In the late 18th century, Ludovico Luigi Vittorio of Carignano ordered a renovation of the interiors, enlarging the two southern towers, adding stucco and other neoclassical decoration; he also commissioned a new entrance, with 4 Corinthian columns and a triangular fronton, and the great staircase.


Charles Albert, a Carignano who eventually became King of Sardinia, further enlarged and embellished the castle to represent the splendour of the newly acquired reign. His court architect Ernesto Melano expanded the ancient square structure around the central section, added two side buildings connected to the façade pavilions, as well as another staircase on the southern side.


Here the last King of Italy, Umberto II, was born in 1904. Having received the castle as a wedding present in 1930, he proceeded to install in it the family gallery of some 3,000 paintings and historical documents regarding the Shroud of Turin.


Emmanuel Philibert created a wide park in the "jardin à la française" style that opens for the castle's northwards view. It was designed by the renowned 17th-century French landscape architect André Le Notre, known for designing the gardens of Versailles radiating from Palace of Versailles.


In the late 18th century the English landscape garden style was introduced, Pelagio Palagi erected a series of small structures along the lake; such as the Doric "Tempietto," the Gothic style chapel, and other landscape elements. A Russian dacha, built to honour Tsar Nicholas II of Russia's visit to Piedmont in order to sign the Racconigi Bargain, was also created in the landscape park.


The one hundred and seventy hectares of parkland were given its current design by the German Xavier Kurten, who gave the setting a romantic touch: lakes, canals, bridges, caves, picturesque buildings and old trees populated by several species of birds, including a large colony of storks, which are still nowadays a source of popularity, appreciation and attraction.


At the far end of the park the most impressive buildings can be found. These are the "Margherie", so called because they were originally used for the production of milk and cheese and as a dwelling for the shepherds. In the nineteenth century, in fact, as the new concept of country residence required, Racconigi intended to be a model farm and not just a royal castle and park. Therefore a compromise was reached for the creation of a functional and, at the same time, aesthetically impeccable building.


Louis Victor of Savoy, 4th Prince of Carignano (25 September 1721 – 16 December 1778) headed a cadet branch of the Italian dynasty which reigned over the Kingdom of Sardinia, being known as the Prince of Carignano from 1741 till his death. Upon extinction of the senior line of the family, his great-grandson succeeded to the royal throne as King Charles Albert of Sardinia, while his great-great-grandson, Victor Emmanuel II, became King of Italy.


Louis Victor was born at the Hôtel de Soissons, the Parisian home of his ancestor Marie de Bourbon, Countess of Soissons, to Victor Amadeus I, Prince of Carignano and his wife Maria Vittoria di Savoia. His father was a grandson of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano and thus a descendant of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain. He was doubly descended from the latter pair, as his mother was a legitimated daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his mistress Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes.


One of five children, he was the second son of his parents; his older brother Joseph Victor died and infant in 1716. Louis Victor was thus heir to the cadet branch of the House of Savoy-Carignano from birth. His older sister Anne Thérèse married the Frenchman Charles de Rohan and was Princess de Soubise by marriage. Anne Thérèse was the mother of Madame de Guéméné, official governess to the children of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.


Louis Victor grew up in Paris, where his father was both a courtier and an inveterate gambler. Heavily in debt in Piedmont, and sued by his sisters whose dowries he had gambled away, he had fled to France where he lived so luxurious a life that his son was forced to sell significant family assets in that country. He later moved to Piedmont, between Turin and Racconigi.


On 4 May 1740 Louis Victor married Princess Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg-Rheinfels, a sister of the Sardinian king's deceased wife Queen Polyxena (1706–1736). The couple had nine children.


The most renowned of their children, Marie Thérèse, is known to history as the Princesse de Lamballe whose close friendship with Marie Antoinette led to her brutal death during the French Revolution.


In 1741, Louis Victor's father died and he became the Prince of Carignano. The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, but the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance.


Louis Victor lost his wife in September, 1778 and died himself on 16 December 1778 at the Palazzo Carignano, the Turin residence of the Savoy-Carignano family. Since 1835 his wife's grave has been in Turin's Basilica of Superga, as is that of Louis Victor.


His descendants include Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples and Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta, rival claimants for the defunct throne of the Kingdom of Italy, as well as Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, head of a cadet branch of the former imperial House of Habsburg-Lorraine.


King Victor and King Charles was the second play written by Robert Browning for the stage. He completed it in 1839 for William Macready, who had staged "Strafford" two years before, but Macready rejected it as unsuitable and it was never performed. It was published in 1842 as the second number of "Bells and Pomegranates".


The subject of the play is the strange incident in 1730–32 in the Kingdom of Sardinia in which the elderly king, Victor Amadeus II, first abdicated in favour of his son Charles Emmanuel III, and then after months of ever-increasing complaints unexpectedly demanded to be restored. He was imprisoned until his death a year later. Browning's treatment is based on 18th century sources which cast Victor as deliberately deceptive, but he goes further to create a secret history in which Charles is exonerated from all charges of cruelty.


The play is in four acts and has only four main characters: Victor, Charles, Charles's wife Polyxena, and the minister D'Ormea. Charles suffers from an inferiority complex. He has always been regarded as the dull son, forced into the role of heir after the death of his abler brother. The theme is the anxious and misguided loyalty of Charles to his father and his refusal to believe that he could have been deceived. Despite his disappointment, his virtuous behaviour finally leads to a reconciliation.


The setting is the Castle of Rivoli. There are no scene changes.


The Duchy of Savoy, comprising Savoy proper and Piedmont (today in France and Italy respectively), has been united for three centuries. Over the past decades of Victor Amadeus's rule, the House of Savoy has prospered. It has successfully defended itself against its powerful enemies during the War of the Spanish Succession, after which a treaty permitted the acquisition of Sicily in 1713. Sicily was exchanged for Sardinia in 1720. Victor, the duke turned king, has solidified his power and is now one of the most absolute monarchs in Europe.


Polyxena is helping Charles to rehearse state speeches when they are visited briefly by the disdainful D'Ormea. Charles believes that he has been summoned to the palace to be disinherited in favour of an illegitimate son. Polyxena suggests that the King's mistress, Marchioness Sebastian, may have influenced Victor in that direction after he was widowed in 1728.


Victor soliloquises while carrying the regalia. Having foolishly made secret, incompatible deals with Austria and with Spain, he fears that a reconciliation between the two great powers will lead to the revealment of the deception, and justify the annexation of his kingdom. Nothing short of a change in ruler will extricate Sardinia from this situation, he believes. However, he has little faith in Charles, and expects to take power back from his weak son as soon as a renegotiation is complete and the coast is clear.


When Charles enters, Victor is startled by his tone of accusation, and wonders if D'Ormea (who expects to be made scapegoat) has told him anything. Victor places the crown on Charles's head and announces an intention to abdicate. He will take the name Count Tende and spend his retirement in Chambéry, 150 km away in the extreme northwest of Savoy. Charles is somewhat angry when he learns that Victor has secretly married his old mistress, but the guilt over his earlier suspicion is so great that he refuses even to consider the possibility that his father has ulterior motives for stepping down. When the baffled Polyxena suggests that all may not be as it seems, he turns away from her.


Victor enters the palace alone, and is surprised by his son while wandering about his old chamber. At first the old man is tactful, but gradually his indignation over his son's failure to adhere to his policies causes him to demand openly the return of his crown.


Polyxena and D'Ormea enter and remonstrate with him, having overheard. Victor quickly dissembles, modifying the end of his rant to make it appear that he had been complaining about his allowance and living quarters.


Victor is seized and brought to the palace. He is defiant, but when Charles places the crown on his head he is devastated by the filial piety the gesture represents. Fully reconciled with his son, Victor takes his old seat and passes away.


Macready wrote in his diary, in the entry for 5 September 1839: "Read Browning's play on Victor, King of Sardinia—it turned out to be a "great mistake". I called Browning into my room and most explicitly told him so." Arthur Symons described it as "the least interesting and valuable of Browning's plays, the thinnest in structure, the dryest in substance." Browning himself called it a "very indifferent substitute" for another play he had hoped to publish.


It was once generally accepted as historical fact that the abdication had been a ruse. However, modern historians believe that Victor sincerely intended to retire and that his subsequent behaviour was the result of a stroke, and attendant mental illness, possibly prompted by distress over the prison-like environment at Chambéry. Another former explanation, the supposed ambition and scheming of his mistress-turned-wife, was probably a cover story put out by authorities to divert blame and halt further speculation.


Henri of Savoy (7 November 1625, Paris – 4 January 1659, Paris) was the seventh Duc de Nemours (1652–59), and was also Count of Geneva.


Henri, as the third son of Henri de Savoie, 4th Duc de Nemours, was not expected to succeed to the dukedom and entered the priesthood. By 1651, he had become Archbishop of Reims. When his brothers Louis and Charles both predeceased him without leaving sons, he was relieved of his vows and became Duc de Nemours in 1652. He married Marie d'Orleans (daughter of Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville and Louise de Bourbon) in 1657, but died two years later without children. On his death, the title of Duke of Nemours reverted to the Crown. He was succeeded as Count of Geneva by his niece, Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Savoie, Duchess of Savoy.


The Order of the Black Swan ( or ) was a short-lived chivalric order founded by Amadeus VI of Savoy in 1350. It was defunct by 1364, when Amadeus founded the Order of the Collar in its stead. Along with Amadeus, Amadeus III of Geneva and Galeazzo Visconti were the "great lords" ("grans seignours") of the Order. At the time of its founding, the existence of black swans was unknown to Europeans.


The order was originally composed of fourteen knights. The requirements of membership were the possession of a charger and a palfrey, and the ability to serve at one's own expense for one week whenever required. The Order did collect dues (at least from noblemen, "riches hommes") for purposes "estreordinaire" (extraordinary) according to rank ("puissance"): eight "écus" from a knight banneret, four from what they called a "chivallier simple", and one from any squire. Annually on Saint Andrew's Day the knights assembled and approved expenditures. In the meantime, the monies were stored in several religious establishments.


The Order's emblem was a black swan with red beak and feet on a white field, and members ("compaignons") were required to display it, usually on their shields. Members swore an oath to defend each other, even against relatives beyond the degree of first cousin, and to submit all disputes between themselves to the judgement of the membership. Any knight who refused to abide by the arbitration of the others was expelled and his former comrades joined in arms against him.


Antonia of Savoy (died 1500), was Lady of Monaco by marriage to Jean II, Lord of Monaco.


Antonia or Antoinette of Savoy was the illegitimate daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy and his mistress Libera Portoneri. She was raised in the household of the queen of France, Charlotte of Savoy. In 1487, she was arranged to marry the heir to the throne of Monaco in a peace agreement between Monaco and Savoy supported by France. The marriage was of high importance to Savoy, and part of a process in which was completed in 1489, when Savoy acknowledged the independence of Savoy.


The couple had a daughter, Marie Grimaldi, wo was in 1515 married to Geronimo della Rovere and was forced to renounce her rights to the throne upon her marriage.


Princess Bona of Savoy-Genoa, later Princess Bona of Bavaria (Maria Bona Margherita Albertina Vittoria; 1 August 1896 – 2 February 1971), was a daughter of Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa and Princess Isabella of Bavaria.


Bona was the third of six children born to Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa and his wife Princess Isabella of Bavaria. Her father was a grandson of King Charles Albert of Sardinia. Among her siblings were Ferdinando, 3rd Duke of Genoa; Filiberto, 4th Duke of Genoa; and Eugenio, 5th Duke of Genoa. Her mother Isabella was a granddaughter of Ludwig I of Bavaria.


Bona was born at Castle d'Agliè, Piedmont. Her father had bought the eleventh-century castle shortly before his marriage with Isabella. They passed their honeymoon there.


On 8 January 1921, Bona married her second cousin, Prince Konrad of Bavaria. He was the youngest son of Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Archduchess Gisela of Austria. Through his father, he was a great-grandson of Ludwig I of Bavaria, and through his mother was a grandson of Franz Joseph I of Austria. The wedding took place at Castle Agliè in Piedmont, Italy (where she was born). It was attended by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, Crown Prince Umberto, and the Duke of Aosta, among others. The wedding is notable for being the first royal marriage between two enemy houses since World War I began and ended. It was also remarkable as a gathering of royalty representing the Houses of Habsburg, Savoy, and Wittelsbach.


At the end of the Second World War, Prince Konrad was arrested by the French military at Hinterstein. He was brought to Lindau and temporarily interned in the hotel Bayerischer Hof, together with among others the German Crown Prince Wilhelm and the former Nazi diplomat Hans Georg von Mackensen. Princess Bona, who worked during the war as a nurse, stayed afterwards with her relatives in Savoy. She was prohibited from entering Germany and was not reunited with her family until 1947. In later years Prince Konrad worked on the Board of German automaker NSU.


Bona died on 2 February 1971 in Rome. Her tomb can be found in the church of the Andechs Abbey, in Germany. Her husband Prince Konrad died on 6 September 1969.


Thomas Francis of Savoy, 1st Prince of Carignano (; ; 21 December 1596 – 22 January 1656) was an Italian military commander and the founder of the Carignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946.


Born in Turin, Thomas was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of the sovereign Duke Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy by his consort Caterina Micaela of Austria, a daughter of King Philip II of Spain and the French princess Elisabeth of France. His mother died the following year. While still a young man, Thomas bore arms in the service of the king of Spain in Italy.


Although in previous reigns, younger sons had been granted rich appanages in Switzerland (Genevois, Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours, Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regional secession. Not only did Thomas have older brothers, he was but one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring by noble mistresses, appear to have been generously endowed or dowered during their father's lifetime.


The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km. south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance. Instead of receiving a significant patrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 to Marie de Bourbon; she was sister to and co-heiress with Louis, Count of Soissons, who would be killed in 1641 while fomenting rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.


In anticipation of this inheritance Thomas and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's capital, Turin, but dwelt in Paris, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of a "princesse du sang", being a second cousin of King Louis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among the "princes étrangers" at the French court—taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerful House of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereign Duke of Lorraine was more remote. He was appointed "Grand Maître" of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorous "Grand Condé". He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtier Claude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children.


The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision to legitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon, "chevalier" de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignano". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as a secundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas, the senior branch of his descendants repatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses.


After seeking Spanish support late in 1638 for action against Regent Christine Marie, "Madame Royale", Thomas went to Spanish Milan early in 1639, and alongside Spanish forces invaded Piedmont, where many towns welcomed him. He took Turin by trickery, but the French continued to control its citadel. In 1640, he held the city in the multi-layered siege of Turin. After repeated bouts of negotiations with the Regent and the French, Thomas made peace with both in the first half of 1642, and unblushingly changed sides and started fighting with the French against the Spaniards.


During his absence, Regent Christine had gained control of the fortresses granted to Thomas as part of the settlement of the Piedmontese Civil War (legally, these reverted to ducal control when the Duke came of age), which under Piedmontese law Charles Emmanuel did in 1648, though his mother remained in control of the government; Christine, accompanied by her son and part of the ducal army, entered Ivrea and dismissed Thomas' personal garrison; she appointed Thomas instead as governor or Asti and Alba, positions which sweetened the blow but were entirely under ducal control, not guaranteed by treaty. When he returned to Piedmont, Thomas had no choice but to accept the fait accompli, and soon after this he went to live in Paris.


After the 1655 campaign, Thomas returned to Turin where he died the following January; the suggestion in Spanheim that he died "at" the siege of Pavia is not supported - malaria, a common problem in the marshes of the Po valley, carried him off, as it carried off his successor as allied commander-in-chief, Francesco I d'Este.


Thomas and Marie de Bourbon had seven children (Italian names in parentheses):


The House of Savoy-Carignano (; ) originated as a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. It was founded by Thomas Francis of Savoy, Prince of Carignano (1596–1656), an Italian military commander who was the fifth son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. His descendants were accepted as "princes étrangers" at the court of France, where some held prominent positions. They eventually came to reign as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946. The Savoy-Carignano family also, briefly, supplied a king each to Spain and Croatia, as well as queens consort to Bulgaria and Portugal.


Born in Turin, Thomas Francis of Savoy was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of Charles Emmanuel I, sovereign Duke of Savoy, by his wife, Catherine Micaela of Spain (daughter of King Philip II of Spain and his consort, Elizabeth of Valois, a French princess). While still a young man, he bore arms in Italy in the service of the King of Spain.


Although in previous reigns, younger sons of Savoy had been granted rich appanages in Switzerland (Genevois, Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours, Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regional secession. Not only did Thomas Francis have older brothers, but he was just one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring by noble mistresses, appear to have been generously endowed or dowered during their father's lifetime.


The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty kilometers south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance. Instead of receiving a significant patrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 to Marie de Bourbon, sister and co-heiress of Louis, Count of Soissons, who would be killed in 1641 while fomenting rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.


In anticipation of this inheritance, Thomas Francis and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's ducal capital, Turin, but dwelt in Paris, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of a "princesse du sang", being a second cousin of King Louis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas Francis, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among the "princes étrangers" at the French court —- taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerful House of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereign Duke of Lorraine was more remote. He was appointed "Grand Maître" of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorous "Grand Condé". He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtier Claude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children.


The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision to legitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon, "chevalier" de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignan". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as a secundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas Francis, the senior branch of his descendants repatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses.


When France launched the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), Thomas Francis served under the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV in the Spanish Netherlands. Piedmont was reluctantly dragged into the fighting alongside the French, consequently Thomas Francis was, strictly, fighting against his own homeland. He was completely defeated and his army entirely killed, captured or scattered - the first in an unbroken career of military defeats. He managed to rally the remnants at Namur, then retreated before the numerically-superior French and Dutch forces; and he probably served the rest of the campaign with Ferdinand.


In 1636, Thomas Francis served with the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand who organised a joint Spanish-Imperialist army for a major invasion of France from the Spanish Netherlands. The invasion was initially very successful, and seemed capable of reaching Paris, where there was a great panic; if Ferdinand and Thomas had pushed on, they might have ended the war at this point, but they both felt that continuing to Paris was too risky, so they stopped the advance. Later in the campaign, Thomas had problems with the Imperialist general Ottavio Piccolomini, who refused to accept orders from the Prince as a Spanish commander, arguing that his Imperialist troops were an independent force.


In this year, when his brother-in-law Louis de Bourbon, comte de Soissons fled from France after his failed conspiracy against Cardinal Richelieu, Thomas Francis acted as intermediary between Soissons and the Spanish in negotiations which led to a formal alliance between the count and Philip IV of Spain concluded 28 June 1637 - although within a month Soissons had reconciled with France. In 1638, Thomas served in Spanish Flanders, helping to defend the fortress-city of Saint-Omer against a French siege.


After seeking Spanish support late in 1638 for action against the Regent Christine of Savoy, "Madame Royale", Thomas went to Spanish Milan early in 1639, and alongside Spanish forces invaded Piedmont, where many towns welcomed him. He took Turin by knavery, but the French continued to control its citadel. In 1640, he held the city in the multi-layered siege of Turin. After repeated bouts of negotiations with the Regent and the French, Thomas Francis made peace with both in the first half of 1642, unblushingly changed sides, and started fighting with the French against the Spaniards.


In 1645, now commanding with Du Plessis Praslin, he took Vigevano, and repulsed a Spanish attempt to block his withdrawal at the River Mora, the nearest he ever came to a success in the field. In 1646, Thomas Francis was put in command of the French expedition sent south to take the Tuscan forts, after which he was to advance further south to Naples, drive out the Spanish and put himself on the throne of the kingdom; but the expedition set off late, and when he besieged Orbetello, the supporting French fleet was defeated by the Spanish and he was forced to raise the siege and conduct a difficult retreat, which he performed poorly.


In the 1647 campaign, Thomas Francis is mentioned as commanding alongside the French general in the forces sent across north Italy to work with the Duke of Modena Francesco I d'Este who had just allied with France and opened up a 'second front' against the Spaniards in Milan, though Mazarin confessed that he had appointed Thomas only because he feared that, if left behind in Piedmont, the Prince's restless spirit would make more trouble.


During his absence, Regent Christine had gained control of the fortresses granted to Thomas Francis as part of the settlement of the Piedmontese Civil War (legally, these reverted to ducal control when the Duke came of age, which under Piedmontese law Charles Emmanuel did in 1648, though his mother remained in control of the government; Christine, accompanied by her son and part of the ducal army, entered Ivrea and dismissed Thomas' personal garrison; she appointed Thomas Francis instead as governor or Asti and Alba, positions which sweetened the blow but were entirely under ducal control, not guaranteed by treaty. When he returned to Piedmont, Thomas had no choice but to accept the fait accompli, and soon after this he went to live in Paris.


The Franco-Spanish war had been continuing in north Italy, and late in 1654, increasing Piedmontese hostility to the current French commander Grancey led to a search for a new allied commander-in-chief; the French would have preferred to send the Duke of York (later King James II), but he too was unacceptable to Turin, so Thomas Francis was appointed as joint commander - though his wife was held in France almost as a hostage for his good behaviour. On 16 December 1654 he arrived in Turin, to a ceremonial welcome by the French troops and an unexpectedly friendly reception by Duke Charles Emmanuel. After the 1655 campaign, Thomas Francis returned to Turin where he died the following January.


Among the children of Prince Thomas Francis and Marie de Bourbon-Soissons were:


The subsequent Princes of Carignano, with their respective dates of tenure in brackets, were as follows:


Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, 2nd Prince of Carignano (20 August 1628 – 23 April 1709), Prince of Carignano, was the son and heir of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano. He constructed the Palazzo Carignano in Turin.


He was born deaf, at Moûtiers, Savoy, now part of France. His being deaf greatly concerned his family. However, he eventually learned to communicate with others by lip-reading, and to speak a few words, though with great difficulty.


As a youth he was sent to the Spanish priest Don Manuel Ramirez, a famous teacher of the deaf in Spain. Under his guidance, Emmanuel Philibert learned to read and to write. He went on to study a range of sciences under the guidance of Alessandro Tesauro, showing great aptitude. His sister, Princess Louise Christine was the wife of Hereditary Prince Ferdinand Maximilian of Baden-Baden, they were the parents of the famous "Türkenlouis", Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden.


In his 20s Emmanuel Philibert followed his father Thomas in the last of his campaigns in Lombardy, acquitting himself with great valour, and two years later he was named a colonel of cavalry in the service of his distant cousin Louis XIV, King of France.


In 1658 Emmanuel Philibert was created a lieutenant-general by his first cousin Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, in the latter's absence, and in 1663 was appointed governor of the city of Asti. When Charles Emmanuel died in 1675, his son and heir Victor Amadeus was only nine years old, and Emmanuel Philibert became heir presumptive to Savoy unless and until Victor Amadeus had a male heir in turn (which was not to happen until 1699).


A great connoisseur of architecture, Emmanuel Philibert commissioned the Palazzo Carignano in Turin, built between 1679 and 1684. He also commissioned major renovations to the castle of Racconigi. Guarino Guarini rebuilt an older dwelling, while the project for the park was entrusted to André le Nôtre who realised magnificent French-style gardens.


In November 1701, he acted as Philip V of Spain in a proxy marriage between Philip V and his cousin Maria Luisa of Savoy. He also acted as god father to Maria Luisa's sister, Princess Maria Adelaide, mother of Louis XV.


Emmanuel Philibert died in Turin on 21 April 1709. In 1836 his remains were brought to the church of San Michele della Chiusa in that city.


On 10 November 1684 in the Castle of Racconigi, Emmanuel Philibert, by now in his fifties, married Maria Angela Caterina d'Este, the beautiful daughter of the late General Borso d'Este, a member of the ducal family of Modena, and Ippolita d'Este, Borso's niece. This match was opposed by Louis XIV of France, who had wanted Emmanuel Philibert to marry a French princess, given his position as heir to the duchy of Savoy (Marie Thérèse de Bourbon or one of her sisters were the proposed bride's, as Louis XIV had no surviving legitimate daughters).


In 1685, after the intercession of Vittorio Amadeo II, Emmanuel Philibert obtained permission from Louis XIV to return to Turin. He and Caterina had two girls and two boys, of whom only their son Vittorio Amadeo would have children.


Anna Carlotta Teresa Canalis di Cumiana (23 April 1680 – 13 April 1769) was the morganatic wife of Victor Amadeus II, King of Sardinia. She was created Marchesa of Spigno.


Born at the Palazzo Canalis, Turin in 1680, she was a daughter of Francesco Maurizio Canalis, Count of Cumiana and his wife Monica Francesca San Martino d'Agliè. Receiving education as a nun at the Convent of the Visitation in Turin, she was introduced to the ducal court of Savoy in 1695. She was made a lady-in-waiting to Marie Jeanne of Savoy, mother of the ruler, Victor Amadeus II. She was styled as "Mademoiselle de Cumiana".


She was married on 21 April 1703 to Ignazio Francesco Novarina, the Count of San Sebastiano, by whom she purportedly had eight children. The marriage was arranged by Duchess Marie Jeanne, to whose household she belonged and who had noticed her son's wandering eye looking in the direction of the beautiful and unmarried Anna.


The couple's first child is widely believed to have been fathered by Victor Amadeus but San Sebastiano accepted paternity. Victor Amadeus and Anna were in correspondence and she soon became a confidante in place of his wife, Anne Marie. Leaving the court in 1723 with her husband who had a good career, she soon became a widow at her husband's death on 25 September 1724. Left with limited means, Victor Amadeus called her back to court where she was made a lady-in-waiting to Polyxena, Princess of Piedmont, wife of Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Piedmont and heir apparent of Victor Amadeus II. She was later elevated to the position of Polyxena's lady-in-waiting, where she was given a position equivalent to Lady of the Bedchamber.


In August 1728 Victor Amadeus's consort Anne Marie d'Orléans died after a series of heart attacks. Two years later he married Anna in a private ceremony on 12 August 1730 in the Royal Chapel in Turin, having obtained permission from Pope Clement XII. Victor Amadeus created her Marchesa of Spigno. The title was attached to a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, acquired as spoils of the War of the Spanish Succession and subsequently owned by an illegitimate brother of Victor Amadeus.


The couple made their marriage public on 3 September 1730, much to the dismay of the court. A month later, Victor Amadeus announced his wish to abdicate the throne and did so in a ceremony at the Castle of Rivoli on the day of his marriage. His son succeeded him as Charles Emmanuel III.


King Victor Amadeus having died in September 1732, Anna was imprisoned in the Convent of San Giuseppe di Carignano. She was later moved to the Convent of the Visitation in Pinerolo where she died aged 88. Her son later left the Savoy court in disgrace but succeeded to the marquisate of Spigno. She was buried at Pinerolo in a grave without a headstone.


The Perfect Fusion () was the 1847 act of the Savoyard king Charles Albert of Sardinia which abolished the administrative differences between the Mainland states (Savoy and Piedmont) and the island of Sardinia, in a fashion similar to the Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800.


The once Iberian Kingdom of Sardinia had become a possession of the House of Savoy in 1720, and it had continued to be ruled as during the ages of the Spanish Empire.


Although the Sardinian populace had been showing hostility against the new Piedmontese rulers since the failed insurrection in 1794, the island's separate status from the Mainland became a problem for the local notables from two major cities of Cagliari and Sassari when liberal reforms began to be put in force in Turin, and some of them started to see their own legal system as a handicap more than a privilege; a minority of other Sardinian notables, like Giovanni Battista Tuveri and Federico Fenu, were not in favour of the idea, fearing that further moves toward the centralisation of the Savoy-led Kingdom might have followed thereafter. King Charles Albert eventually solved the problem by transforming all his dominions into a single, centralized state.


A new legal system entered into force in Sardinia, and the last viceroy, Claudio Gabriele de Launay, left Cagliari on 4 March 1848. The island was divided into three provinces ruled by their prefects, following the system already used in Piedmont since 1815.


Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna (1306–1365) was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second spouse of Andronikos III Palaiologos. She served as regent during the minority of her son from 1341 until 1347.


Anna was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, and his second wife, Maria of Brabant. She was betrothed to Andronikos III Palaiologos in September 1325, during which time he was involved in a civil war with his paternal grandfather Andronikos II Palaiologos.


The marriage took place in October 1326. She joined the Eastern Orthodox Church and took the name Anna. In 1328, Andronikos III entered Constantinople and finally deposed his grandfather.


On 14-15 June 1341, Andronikos III died. He was succeeded by their son John V who was still three days short of his ninth birthday. Anna was appointed regent for her son. However Andronikos III had entrusted the administration to his advisor John Kantakouzenos. Anna did not trust the powerful advisor.


At about the same time, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia launched an invasion of Northern Thrace. Kantakouzenos left Constantinople to try to restore order to the area. In his absence, Patriarch John XIV of Constantinople and courtier Alexios Apokaukos convinced Anna that the senior advisor was her enemy. Anna declared Kantakouzenos an enemy of the state and offered the title of eparch of Constantinople to Apokaukos.


Kantakouzenos was still in control of part of the Byzantine army. On 26 October 1341, he answered by proclaiming himself emperor at Didymoteicho. This was the beginning of a civil war that would last until 1347. Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria soon allied with the faction under John V and Anna while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI. Both rulers were actually taking advantage of the civil war for their own political and territorial gains. In time John VI would ally himself with Orhan I of the nascent Ottoman emirate.


At the same time Anna was attempting to gain support from Western Europe. In Summer, 1343 an emissary proclaimed her loyalty to Pope Clement VI in Avignon. In August, 1343, Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels to the Republic of Venice for 30,000 ducats as part of an attempt to secure more finances for the war. However Anna at last lost the war.


On 3 February 1347, the two sides reached an agreement. John VI was accepted as senior emperor with John V as his junior co-ruler. The agreement included the marriage of John V to Helena Kantakouzene, a daughter of John VI. John VI entered Constantinople and took effective control of the city.


In 1351, Anna left Constantinople for Thessaloniki. She held her own court in the city, issuing decrees in her name and even controlling a mint. She was the second Byzantine empress to hold court in Thessaloniki, following Irene of Montferrat. Her rule there lasted to about 1365.


Her last official act was the donation of a convent in the memory of "Agioi Anargyroi" (Greek: «Άγιοι Ανάργυροι» "The Holy Unmercenaries"). Agioi Anargyroi is the joined description of Saints Cosmas and Damian, who supposedly


offered free medical services. Their devotees usually pray for healing. The donation may indicate Anna suffering from poor health and hoping for a cure. A little later she became a nun and died under the name "Anastasia" ca. 1365.


Count Thomas III (c. 1246 – 16 May 1282), called "Thomas of Savoy" or "de Savoie", was the lord of Piedmont and a claimant to the county of Savoy from 1268.


He was the eldest son of Thomas II of Savoy and Beatrice di Fieschi, niece of Pope Innocent IV.


Upon the death of his father, Thomas became Count in his paternal estates in Piedmont.


When his first cousin Boniface, Count of Savoy died in 1263, the 15-year-old Thomas regarded himself as the successor of the deceased, and claimed the county and the headship of the house. However, his late father's younger brother Peter II, Count of Savoy, a sonless nobleman who had resided in England for much of his life, was recognized as count. After Peter's death in 1268, Thomas continued his claim although Philip of Savoy, archbishop of Lyon, the youngest surviving brother of his father and also sonless, succeeded in the county and was recognized.


Thomas III, as he was the eldest son and heir of Thomas II, felt an injustice in being surpassed by younger brothers of his father, and claimed unsuccessfully Savoy from his uncles.


Thomas III married in 1274 to Guia of Burgundy, the stepdaughter of his uncle Philip I of Savoy and they had five children:


Philip and Thomas were in dispute much of their reigns 1268–82. Thomas' marriage was a rather unsuccessful attempt to patch up things and get Philip to recognize hims as the successor in Savoy, which would have belonged to Thomas, him being the eldest son of Thomas II and thus the founder of the genealogically senior line of the House of Savoy. Philip’s will charged his niece Eleanor of Provence and her son King Edward I of England with the inheritance of Savoy.


Thomas III was fatally wounded in a border dispute with Humbert I of Viennois in 1282.


Prince Umberto of Savoy (22 June 1889 – 19 October 1918) was a member of the Aosta branch of the House of Savoy and was styled the Count of Salemi.


Umberto was born in Turin, the fourth son of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, the only one by his second wife and niece Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte (1866–1926) the daughter of Prince Napoléon and Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy. His father, a former king of Spain, died when he was just a year old. He had three older half-brothers: the Duke of Aosta, the Count of Turin and the Duke of the Abruzzi.


In 1908 Umberto began studies at the Naval Academy in Livorno. In May 1911, while still at the academy, he was accused of theft. His cousin King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy wanted him arrested, but his mother took him to Turin and challenged the king to carry out the arrest. In July Victor Emmanuel ordered that he be detained at the Castle of Moncalieri and then spend eighteen months aboard a man-of-war, during which time a Carabinieri colonel would act as his tutor and keeper.


During the First World War Umberto volunteered to serve in the Royal Italian Army. He joined the army as a lieutenant and served in a Catania cavalry regiment. During the war he was awarded a silver medal for bravery displayed while acting as a bombing officer.


Umberto died a month before the end of the war. The official court bulletin recorded that he was killed in action, but in fact he was a victim of the 1918 influenza pandemic. He was buried in the cemetery of Crespano del Grappa. In 1926 his remains were moved to the Sacrario Militare del Monte Grappa.


Eugenio of Savoy (Eugenio Ilarione; 21 October 1753 – 30 June 1785) was a prince of the House of Savoy and founder of the Villafranca branch of the royal family of Italy that survived until 1888. He was a brother of Queen Marie Antoinette's tragic confidante, the "Princesse de Lamballe".


Born in Turin, he was the next to youngest of the nine children of Louis Victor of Savoy, Prince of Carignano and his German wife, Christine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. Although their family seat was the principality of Carignano 20 kilometers south of Turin, of which they were nominally suzerains, as princes of the blood royal in the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Savoy-Carignanos were in attendance at the royal court of the Savoys in Turin, while also maintaining a residence in Paris and frequenting the French court.


"Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter" (Prince Eugene, the Noble Knight) is an Austrian-German folksong about the victory of Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1717 during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718. It tells of the bravery of Prince Eugene, his companion Prince Ludwig who lost his life in the battle, and their soldiers in defeating the Turks and recovering the city of Belgrade for the Holy Roman Empire. The oldest known record of the song comes from a handwritten songbook of 1719. The lyricist is unknown.


The song is a narrative of the Siege of Belgrade (1717). The text diverts from historical accuracy in two aspects. The day of the final assault on the defenders is given as the 21 August although it was 16 August. Second, the song tells of the death of one Prince Louis ("Prinz Ludewig"). Eugene had two brothers named Louis but none of them fell at Belgrade. The younger one, Louis Julius (1660–1683) who had entered Imperial service prior to Eugene was killed by Crimean Tatars at Petronell, whereas the older one, Louis Thomas (1657–1702) had died at the Siege of Landau (1702).


The author of the song is unknown. The melody derives from "Als Chursachsen das vernommen" (1683) and has also been adopted in the period before the German revolutions of 1848–1849 to (Whether we [wear] red or yellow collars). Josef Strauss composed in 1865 his Prinz Eugen March, Op. 186, for the unveiling of a statue of Prince Eugene at the Heldenplatz in Vienna; it uses elements of the folksong.


The First Churchills is a BBC serial from 1969 about the life of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and his wife, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. It stars John Neville as the duke and Susan Hampshire as the duchess, was written and produced by Donald Wilson, and was directed by David Giles. It is notable as being the first programme shown on PBS's long-running "Masterpiece" series in the United States. Wilson and Giles were fresh from their success in writing and directing "The Forsyte Saga", which also starred Susan Hampshire and Margaret Tyzack.


The serial presents the lives of John and Sarah Churchill from their meeting in 1673 until a time shortly after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and illustrates, along the way, much of the context of contemporary English politics. Like many BBC serials of the era, it was made on a low budget, with sound-studio sets, and generally avoided battle and crowd scenes because they were unable to stage them in a convincing manner. The series is based on the Marlboroughs' famous descendant Winston Churchill's life of his ancestor the Duke, and as such presents a very favourable portrait of the Marlboroughs.


The serial depicts most of the important political figures of the day:


The theme for the opening titles of each episode is the "Trumpet tune (Warlike consort)" from Act V of Henry Purcell's opera "King Arthur". The theme for the closing credits of each episode is the second piece, a Rondeau, of Henry Purcell's incidental music, composed about 1695, to Aphra Behn's 1676 play "Abdelazer, or The Moor's Revenge", perhaps better known as the theme used by Benjamin Britten in "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra".


The serial has been released on DVD, distributed by Acorn Media UK.


Honorat de Savoie, marquis of Villars (c. 1511 - 20 September 1580, Le Grand-Pressigny) was a marshal of France and admiral of France.


He was a son of René of Savoy and Anne of Lascaris. He accompanied Henry II of France on his 1552 trip to Lorraine and in 1553 relieved the town of Hesdin from its siege by the prince of Piedmont. He was wounded at battle of Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557, though this did not stop him relieving Corbie from its Spanish siege. He accompanied Charles IX of France on his grand tour of France and in 1567 assisted at the Assemblée des Grands de France held at Moulins. He fought zealously against the Huguenots, fighting at Saint-Denis and Moncontour.


In 1540 he married Jeanne Françoise de Foix, viscountess of Castillon (†1542), with whom he only had one child, Henriette de Savoie-Villars († 1611), who married Charles, Duke of Mayenne. In 1565, his fiefdom of Villars was promoted to a marquisate dependent on the House of Savoy. In 1570, he succeeded Blaise de Monluc as lieutenant of Guyenne, where he repressed the Huguenots in 1573. The king rewarded him by making him marshal of France in 1571 and admiral of France and of the Levant Seas in 1572 after the death of Gaspard II de Coligny. He was dismissed as admiral in 1578 in favour of his relation Charles de Lorraine, duc de Mayenne. He was appointed to the Order of the Holy Spirit on 1 January 1579.


FERT (sometimes tripled, "FERT, FERT, FERT"), the motto of the royal house of Savoy-Sardinia and Italy, the House of Savoy, was adopted by King Vittorio Amedeo II (1666–1732).


It appeared for the first time on the collar of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation, or "Ordine Supremo della Santissima Annunziata", the primary dynastic order of the kingdom. This ceased to be a national order when Italy became a republic in 1946. The order remains under the jurisdiction of the head of the House of Savoy, however, as hereditary Sovereign and Grand Master.


The meaning of the letters has been a matter of some controversy, to which a number of interpretations have been offered. The motto is believed an acronym of:


It has also been suggested that the letters are actually the Latin word (third-person singular present active indicative of ), meaning '[he/she/it] suffers/bears', possibly referring to Jesus bearing the sins of the world.


A French-language parody of FERT was said by Savoy's neighbors to mean (French: 'Strike, Enter, Break Everything'), from their penchant for .


The lordship, later principality of Piedmont (, ) was originally an appanage of the Savoyard county and as such its lords were members of the Achaea branch of the House of Savoy. The title was inherited by the elder branch of the dynasty in 1418, at about which time Savoy was elevated to ducal status and Piedmont to princely status. When the House of Savoy was given the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Savoyards used the style of Prince of Piedmont () for their heir apparent. This first came into use by Prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy.


The usage was retained when Victor Emmanuel II became King of Italy, "Prince of Piedmont" becoming roughly equivalent to the British "Prince of Wales", the title bestowed to the Crown prince.


When the House of Savoy became the ruling dynasty of Italy in 1861, they continued to use the title of Prince of Piedmont for the heir apparent but also began alternating it with a new title, the Prince of Naples, once conferred by Joseph Bonaparte as being hereditary on his children and grandchildren.


Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation


The Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation () is a Roman Catholic order of knighthood, originating in Savoy. It eventually was the pinnacle of the honours system in the Kingdom of Italy, which ceased to be a national order when the kingdom became a republic in 1946. Today, the order continues as a dynastic order under the jurisdiction of the Head of the House of Savoy, Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta, who is the order's hereditary Sovereign and Grand Master.


The origins of the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation begins in 1362, when Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy (1343-1383) instituted the order's earliest designation, under the title of Order of the Collar. Even at this time, the order was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is celebrated as "Our Lady of the Annunciation." Thus, the order is a dynastic religious (or Catholic) order of chivalry.


Under its first formulation, the order had fifteen knights. The number was symbolic of the number of daily masses celebrated with the order. In 1409, Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, gave the order its first known statutes, and in 1434, he extended the order to five more knights.


Amadeus VIII's statutes were subsequently amended and reformed by Charles III, Duke of Savoy in 1518, by Emanuele Filiberto, Duke of Savoy in 1570, and thereafter by succeeding Sovereigns. The most recent took place on 11 June 1985 by HRH Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples and hereditary Grand Master of the order. It was in 1518, that many of the present designations were instituted. Most importantly, the order's name was changed to its current name, The Most Holy Order of the Annunciation. The badge of the order was also changed, with the representation of the Blessed Virgin Mary being added.


The order, throughout its early history and following the reforms of Charles III, was awarded for supreme recognition of distinguished services. The order constituted a kind of religious and military fraternity between the Sovereign Head of the Order and his companions; it was reserved exclusively to distinguished men-at-arms who, apart from exemplary service, had to be of illustrious birth, particularly of catholic and noble birth.


Eventually, it was deemed appropriate to recognize also those who had rendered distinguished service to the Kingdom of Italy (and now the House of Savoy) in the exercise of high civil offices, not requiring, when a such achievements could be demonstrated, nobility of birth as well.


Today, the order holds the following other regulations:


In 1925, a law was passed on the day before Christmas which made the Head of Government (who at the time was Benito Mussolini) the Secretary of the Order, and stipulated that he would preside over the Knights of the Order at public functions and ceremonies.


The order has only one class, i.e. "Knight". The full Italian title is "Cavaliere dell'Ordine Supremo della Santissima Annunziata".


Although the order has only one class, it has two sets of insignia, the "Piccola Collana" and the "Grande Collana". The two hold similar designs, though the "Grande Collana" has some different features than the "Piccola Collana" and is worn only on the most special of occasions.


The primary and oldest insignia of the order is its collar. It consists of a solid gold medallion of the collar, which portrays the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Archangel Gabriel. The medallion is surrounded by three intertwined Savoyan knots, decorated with small crosses fleury, and in the upper center, between two of the Savoyan knots, a cluster of rays with a dove, representing the Holy Spirit, is depicted also in gold.


The badge is suspended from a gold chain made up of fifteen ornate gold sections, each of which is linked by Savoyan knot. Each has the letters F.E.R.T. interwoven. The meaning of these letters have been of some controversy, to which a number of interpretations have been offered. The first states that the letters stand for "Fortitudo Eius Rhodum Tulit" (meaning "By his bravery he conquered Rhodes"), referring to the victory at Rhodes by Count Amadeus V in 1310.


The star of the order, which was first used in 1680 by specifications of the Royal Lady Maria Giovana Battista, Duchess Regent of Savoy, is of gold and also has a representation of the Annunciation in a medallion in the center which is set within a gold cross of four pommels. This is surrounded by a cluster of gold rays. Between the arms of the cross of four pommels are the letters F.E.R.T.


The "Grande Collana" differs from the "Piccola Collana" in that the collar consists of fourteen ornate sections, each of which is made up of the letters F.E.R.T. in gold, intertwined with a white and red enameled Savoyan knot. The sections are interlinked with fourteen roses, alternately enameled red and white. The roses represent the mysteries in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The knots surrounding the medallion of the collar is enameled white, red, and blue.


The insignia of the order has the following regulations:


On the day of the initiation of a new knight into the Order the small collar was worn by the initiate before the accolade by Grand Master, while after the accolade the Grand Master would place the large collar over the shoulders of the new knight.


When the order is not worn, Knights may wear a gold miniature of the badge (medallion of the collar) of the order suspended from a red ribbon. They may also wear either a ribbon-bar (upon a uniform) or a rosette (upon a suit), both of which are red and have a miniature cross of four pommels engraved with the Annunciation.


The "Grand Magisterium" is the governing body of the dynastic orders of the Royal House of Savoy. It consists of the Sovereign and Grand Master of the Order, the Grand Chancellor of the Order, the Council of the Order, Members, and the Giunta of the Order. The following are some of those that make up the "Grand Magisterium" of the order.


Among the notable recipients of the order of the Annunciation, King Amanullah of Afghanistan (reigned 1919-1929) should probably be mentioned, especially since he was not a Christian. He received the honor during his State visit to Italy in 1928, when he authorized, for the first time, the opening of a Catholic church in Afghanistan (within the Italian Embassy) and the residence of a Catholic priest.


Philip II (1340 – 20 January 1368) was the Count of Piedmont and claimant to the Principality of Achaea briefly from 1367 to his death.


He was the son of James of Piedmont and Sibylle des Baux. On 19 September 1362, he married Alix de Thoire de Villars, but he had no children. He succeeded James, but died within a year of that date, leaving his titles to his brother Amadeus.<br>


The paternity to Umberta a nun (Filippina de Storgi) is probably his.<br>


Tradition says that he was saved in 1368 by intercession of the Beaste Umberto of Savoie by a medal that he carried. He lived in Fatima in Spain, and is believed to have died in 1418.


The Order of the Crown of Italy, , was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for civilian and military merit.


Compared with the older Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (1572), the Order of the Crown of Italy was awarded more liberally and could be conferred on non-Catholics as well; eventually, it became a requirement for a person to have already received the Order of the Crown of Italy in at least the same degree before receiving the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.


The order has been suppressed by law since the foundation of the Republic in 1946. However, Umberto II did not abdicate his position as "fons honorum" and it remained under his Grand Mastership as a dynastic order. While the continued use of those decorations conferred prior to 1951 is permitted in Italy, the crowns on the ribbons issued before 1946 must be substituted for as many five pointed stars on military uniforms.


The various degrees of the order, with corresponding ribbons, were as follows:


Following the demise of the last reigning monarch in 1983, the order, founded by the first, is no longer bestowed. It was replaced by the Order of Merit of Savoy instituted by his heir, the current head of the former Royal House, in 1988. While the "Ordine al merito d'Savoia" has never been a national order, it is subsidiary to the Civil Order of Savoy which was. The Order of Merit has around 2,000 members and, as with the Order of the Crown of Italy previously, it is entrusted to the Chancellor of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus.


Bianca of Savoy (1337– Pavia, 31 December 1387) was Lady of Milan by marriage to Galeazzo II Visconti. She was the only surviving daughter of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande Palaeologina of Montferrat.


Bianca was the second of five children born to Count Aimone and Yolande, herself the daughter of Theodore I, Marquess of Montferrat (1291–1338) and Genoese noblewoman Argentina Hispanola.


When Bianca was six years old she lost her mother Yolande, who died giving birth on 24 December 1342 to her younger brother Louis, who died in childhood. Six months later on 22 June 1343 her father, Aimone died.


In 1345, negotiations were started for her to marry a son of Edward III of England, to renew the relationship between Savoy and England.


Bianca was raised in the Castle of the Counts of Savoy on the shores of Lake Bourget. In 1345 tragedy struck when Bianca's younger brother John died. This left only one son and heir to Savoy, Bianca's older brother Amadeus VI, the "Green Count" of Savoy. The period was marked by the devastating epidemic of the Black Death that killed off much of the population of Europe between 1347 and 1350.


In an attempt to curb the expansionist policies of Bianca's uncle John II, Marquess of Montferrat, an alliance was established on the 22 October 1349 between Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy and Giovanni Visconti of Milan. In the agreements, a marriage was arranged between Bianca and Giovanni's nephew Galeazzo II Visconti.


On 28 September 1350 at Rivoli, Bianca and Galeazzo were married, he was sixteen years her senior. Only weeks after the marriage in October 1350, Galeazzo was asked by his uncle to seize the city of Bologna but his fragile health forced him to leave the conquest.


After moving to Bologna in 1351 their first child was born, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, then in 1352 a daughter, Maria (who died aged ten in April 1362) and then another daughter Violante in 1354.


In 1360 Galeazzo was appointed Imperial vicar by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and Pavia fell under the domination of the Visconti family.


Bianca followed her husband here who built the Visconti Castle where she educated, availed herself of illustrious friends, including Francesco Petrarca founder of the Library Visconti, which brought the first copies of Divine Comedy.


When war broke out between Milan and her uncle John II, on the side of the latter was Bianca's brother, Count Amadeus VI. Bianca tried to whatever means to avert quarrels between him and her husband. The conflict ended with a dedication by John II in occupied areas of Lombardy and Piedmont.


When the state of her husband's health deteriorated, the couple relocated to Cortenova. Galeazzo died in 1378. Bianca founded the Franciscan Monastery Cortenova dedicated to St. Clare of Assisi. In the last years of life, Bianca spent time raising her granddaughter, Valentina, whom she taught French and German.


In 1385, together with her son, she participated in a conspiracy against Bernabò Visconti. The conspiracy succeeded, and Bernabò died half a year later in captivity. Bianca's son Gian Galeazzo was then the sole ruler of Milan. In 1386, Violante died. Bianca took the death of her daughter very badly.


Bianca died on 31 December 1387 at the age of 51. She was buried at Pavia Santa Chiara, Pavia.


Charles Emmanuel de Savoie, 3rd Duc de Nemours (12 February 156713 August 1595) was the son of Jacques of Savoy and Anne of Este, the widow of Francis, Duke of Guise. As a child he was known as the prince of Genevois. He was the Duke of Nemours from 1585 to his death in 1595, during the French Wars of Religion.


Charles Emmanuel was duke at a volatile time, and subsequently was involved in many political intrigues, mostly by his relationship on his mother's side with the House of Guise. The Duke of Guise was one of the leaders of the Catholic League opposing the Huguenots, and Charles Emmanuel sympathised with their cause. However, after the assassination of Henry I, Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Guise, Charles Emmanuel was imprisoned by the Huguenots in 1588, but was able to escape.


He was to fight the Huguenot forces for some years; he fought at the Battle of Arques in 1589. That same year, Charles Emmanuel was the governor of Paris, as the Huguenot forces, led by Henry of Navarre besieged Paris. During the siege, King Henry III of France perished, and Henry of Navarre soon declared himself King Henry IV of France. Charles Emmanuel escaped, and fought the newly proclaimed King at the Ivry in 1590, which was a decisive loss for the Catholic League. The same year he commanded Catholic forces during the Siege of Paris, successfully defending the city.


After the defeat, Charles Emmanuel strongly disagreed with his half-brother and long-time ally Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne (also of the House of Guise), who advocated conciliation with Henry IV. Charles Emmanuel withdrew to his government in Lyonnais, where he endeavoured to make himself independent from the French crown. He was imprisoned, however, in the chateau of Pierre-Encise by the archbishop of Lyon. Again, he successfully escaped, and decided to attack Lyon. The intervention of the Constable de Montmorency thwarted his attack however, and his attempt at independence failed.


He died at Annecy in 1595, leaving the Duchy of Nemour to his brother Henri de Savoie.


Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Victoria Franziska Antonia Juliane Luise; 14 February 1822 – 10 November 1857) was the daughter of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Maria Antonia Koháry. Her father was the second son of Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Countess Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf.


Born to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Maria Antonia Koháry. Her mother was the daughter and heiress of Ferenc József, Prince Koháry de Csábrág et Szitnya. When Antonia's father died in 1826, she inherited his estates in Slovakia and Hungary. Her elder brother was King Ferdinand II of Portugal and first cousins included British Queen Victoria, her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as well as Belgian King Leopold II and his sister, Empress Carlota of Mexico.


On 27 April 1840, at the Château de Saint-Cloud, she married Louis d'Orléans, known since birth as the Duke of Nemours, second son of King Louis Philippe of France. After the Revolution of 1848 in France, the royal family went into exile and settled in England.


The Duke and Duchess of Nemours had four children, all of them having issue except the last, Blanche, who never married. Victoria was outlived by her husband, who died in 1896. She died almost two weeks after giving birth to Blanche at Claremont and was buried at the Chapel of Saint Charles Borromeo in Weybridge. Her remains were transferred to the Royal Chapel of Dreux, the traditional burial place of the House of Orléans, in 1979.


Francis Hyacinth (; 14 September 1632 – 4 October 1638) was the Duke of Savoy from 1637 to 1638 under regency of his mother Christine Marie.


Born at the Castle of Valentino in Turin he was the eldest surviving son of Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy and his wife Christine Marie of France. As the heir to the Savoyard throne, he was styled as the Prince of Piedmont. His parents had another son who had died in 1628 prior to the birth of Francis Hyacinth.


At his father's death in October 1637, he succeeded and his mother took power having been claimed regent. While Duke of savoy he also held the subsidiary titles of Marquess of Saluzzo, count of Aosta, Moriana and Nice, and claimant King of Jerusalem. The infant was nicknamed the "Flower of Paradise" (French: "Fleur de Paradis"). Having succeeded his father at such a young age, Francis Hyacinth did not rule de facto being only 5 years old. Having caught a fever, he died at the Castle of Valentino, and was succeeded by his brother Charles Emmanuel II. The infant was buried at the Sacra di San Michele in Turin.


Charles Emmanuel I (; 12 January 1562 – 26 July 1630), known as the Great, was the Duke of Savoy from 1580 to 1630. He was nicknamed "Testa d'feu" ("the Hot-Headed") for his rashness and military aggression.


Being ambitious and confident, Charles pursued a policy of expansion for his duchy, seeking to expand it into a kingdom.


Charles was born in the Castle of Rivoli in Piedmont, the only child of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy and Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry. He became duke on 30 August 1580.


Well-educated, and intelligent, Charles spoke Italian, French, Spanish, as well as Latin. He proved an able warrior although short and hunchbacked. In the autumn of 1588, taking advantage of the civil war weakening France, he occupied the Marquisate of Saluzzo, which was under French protection. The new king, Henry IV, demanded the restitution of that land, but Charles Emmanuel refused, and war ensued. The broader conflict involving France and Spain ended with the Peace of Vervins (2 May 1598), which left the current but separate question of Saluzzo unsolved. After the Duke started talks with Spain, Henry threatened to return to war until, with the Treaty of Lyon (17 January 1601), Saluzzo went to Savoy in exchange for Bresse, Bugey, and Gex.


In 1602 Charles Emmanuel attacked the city of Geneva. On 11 December that year he led his troops to the city during the night and they surrounded the city walls by two in the morning. The Savoyard cuirassiers were ordered to dismount and climb the city walls in full armour as a shock tactic. However, the alarm was raised by a night watchman and Geneva's militia rose to meet the invaders. The attempted raid was a disastrous failure, and 54 Savoyards were killed, and many more were captured. Charles Emmanuel's army retreated in a panic and the Savoyard prisoners were executed.


The heavy helmets worn by Charles Emmanuel's troops, with visors made in a stylized imitation of a human face, were known as "Savoyard" helmets after this notorious incident. A number of these suits of armour were captured by the Swiss and kept as trophies. The Geneva militia's successful defence of the city's walls is still celebrated as an act of heroism during the annual festival of L'Escalade.


With the Treaty of Bruzolo (25 April 1610), Charles Emmanuel allied with France against Spain, but the assassination of Henry IV changed the situation, as the treaty was not recognized by Marie de' Medici, who immediately assumed regency for Henry's son Louis XIII, a minor. Nevertheless, Charles Emmanuel obtained the help of French troops to free Alba from the Spaniards (January 1617), as the new king resumed his father's alliance with Savoy. His sister Christine Marie was married to Charles Emmanuel's son, Victor Amadeus in 1619.


In the First Genoese-Savoyard War of 1625, Charles Emmanuel tried with the help of France to obtain access to the Mediterranean Sea at the expense of Genoa. After Spanish intervention, the status-quo was restored in the Treaty of Monçon.


However, when the French occupied Casale Monferrato during the War of the Mantuan Succession, Charles Emmanuel allied with Spain. When Richelieu invaded Piedmont and conquered Susa, the duke changed sides again and returned to an alliance with France. However, when Philip IV of Spain sent two invasion forces from Genoa and Como, Charles Emmanuel declared himself neutral, and in 1630 Richelieu ordered a French army to march into Savoy to force the duke to comply with the pacts. The French troops, soon backed by another army, occupied Pinerolo and Avigliana. The Savoy army under Victor Amadeus was defeated in Lower Valsusa.


In 1609, Charles Emmanuel came in contact with Albanian mercenaries like Giovanni Renesi, his brother Demetrio Renesi and a relative Don Joanne Renesi, who intended to revolt against the Ottomans at the Convention of Kuçi in 1614.


The duke died suddenly of a stroke, while campaigning during the second Monferrato war, at Savigliano in late July 1630. He was succeeded by his son Victor Amadeus.


In 1584 Charles married Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain, daughter of Philip II of Spain and Elizabeth of Valois. They had:


In Riva di Chieri on 28 November 1629, he secretly married his long-time and official mistress, Marguerite de Rossillon, "Marchesa" di Riva di Chieri (bap. 24 December 1599 – 10 November 1640), with whom he had four children, legitimized after the wedding but without succession rights:


In addition he had several illegitimate children:


Umberto I (; 14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900), nicknamed "the Good" (Italian: "il Buono"), was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination on 29 July 1900.


Umberto's reign saw Italy attempt colonial expansion into the Horn of Africa, successfully gaining Eritrea and Somalia despite being defeated by Abyssinia at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. In 1882, he approved the Triple Alliance with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.


He was deeply loathed in leftist circles because of his conservatism and support of the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan. He was especially hated by anarchists, who attempted to assassinate him during the first year of his reign. He was killed by another anarchist, Gaetano Bresci, two years after the Bava-Beccaris massacre.


From March 1858, he had a military career in the Sardinian army, beginning with the rank of captain. Umberto took part in the Italian Wars of Independence: he was present at the battle of Solferino in 1859, and in 1866 commanded the XVI Division at the Villafranca battle that followed the Italian defeat at Custoza.


Because of the upheaval the Savoys caused to a number of other royal houses (all the Italian ones, and those related closely to them, such as the Bourbons of Spain and France) in 1859–60, only a minority of royal families in the 1860s were willing to establish relations with the newly founded Italian royal family. It proved difficult to find any royal bride for either of the sons of king Victor Emmanuel II. (His younger son Amedeo, Umberto's brother, married ultimately a Piedmontese subject, princess Vittoria of Cisterna.) Their conflict with the papacy did not help these matters. Not many eligible Catholic royal brides were easily available for young Umberto.


Accession to the throne and first assassination attempt.


In foreign policy Umberto I approved the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, repeatedly visiting Vienna and Berlin. Many in Italy, however, viewed with hostility an alliance with their former Austrian enemies, who were still occupying areas claimed by Italy. A strong militarist, Umberto loved Prussian-German militarism and on his visits to Germany his favorite activity was to review the Prussian Army and he was greatly honored to be allowed to lead a Prussian hussar regiment on field maneuvers outside of Frankfurt. Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany told him during one visit that he should strengthen the "Regio Esercito" to the point that he could abolish parliament and rule Italy as a dictator.


Umberto was also favorably disposed towards the policy of colonial expansion inaugurated in 1885 by the occupation of Massawa in Eritrea. Italy expanded into Somalia in the 1880s as well. Umberto's preferred solution to the problems of Italy was to conquer Ethiopia, regardless of overwhelming public opposition, and supported the ultra-imperialist Prime Minister Francesco Crispi who in May 1895 spoke of "the absolute impossibility of continuing to govern through Parliament." In December 1893, Umberto appointed Crispi prime minister despite his "shattered reputation" due to his involvement in the Banca Romana scandal together with numerous other scandals that the king himself called "sordid". As Crispi was heavily in debt, the king secretly agreed to pay off his debts in exchange for Crispi following the king's advice.


In the summer of 1900, Italian forces were part of the Eight-Nation Alliance which participated in the Boxer Rebellion in Imperial China. Through the Boxer Protocol, signed after Umberto's death, the Kingdom of Italy gained a concession territory in Tientsin.


Umberto's attitude towards the Holy See was uncompromising. In an 1886 telegram, he declared Rome "untouchable" and affirmed the permanence of the Italian possession of the "Eternal City".


The reign of Umberto I was a time of social upheaval, though it was later claimed to have been a tranquil "belle époque". Social tensions mounted as a consequence of the relatively recent occupation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the spread of socialist ideas, public hostility to the colonialist plans of the various governments, especially Crispi's, and the numerous crackdowns on civil liberties. The protesters included the young Benito Mussolini, then a member of the socialist party. On 22 April 1897, Umberto I was attacked again, by an unemployed ironsmith, Pietro Acciarito, who tried to stab him near Rome.


During the colonial wars in Africa, large demonstrations over the rising price of bread were held in Italy and on 7 May 1898, the city of Milan was put under military rule by General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris, who ordered rifle-fire and artillery against the demonstrators. As a result, 82 people were killed according to the authorities, with opposition sources claiming that the death toll was 400 dead with 2,000 wounded. King Umberto sent a telegram to congratulate Bava Beccaris on the restoration of order and later decorated him with the medal of Great Official of Savoy Military Order, greatly outraging a large part of the public opinion.


On the evening of 29 July 1900, Umberto was assassinated in Monza. The king was shot four times by the Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci claimed he wanted to avenge the people killed in Milan during the suppression of the riots of May 1898. Commenting about the 1969 book "Killing No Murder" by Edward Hyams, the Canadian critic George Fetherling in "The Book of Assassins" wrote that the description by Hyams of Umberto I "is so harsh that one is left to marvel that only three people tried to kill him".


Umberto was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, by the side of his father Victor Emmanuel II, on 9 August 1900. He was the last Savoy to be buried there, as his son and successor Victor Emmanuel III died in exile and was buried in Egypt until his remains were transferred to Vicoforte near Cuneo in 2017.


American anarchist Leon F. Czolgosz claimed that the assassination of Umberto I was his inspiration to kill U. S. President William McKinley in September 1901.


Victor Amadeus II (Vittorio Amedeo Francesco; 14 May 166631 October 1732) was Duke of Savoy from 1675 to 1730. He also held the titles of Prince of Piedmont, Duke of Montferrat, Marquis of Saluzzo and Count of Aosta, Moriana and Nice.


Louis XIV organised his marriage in order to maintain French influence in the Duchy, but Victor Amadeus soon broke away from the influence of France. At his father's death in 1675, his mother, Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Nemours, was regent in the name of her nine-year-old son and would remain in de facto power until 1684 when Victor Amadeus banished her further involvement in the state.


Having fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, he became king of Sicily in 1713, but he was forced to exchange this title and instead became king of Sardinia.


Victor Amadeus left a considerable cultural influence in Turin, remodeling the Royal Palace of Turin, Palace of Venaria, Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi, as well as building the Basilica of Superga where he rests.


Victor Amadeus was born in Turin to Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy and his second wife Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Nemours. Named after his paternal grandfather Victor Amadeus I he was their only child. As an infant he was styled as the "Prince of Piedmont", traditional title of the heir apparent to the duchy of Savoy. A weak child, his health was greatly monitored. As an infant he had a passion for soldiers and was noted as being very intelligent.


The news of these rebellions soon reached a wider scope and it became clear that soon the whole of Piedmont was on the verge of revolt. Power at this point still being with Victor Amadeus' mother, she ordered representatives of the town of Mondovì to go to Turin to conclude treaties and were cordially welcomed by the young Victor Amadeus, who agreed to the treaties. The event had allowed Victor Amadeus a chance to exert some power.


Having succeeded in ending his mother's power in Savoy, Victor Amadeus looked to his oncoming marriage with the youngest child of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (brother of Louis XIV) and Henrietta of England. The contract of marriage between Anne Marie and the Duke of Savoy was signed at Versailles on 9 April; On 10 April 1684, Anne Marie was married at Versailles, by proxy, to Victor Amadeus. The couple were married in person on 6 May 1684.


At the urging of Louis, Victor Amadeus II began a large-scale persecution of the Vaudois (Piedmontese and Savoyard Protestants) in 1685. The state had been bankrupted due to various conflicts and a famine in 1679 which had used all last resources. Due to his alliances with England and the Dutch Republic during the Nine Years' War, he was forced to cease this practice from 1688, and in 1694 granted an Edict of Toleration. However, in 1698 Louis XIV forced him to expel all Protestant immigrants from Savoy in accordance with a treaty of 1696.


During this period he became anxious to free himself of domination by Louis, and his first sign of independence was his independent visit to Venice in 1687, where he conferred with Prince Eugene of Savoy and others. Louis discovered this and demanded that Victor Amadeus launch another expedition against the Vaudois; he grudgingly complied, but as described below soon chose the allies countering France.


Victor Amadeus II undertook sweeping administrative reforms within Savoy. In 1696 he established a system of intendants, based on the French model, responsible for collecting taxes and law enforcement. In 1697 he began a land survey which was largely completed by 1711, the Perequazione, to examine the land holdings and privileges of the Church and nobility. In 1717 he reformed the secretariat system in Turin establishing individual secretaries for war, internal affairs and foreign affairs. From the 1670s he also had a new administrative zone built in Turin, around the ducal palace. This zone included a military academy, the ministry of war, a mint, and a customs house. This work was still ongoing upon his death.


Victor Amadeus also undertook a number of military reforms. Often when one of his key fortresses was under attack, he would replace its commanding officer with one of his most reliable and trusted leaders. In 1690 he established a select militia within his territories, and he later overhauled the militia system in 1714 and strictly codified it. This included an obligation for each region under his rule to provide a number of men for the militia based on population. From 1713 he also began to establish his own navy based on the limited Sicilian naval forces he had been granted.


Victor Amadeus was able to use the experienced armies he developed in foreign wars to establish more firm control within his own territories. Faced with rebellion by Mondovì at the end of the century, he brought a force of veterans from the Nine Years War there and re-established his authority. He employed a similar strategy against an anti-tax riot in Cigliano in 1724.


Under his mother's regency Savoy, despite being a state of the Holy Roman Empire, was closely linked to and heavily dependent upon France, essentially becoming a French satellite. Victor Amadeus II broke this link by joining alliances against France in both the Nine Years War and the War of the Spanish Succession. Savoy was considered a valuable ally in both wars due to its geographical position, enabling a second front to be opened against France in the south. Savoy relied heavily on foreign subsidies, particularly from England and the Dutch Republic, in both wars to maintain its armies.


England and Austria ignored his claim, the latter of which had a candidate in the person of Archduke Charles, who immediately proclaimed himself King of Spain. The Grand Duke of Tuscany also ignored his claims. In the meantime he pursued the expansion of Savoy and bought various fiefdoms of the Holy Roman Empire.


In 1703, Victor Amadeus switched sides, joining the Grand Alliance as he had in the Nine Years War. Savoy fared particularly badly against the larger French forces resulting in a siege of Turin in 1706. Anne Marie's uncle, Louis XIV (along with Spanish forces from Anne Marie's second cousin Philip V of Spain), besieged Turin during the "Battle of Turin". French troops were under the control of Anne Marie's half brother, the Duke of Orléans. She and her sons were forced to flee Turin with the grandmother for the safety of Genoa. Turin was saved by the combined forces of Victor Amadeus and Prince Eugene of Savoy in September 1706.


As a result of his aid in the War of the Spanish Succession, Victor Amadeus II gained the Kingdom of Sicily in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the war. Being crowned King of Sicily in Palermo in December 1713, he returned to Turin in September 1714.


As ruler of an independent kingdom and a key player in the recent war, Victor Amadeus significantly expanded his foreign relations. As a duke, he had envoys and embassies in France, the Empire, and Rome. In 1717, he established his own foreign office.


Victor Amadeus in 1720 was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important kingdom of Sardinia after objections from an alliance of four nations, including several of his former allies. The duke was a marquis and Prince and Perpetual Vicar in the Holy Roman Empire.


Taking the style of "King Victor Amadeus", he and Anna moved into the château de Chambéry outside the capital. The couple took a small retinue of servants and Victor Amadeus was kept informed of matters of state. He insisted on having a Louis XIV-style wig with him at all times as his only luxury.


Under the influence of Anna, in 1731 having suffered a stroke, Victor Amadeus decided he wanted to resume his tenure on the throne and informed his son of his decision. Arrested by his son, he was transported to the Castle of Moncalieri and Anna was taken to a house for reformed prostitutes at the Castle of Ceva but was later allowed to return to the Castle of Rivoli where her husband was moved. She was returned to him on 12 April. The stroke seemed to have affected Victor Amadeus in a way which caused him to later turn violent towards his wife, blaming her for his misfortunes.


King Victor Amadeus died in September 1732 and was buried in the Convent of San Giuseppe di Carignano. His son decided not to bury him in the Basilica of Superga which Victor Amadeus had built and where he asked to be buried, as his son did not want to remind the public of the scandal which his abdication had caused. Anna was moved to the Convent of the Visitation in Pinerolo where she died aged 88.


Despite his political reforms and his passion for trying to increase the importance of Savoy in Europe, Victor Amadeus left a considerable cultural legacy in the city of his birth. In 1697 Victor Amadeus commissioned Le Notre to lay out large gardens at the Palace of Turin where he had previously commissioned the Viennese Daniel Seiter to paint a famous gallery which exists to this day. Victor Amadeus subsequently had Seiter knighted. He also encouraged musical patronage in Savoy and the court became a centre for various musicians of the period.


Being crowned King of Sicily in Palermo in December 1713, he returned to Turin in September 1714. From Palermo he brought back Filippo Juvarra, an Italian architect who had spent many years in Rome. Juvarra was patronised by Victor Amadeus and was the mind behind the remodelling of the Royal Palace of Turin, Palace of Venaria, Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi as well as building the Basilica of Superga. The architect was also responsible for various roads and piazza's in Turin. Victor Amadeus' mother also used Juvarra for the famous staircase within the Palazzo Madama where she lived after being banished.


In 1997 the "UNESCO" added a group of buildings which were connected to Victor Amadeus and his family to be added to have World Heritage status. These buildings including the Royal Palace, the Palazzo Madama, the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi and his wife's "Villa della Regina" were grouped as the "Residences of the Royal House of Savoy".


Anne Marie would remain a devoted wife. She quietly accepted his extramarital affairs; the longest one being with the famed beauty Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes by whom he had two children. Jeanne Baptiste was his mistress for eleven years and eventually fled Savoy due to Victor Amadeus' obsession with her. Victor Amadeus subsequently had his daughter with Jeanne Baptiste, Maria Vittoria, marry the Prince of Carignano from which the present Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples is a direct descendant. His favourite child was Victor Amadeus born in 1699 and given the title Prince of Piedmont as heir apparent. The Prince of Piedmont later died in 1715 from smallpox. Anne Marie died in 1728 after a series of heart attacks.


His relationship with his younger son and eventual successor Charles Emmanuel was a cold one and the two were never close. Victor Amadeus organised the first two marriages of Charles Emmanuel, the first one being to Anne Christine of Sulzbach, daughter of the Count Palatine of Sulzbach, which produced a son who died in infancy. The second marriage was to Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg, a first cousin of Anne Christine and mother of six children, including the future Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia.


Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, Prince of Naples ("Vittorio Emanuele Alberto Carlo Teodoro Umberto Bonifacio Amedeo Damiano Bernardino Gennaro Maria di Savoia"; born 12 February 1937) is the only son of Umberto II, the last King of Italy and his wife Queen Marie-José of Belgium. Vittorio Emanuele also uses the title Duke of Savoy and claims the headship of the House of Savoy. These claims are disputed by supporters of his third cousin, Prince Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta.


Vittorio Emanuele was born 12 February 1937 in Naples to Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, who would later become the last King of Italy as Umberto II, and Princess Marie-José of Belgium. When Umberto II left Italy after the monarchy was abolished by the Italian constitutional referendum, 1946, the remaining members of the House of Savoy lived in exile, mostly in Switzerland and on the Portuguese Riviera, though the former king Victor Emmanuel III, grandfather to Vittorio Emanuele, lived in Egypt until his death in 1947. Following the separation of the exiled ex-King and ex-Queen, Prince Vittorio Emanuele lived with his mother in an estate in Merlinge, Switzerland. Vittorio Emanuele and his family currently reside in Geneva.


After an 11-year relationship, Vittorio Emanuele married Swiss biscuit heiress and world-ranked water skier Marina Ricolfi-Doria in Tehran on 7 October 1971, at the occasion of the 2,500 year celebration of Iran's monarchy. Coincidentally, Vittorio Emanuele and his wife Marina share a birthday (12 February) but Vittorio Emanuele is two years younger than Marina (she was born in 1935).


Vittorio Emanuele has worked as a banker and an aircraft salesman, and then an arms dealer.


Vittorio Emanuele has one son, Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice, born on 22 June 1972, who has two daughters.


On 7 July 2006 Vittorio Emanuele's kinsman and dynastic rival, Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta declared himself to be the head of the House of Savoy and Duke of Savoy, claiming that Vittorio Emanuele had lost his dynastic rights when he married without the permission of Umberto II in 1971. Amedeo has received the support of the President of the "Council of the Senators of the Kingdom" Aldo Alessandro Mola.


Vittorio Emanuele and his son have applied for a judicial injunction to forbid Amedeo from using the title "Duke of Savoy". In February 2010, the court of Arezzo ruled that the Duke of Aosta and his son must pay damages totalling €50,000 to their cousins and cease using the surname "Savoy" instead of "Savoy-Aosta".


In line with certain other countries that were formerly monarchies, the Italian Constitution required all male members of the House of Savoy to leave Italy and barred them from ever returning to Italian soil again. This was enacted as a "temporary disposition" enacted when the constitution was promulgated in 1948. The constitution also forbade any amendment that would change the republican form of government, effectively foreclosing any effort to restore the monarchy short of adopting a new constitution.


Vittorio Emanuele lobbied the Parliament of Italy over the years in which the law prohibiting his return was in force, to be allowed to return to his homeland after 56 years in exile. In 1999, he filed a case at the European Court of Human Rights, in which the Prince charged that his lengthy exile violated his human rights. In September 2001, the court decided to hold a hearing on the case at a date later to be fixed.


In order to achieve a return to his homeland, he renounced any claim to the defunct throne and to Italy's crown jewels. He publicly assured the Italian government that the nation and the crown properties, confiscated by the State in 1946, "are no longer ours", referring to the House of Savoy. "For that matter we have no claim on the Crown jewels", he said. "We have nothing in Italy and we are not asking for anything". Vittorio Emanuele also dropped his case at the European Court of Human Rights. In February 2002, Vittorio Emanuele and his son Emanuele Filiberto wrote a signed letter, published through a law firm, in which they formally expressed their loyalty to the Constitution of Italy.


On 23 October 2002, the provision in the constitution that barred male members of the former royal house from returning to Italy was repealed. As part of a deal with the government, Vittorio Emanuele signed an agreement renouncing all claims to the defunct throne and recognizing the Republic as the only lawful government of Italy. Vittorio Emanuele was permitted to re-enter the country from 10 November 2002. On 23 December 2002, he made his first trip home in over half a century. On the one-day visit he, his wife and his son had a 20-minute audience with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.


Upon their first visit in 2003 to Naples, where Vittorio Emanuele was born, and from where his family sailed into exile in 1946, the reception of the Savoys was mixed; most people were indifferent to them, some hostile, a few supportive. The media reported that many in Naples were not happy to see the return of the family, when hundreds of noisy demonstrators chanted negative slogans as they progressed through the city. Demonstrations were staged by two traditionally opposing factions: anti-monarchists on one hand, and supporters of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, the royal house deposed when Italy was united in 1861 under the House of Savoy.


Vittorio Emanuele unilaterally declared himself King of Italy on 15 December 1969. He argued that by agreeing to submit to a referendum on his place as head of state, his father had thereby abdicated. Vittorio Emanuele took this action after his father allegedly called for Amedeo, 5th Duke of Aosta to visit him in Portugal to name him his heir. Under his self-assumed powers as King of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele conferred the title of Duchess of Sant'Anna di Valdieri on his then fiancée, Marina Doria.


On the night of 17 August or the morning of 18 August 1978, on the island of Cavallo (which lies off the south coast of Corsica), Vittorio Emanuele discovered his yacht's rubber dinghy had been taken and attached to another nearby yacht. Arming himself with a rifle, he attempted to board the vessel. He shot at a passenger he had awakened; the shot missed the passenger but mortally wounded Dirk Hamer (the 19-year-old son of Ryke Geerd Hamer), a passenger sleeping on the deck of another adjacent yacht. The prince admitted civil liability for the death in a letter dated 28 August 1978. Dirk Hamer died of his wounds on 7 December 1978, and Vittorio Emanuele was arrested.


On 11 October 1989, Vittorio Emanuele was indicted on charges of inflicting lethal injury and possession of a dangerous weapon. But on 18 November 1991, after thirteen years of legal proceedings, the Paris Assize Court acquitted him of the fatal wounding and unintentional homicide charges, finding him guilty only of unauthorised possession of an M1 Garand rifle. He received a six-month suspended prison sentence.


When incarcerated in June 2006, on unconnected charges of corruption (see below, "Arrest and imprisonment"), Vittorio Emanuele was recorded admitting that "I was in the wrong, [...] but I must say I fooled them [the French judges]", leading to a call from Dirk Hamer's sister Birgit for Vittorio Emanuele to be retried in Italy for killing her brother.


Vittorio Emanuele also said in 2003 that the anti-Semitic laws passed under Mussolini's regime were "not that terrible".


"I'm not saying it was he who signed the racial laws in 1938. But, as a Savoy heir, Victor Emmanuel has never distanced himself from them," the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Amos Luzzatto, said in an interview with "Il Corriere della Sera" newspaper.


On 27 January 2005, in a letter published by "Il Corriere della Sera", Vittorio Emanuele issued an apology to Italy's Jewish leadership asking forgiveness from the Italian Jewish community, and declaring that it was an error for the Italian Royal Family to have signed the racial laws of 1938.


On 21 May 2004, following a dinner held by King Juan Carlos I of Spain at the Zarzuela Palace on the eve of the wedding of his son Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Vittorio Emanuele punched his third cousin and arch-rival Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, twice in the face, causing him to fall down the steps. Former Queen Anne-Marie of Greece caught Amedeo to prevent him further injuring himself and helped him indoors, staunching his bleeding face until first aid could be administered. Upon learning of the incident, Juan Carlos reportedly declared that "never again" would an opportunity to abuse his hospitality be afforded to the competing pretenders.


On 16 June 2006 he was arrested in Varenna and imprisoned in Potenza on charges of corruption and recruitment of prostitutes for clients of the Casinò di Campione of Campione d'Italia.


The enquiry was conducted by Italian magistrate John Woodcock, of British ancestry, famous for other VIPs' arrests.


After several days, Vittorio Emanuele was released and placed under house-arrest instead. He was released from house-arrest on 20 July 2006, but he had to stay within the borders of Italy.


Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia was acquitted of all charges in the years 2007 and 2010.


"La Repubblica" reported in 2006 that Emanuele Filiberto had distanced himself from his father.