in 1536, and held almost all of Charles' possessions. He spent the rest of his life practically in exile, at the mercy of relatives. He died in 1553 and was succeeded by his only surviving child, Emanuele Filiberto.


He was the duke who imprisoned François Bonivard, the "prisoner of Chillon" in 1530.


Charles married the rich, beautiful and ambitious Infanta Beatrice of Portugal (1504–1538), daughter of the richest monarch in Europe at the time Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon. Beatrice was both first cousin and sister-in-law of the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. They had nine children, but only one child, Emmanuel Philibert, would reach adulthood:


The Counts of Villafranca and later the Counts of Villafranca-Soissons are legitimate male line descendants of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano the founder of the Carignano line of the House of Savoy. The title was created in 1778 for Prince Eugenio of Savoy (1753–1785). The third count Prince Eugenio Emanuele married in 1863 to Felicita Crosio (1844–1911) in what was a morganatic marriage. His wife was created Countess of Villafranca-Soissons in 1888 so the descendants of the marriage bear the title Count/Countess of Villafranca-Soissons. The current head of the Villafranca-Soissons line is Count Edoardo Emanuele Filiberto (born 1945) the grandson of the first count of Villafranca-Soissons via his second son Count Giuseppe Carlo (1904–1971).


Emmanuel Philibert (), known as Testa di ferro, , "Ironhead", because of his military career (8 July 1528 – 30 August 1580), was Duke of Savoy from 1553 to 1580. He is remembered for the Italianization of the House of Savoy, as he recovered the Savoyard state (invaded and occupied by France when he was a child) following the Battle of St. Quentin (1557) and subsequently moved the capital to Turin and made Italian the official language in Piedmont.


Born in Chambéry, Emmanuel Philibert was the only child of Charles III, Duke of Savoy, and Beatrice of Portugal to reach adulthood. His mother was sister-in-law to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the future duke served in Charles's army during the war against Francis I of France, distinguishing himself by capturing Hesdin in July 1553. A month later, he became Duke of Savoy on the death of his father, but this was a nearly empty honour, as the vast majority of his hereditary lands had been occupied and administered by the French since 1536. Instead, he continued to serve the Habsburgs in hopes of recovering his lands, and served his cousin Philip II of Spain as Governor of the Netherlands from 1555 to 1559.


In this capacity, he personally led the Spanish invasion of northern France and won a brilliant victory at Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557. He was also a suitor to Lady Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII of England. With the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis between France and Spain signed in 1559, the duchy was restored to Emmanuel Philibert and he married his first cousin once removed, Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry, the sister of King Henry II of France. Their only child was Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.


Following the death of his uncle, Henry I of Portugal, on 31 January 1580, Emmanuel Philibert fought to impose his rights as a claimant to the Portuguese throne. However, he soon realised that he had quite a fragile position due to the claims of Philip II, who gained control of the country, thus uniting Spain and Portugal.


Emmanuel Philibert spent his rule regaining what had been lost in the costly wars with France. A skilled political strategist, he took advantage of various squabbles in Europe to slowly regain territory from both the French and the Spanish, including the city of Turin. He also purchased two territories. Internally, he moved the capital of the duchy from Chambéry to Turin and replaced Latin as the duchy's official language with Italian. He was attempting to acquire the marquisate of Saluzzo when he died in Turin. Later, he was buried in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud of the Turin Cathedral, to which he had moved the Sindone in 1578.


Philip of Savoy, Duke of Nemours (149025 November 1533) was a French nobleman. He was a son of Philip II, Duke of Savoy, and his second wife Claudine de Brosse. He was a half-brother of Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francis I of France. He was the founder of the Nemours branch of the house of Savoy which eventually settled in France.


Originally destined for the priesthood, he was given the bishopric of Geneva at the age of five, but resigned it in 1510, when he was made count of Genevois. He served under Louis XII, with whom he was present at the battle of Agnadello (1509), under the emperor Charles V in 1520, and finally under his nephew, Francis I.


In 1528 Francis gave him the duchy of Nemours and married him to Charlotte of Orleans, a daughter of Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville. They had two children:


Amadeus VIII (4 September 1383 – 7 January 1451) was a Savoyard nobleman, the son of Amadeus VII, Count of Savoy and Bonne of Berry. He was nicknamed the Peaceful. After the death of his father in 1391, his mother acted as a regent, because of his youth. He was a claimant to the papacy from 1439 to 1449 as Felix V in opposition to Eugene IV and Nicholas V, and is considered the last historical antipope.


Born at Chambéry, he was the count of Savoy from 1391 to 1416 and was elevated by Emperor Sigismund to duke of Savoy in 1416. In 1418, his distant cousin Louis of Piedmont, his brother-in-law, the last male of the elder branch of House of Savoy, died, leaving Amadeus as his heir-general, thus finally uniting the male-lines of the House of Savoy.


Amadeus increased his dominions and encouraged several attempts to negotiate an end to the Hundred Years' War. From 1401 to 1422, he campaigned to recover the area around Geneva and Annecy. After the death of his wife in 1431, he founded the Order of Saint Maurice with six other knights in 1434. They lived alone in the castle of Ripaille, near Geneva, in a quasi-monastic state according to a rule drawn up by himself. He appointed his son Louis regent of the duchy.


Amadeus' image in history is marred by the account of him as a pontiff concerned with money, to avoid disadvantaging his heirs, found in the "Commentaries" of Pius II. Nor is there any evidence that he intrigued to obtain the papal office, sending the bishops of Savoy to Basel for this purpose. Of the twelve bishops present, seven were Savoyards. After the death of his opponent Pope Eugene IV in 1447, both sides of the church favoured a settlement of the schism, and in 1449 he accepted the authority of Pope Nicholas V.


He married Mary of Burgundy (1386–1422), daughter of Philip the Bold. They had nine children:


Rotruda (or Roza) of Pavia (died after March 945) was an Italian noblewoman. Rotruda was married to Giselbert I of Bergamo and later became the mistress of Hugh of Italy.


Rotruda was the daughter of the "iudex" (judge) Walpert of Pavia. She married Giselbert of Bergamo "c".895. Together they had a son, Lanfranc I of Bergamo.


Probably after Giselbert I’s death (c.927/929), Rotruda became the mistress of Hugh of Italy, with whom she had a daughter, Rotlinda. Because of her relationship with Hugh, Rotruda is mentioned in Liutprand of Cremona's work "Antapodosis".


With Giselbert, Rotruda had the following children:


With Hugh, Rotruda had the following children:


Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini (1837–1914), styled by marriage as "duchessa Litta Visconti Arese", was an Italian noblewoman, philanthropist and hostess of a famous literary salon in Milan.


She was for a time a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. She is most known for her love affair with King Umberto I of Italy, which lasted from the time of his marriage in 1868 until his death in 1900.


Isabella Boschetti or Boschetto (c.1502 – ?) was a Mantuan noblewoman and lover of Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. She was nicknamed 'La bella Boschetta' (the beautiful Boschetta).


She was the second daughter of Giacomo Boschetti, a courtier and soldier in the Gonzaga court who fought at Fornovo. Her mother was a sister of Baldassarre Castiglione. A few years after she became Federico's mistress she married a nobleman at his court, Francesco Cauzzi Gonzaga, conte di Calvisano, who suffered a violent death in mysterious circumstances. In 1542 she remarried to count Filippo Tornielli.


In 1517 Anna d'Alençon managed to get a betrothal between Federico and her eldest daughter Maria Paleologa, but this was broken off when she was accused of trying to poison Isabella. Federico built the Palazzo Te for Isabella from 1525 onwards, where she entertained and received famous guests. The couple had two children, Alessandro (1520–1580), who became State Councillor of the Duchy of Mantua and served in the Spanish army in Flanders during the Dutch Revolt, and Emilia (1517–1573) who married Carlo Gonzaga (1523–1555) signore di Gazzuolo, with whom she had ten children.


In 1531 Federico commissioned Correggio's "Danaë", apparently intended for the Sala di Ovidio di Palazzo Te, intended for Isabella. Her year of death is unknown.


Lucrezia Donati (Florence, Italy; 1447-"ibidem", 1501) was an Italian noble who lived in the 15th century, mistress of Lorenzo de' Medici.


The identity of the woman in the sculpture "Dama col mazzolino", at Bargello Museum in Florence could be attributed to Lucrezia Donati. Also Sandro Botticelli's painting "Fortitude" would be another representation of her.


Lucrezia was the daughter of Manno Donati and Caterina Bardi, a Florentine dame who belonged to an extinct family tree, being the last descendant. From 1461 was the mistress of Lorenzo il Magnifico, a platonic love, until Lorenzo later married the Italian noble Clarice Orsini. In 1486 Lorenzo remembered the poems he had written for her when he was 16 in the poem "Corinto".


Lucrezia married the Florentian businessman Niccolò Ardighelli, who died in exile in 1496.


The actress Laura Haddock starred as Lucrezia Donati in the television series "Da Vinci's Demons". Alessandra Mastronardi played Lucrezia in "".


Rosa Vercellana, 1st Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda (3 June 1833 – 26 December 1885), commonly known as ‘Rosina’ and, in Piedmontese, as La Bela Rosin, was the mistress and later wife of Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy. Despite this, the morganatic status of her marriage meant that she was never recognized as Queen of Italy.


She was born in Nice, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, the youngest child of Giovanni Battista Vercellana and his wife, Maria Teresa Griglio. Four days later she was baptised as Maria Rosa Teresa Aloisia.


Her father, from Moncalvo in the Province of Asti, had been a standard bearer in the Napoleonic Imperial Guard. After the fall of Napoleon, he was appointed an Officer in the King's Guards and commanded the Royal Garrison in the hunting estate of Racconigi by 1847. There, while living with her family, the fourteen-year-old Rosa met Crown Prince Victor Emmanuel.


She became his mistress and later had two children by him.


Their affair caused a great scandal in 1849 when Victor Emanuel was crowned King of Sardinia. When his Queen died in 1855, the King named Rosa Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda by royal decree in 1858. The King also recognized their two children and assigned them the surname Guerrieri.,  In 1860, Victor Emmanuel established her in a new residence in a restored castle of La Mandria, near Venaria.


In 1864, the capital of Italy was moved from Turin to Florence and Vercellana established herself there in the villa La Pietraia. Five years later the king fell gravely ill at San Rossore, the royal estate near Pisa. Fearing death, on 18 October 1869, he hurriedly married his mistress, in a purely religious ceremony which conferred no civil rights upon his wife. Telegrams to Rome followed, seeking papal benediction.


A civil ceremony was held in Rome eight years later in 1877. This was a morganatic marriage, so she was never made Queen and her children had no rights of succession to the throne.


Victor Emanuel died two months after the ceremony. Rosa Vercellana survived him by eight years, dying on 26 December 1885.


As the Savoy family refused to allow her to be buried next to her husband in the Pantheon, her children had a mausoleum built for her in a similar form (if on a smaller scale) in Turin, next to the road to the Castello di Mirafiori. The circular, copper-domed, neoclassical monument, surmounted by a latin cross and surrounded by a large park, was designed by Angelo Dimezzi and completed in 1888.


In 1970 it was purchased by the Turin city council from a descendant of Rosa Vercellana for the sum of 132 million lire. The park was opened to the public two years later but almost immediately the mausoleum was broken into and the remains of Vercellana and her descendants were mutilated by people searching for jewels. Further acts of vandalism took place over subsequent years and the structure fell into a state of dereliction. Major restoration work was carried out at the start of the twenty-first century and the park was re-opened to the public in 2005.


Victor Emmanuel and Rosa Vercellana's children were:


Laura Bon (1825–1904) was an Italian stage actress.