She was the lover of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy between 1844 and 1858, and had a daughter with him. She resumed her acting career in 1858, and enjoyed a successful stage career until the 1870s.


Bianca Cappello (154820 October 1587) was an Italian noblewoman who was the mistress, and afterward the second wife, of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Her husband officially made her his consort. Coincidentally, the creation of the fortunate term serendipity by the writer Horace Walpole is due to a portrait of Bianca.


Bianca was born in Venice, in 1548, the daughter of Venetian nobleman Bartolomeo (1519-1594) and , a member of the Morosini family, one of the richest and noblest Venetian families, and was noted for her great beauty.


At the age of fifteen she fell in love with , a young Florentine clerk in the firm of Salviati family, and on 28 November 1563 escaped with him to Florence, where they were married. In 1564 she had a daughter named Virginia, or, according to other sources, Pellegrina. The Venetian government made every effort to have Bianca arrested and brought back but the Grand Duke Cosimo I intervened in her favour and she was left unmolested.


However, she did not get on well with her husband's family, who were very poor and made her do menial work, until at last her beauty attracted Grand Prince Francesco, son and heir apparent of the grand duke.


Although already married to Joanna of Austria, Francesco seduced Bianca and gave her jewels, money and other presents. Bonaventuri, Bianca's husband, was given court employment and consoled himself with other ladies until, in 1572, he was murdered in the streets of Florence in consequence of some amorous intrigue. It is possible that Bianca and Francesco were involved.


In 1578, Joanna died; a few months later Francesco secretly married Bianca, and on 10 June 1579, the marriage was publicly announced, and Antonio acknowledged as the Duke's son. Two days later, on 12 June, Bianca was crowned the Grand Duchess of Tuscany at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. The Venetian government now put aside its resentment and was officially represented at the magnificent wedding festivities, for it saw in Bianca Cappello an instrument for cementing good relations with Tuscany.


Bianca's position, however, was still not secure. The heir remained the young Grand Prince Philip; her own son by Francesco, though acknowledged, remained illegitimate, barred from inheriting the duchy. There would be no more children born of the relationship, and Bianca was aware that, if her husband were to die before her, she was lost, for his family, especially his brother Cardinal Ferdinand, hated her bitterly, as an adventuress and interloper.


In 1582, however, Grand Prince Philip died. Francesco immediately began working on securing the succession for his remaining son, Antonio, having him legitimated and declared heir apparent, with the support of Philip II of Spain. As the mother of the heir, Bianca's position was far stronger: even if Francesco died before Antonio reached adulthood, Bianca would have a good claim to ruling as regent on her son's behalf, and her husband's family would give her more respect as the mother of the heir.


In October 1587, at the Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano, Francesco and Bianca died on 19 and 20 October, possibly poisoned, or as some historians believe, from malarial fever. As Bianca wasn't an official member of the Medici family, Cardinal Ferdinand did not allow her to be buried in the Medici family tombs. Instead, some believe that Bianca was buried in an unmarked mass grave under the church of St. Lorenzo, having been brought back to Florence from Poggio a Caiano. In 2006, forensic and toxicology experts at the University of Florence reported evidence of arsenic poisoning in a study published in the "British Medical Journal", but in 2010 evidence of the parasite "Plasmodium falciparum", which causes malaria, was found in Francesco's remains.


The biography of Bianca Cappello was used by Thomas Middleton for his tragedy "Women Beware Women" (published 1657).


Bax, Clifford, "Bianca Cappello" (London, 1927): a modern biography


Taddea Malaspina (1505 - ?) was an Italian marchesa. She was the mistress of Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence from the early 1530s to about 1537 and was likely the mother of at least two of his children, Giulio di Alessandro de' Medici and Giulia de' Medici. Giulio de' Medici was associated with the Malaspina family at different points throughout his life.


Taddea was the younger daughter of Alberico Malaspina, sovereign marquis of Massa, and Lucrezia d'Este. She married Count Giambattista Boiardo di Scandiano. After his death and the death of her father, Malaspina lived with her mother in Florence and had a number of lovers, including Alessandro. Her sister Ricciarda inherited the title after their father's death. Through Ricciarda's marriage, the family was related to Pope Innocent VIII. Ricciarda was probably also one of Alessandro de' Medici's lovers.


In a portrait of Alessandro by Pontormo, dated to about 1534, the Duke, dressed in black, draws the profile of a woman in silverpoint. The portrait may have been a gift for Malaspina. The Chiesa della Madonna del Carmine and the Santa Chiara monastic complex in Massa, now in the Italian province of Massa Carrara, were built on Taddea Malaspina's order; they still stand.


Agnese del Maino (c. 1411 – 13 December 1465) was a Milanese noblewoman and the mistress of Filippo Maria Visconti, the last legitimate Duke of Milan of the Visconti dynasty. Agnese was the mother of Bianca Maria Visconti, who succeeded to the title of Duchess of Milan in 1450, despite her illegitimacy.


Agnese was born around 1411 in Milan. She was the daughter of Ambrogio del Maino, a Count Palatine and ducal "questore" or chief of police. Her mother's name and identity is unknown. Agnese had two brothers, Lancillotto del Maino and Andreotto del Maino, who were both courtiers and members of the ducal council. She became the mistress of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, the last Duke of Milan of the Visconti dynasty, whose wife Beatrice Lascaris di Tenda had been executed for adultery in 1418 and had produced no children. He was the son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan by his second wife, Caterina Visconti.


On 31 March 1425 at Settimo Pavese, Agnese gave birth to Filippo's daughter, whom they named Bianca Maria. When the baby was six months old, Agnese and Bianca Maria were sent to the castle of Abbiategrasso, where lavish apartments were provided for mother and child. In 1426, Agnese bore the Duke a second daughter, Caterina Maria, but the child died shortly after her birth. Filippo, for reasons of state, married secondly, by proxy on 2 December 1427, and in person on 24 September 1428, Marie of Savoy (January 1411 – 22 February 1479), the daughter of Amadeus VIII of Savoy and Marie of Burgundy. The duke's second marriage was also childless, making Bianca Maria his sole heir to the duchy of Milan.


On 25 October 1441, Bianca Maria was married, in a magnificent ceremony at the Abbey of San Sigismondo in Cremona, to Francesco Sforza, a renowned "Condottiero" and member of the Condottieri Sforza family. Agnese was present at her daughter's wedding. The extravagant festivities, which lasted for days, offered a sumptuous banquet, a series of tournaments, a "palio", painted carts featuring allegorical scenes, and an oversized cake that reproduced the "Torrazzo", Cremona's most prominent tower. Bianca Maria's considerable dowry included the towns of Cremona and Pontremoli. The marriage produced eight children, among these were, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and Ippolita Maria Sforza, Duchess of Calabria.


Filippo Maria Visconti died on 13 August 1447; he was not quite fifty-five years old. Bianca Maria was his only direct heir, albeit illegitimate. His death, without legitimate offspring, resulted in the creation of the short-lived Ambrosian Republic. That same year, Agnese convinced Matteo Da Bologna, the "condottiero" who held the city of Pavia, to restore the city to her son-in-law, Francesco Sforza who had inherited it upon the death of Filippo. Francesco subsequently took the title of Count of Pavia.


Agnes del Maino in art and drama.


There are two contemporary paintings of Agnese which survive to this day; the artists, however, remain unknown. Agnese is a character in the 1833 tragic opera "Beatrice di Tenda" by Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini. The role of Agnese was played by Anna del Serre when the opera was first performed at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 16 March 1833.


Fioretta Gorini (1453/60 – possibly 1478) was the mistress of Giuliano de' Medici and the mother of Giulio de' Medici, the future Pope Clement VII. Gorini was the daughter of a professor, Antonio Gorini. Her actual name was Antonia or Antonietta, while Fioretta was a nickname given to her.


On May 26, 1478, a month after the assassination of Giuliano in the Pazzi conspiracy, Fioretta gave birth to his illegitimate son, Giulio. Not much of Gorini's life after her son's birth is known, and some records have her dying that same year. Giulio spent the first seven years of life with his godfather, architect Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.


The female figure of Fioretta is represented in "Ritratto di giovane donna" (1475), of Sandro Botticelli, which is preserved in Palazzo Pitti, although it will represent Simonetta Vespucci, Clarice Orsini, Alfonsina Orsini or Lucrezia Tornabuoni. The woman sculpted on "Dama col mazzolino" (1475), of Andrea del Verrocchio, which is preserved in Museo Nazionale del Bargello, could be Fioretta Gorini. There has also been speculation that Gorini was the inspiration behind the "Mona Lisa".


Claudia Colla (died 1611), was an alleged Italian witch and the royal mistress of the sovereign Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma.


Colla belonged to the Parmesan merchant class. In 1599, her royal lover Farnese married Margherita Aldobrandini. After a decade of childless marriage, Farnese accused Claudia Colla and her mother Elena for having caused the lack of offspring by the use of sorcery. The accusation of sorcery was unusual for someone of her class. She was judged guilty and sentenced to be executed by burning.


Laura Dianti (Early sixteenth century in Ferrara – 25 June 1573 in Ferrara, Italy) was a lover of Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara after the death of his wife Lucrezia Borgia. She was probably also his third wife. She was also known under the pseudonym Eustochia.


Beatrice of Savoy (c. 1198 – c. 1267) was the daughter of Thomas I of Savoy and Margaret of Geneva. She was Countess consort of Provence by her marriage to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence.


Her paternal grandparents were Humbert III, Count of Savoy, and Beatrice of Viennois. Her maternal grandparents were William I, Count of Geneva and Beatrice de Faucigny. Beatrice of Savoy's mother, Margaret, was betrothed to Philip II of France. While Margaret was travelling to France for her wedding, she was captured by Beatrice's father, Thomas. He took her back to Savoy and married her himself. Thomas' excuse was that Philip II was already married, which was true.


Beatrice was the tenth of fourteen children born to her parents. Her siblings included: Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy; Thomas II of Piedmont; Peter II, Count of Savoy; Philip I, Count of Savoy; Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury; Avita the Countess of Devon; and Margherita of Savoy wife of Hartmann I of Kyburg.


Beatrice was betrothed on 5 June 1219 to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence; they married in December 1220. She was a shrewd and politically astute woman, whose beauty was likened to that of a second Niobe by Matthew Paris. Ramon and Beatrice of Savoy had four daughters, who all lived to adulthood, and married kings. Their only son, Raymond died in early infancy.


In 1242, Beatrice's brother Peter was sent to Provence by Henry III to negotiate the marriage of Sanchia to Richard. Another brother, Philip, escorted Beatrice and Sanchia to the English court in Gascony, arriving in May 1243. There they joined Henry, Eleanor, and their infant daughter, Beatrice of England. Henry was very happy at this occasion and gave many gifts to the various relatives.


In November 1243, Beatrice and Sanchia travelled to England for the wedding. This wedding did much to strengthen the bond between Richard and Henry III. She further strengthened the unity of the English royal family by convincing Henry III to help pay the debts of his sister Eleanor and her husband Simon de Montfort, who had often been at odds with Henry. In January 1244, Beatrice negotiated a loan for her husband from Henry of four thousand marks, offering the king five Provençal castles as collateral.


Henry protested the selection, arguing that he had not yet received the full dowry for Eleanor nor his brother for Sanchia. He also still had the castles in Provence against the loan he had made to the former count.


When Charles took over the administration of Provence in 1246, he did not respect Beatrice's rights within the county. She sought the aid of Barral of Baux and the Pope in protecting her rights within the area. The citizens of Marseille, Avignon, and Arles joined this resistance to Capetian control. In 1248, Charles began to seek peace with her so that he could join his brother's crusade. A temporary truce was reached to allow this.


In 1248, she travelled back to England with her brother Thomas, to see their family there.


In 1254, as Louis was returning from his crusade by way of Provence, Beatrice petitioned him for a more permanent resolution of the dispute with Charles. The French queen Margaret joined the petition, noting that Charles had not respected her dowry either. Beatrice travelled with them back to Paris. As the year progressed, Henry and his wife were invited to travel to Paris, and eventually all four daughters joined their mother there for Christmas.


The generally good relationship among the four sisters did much to improve the relationship of the French and English kings. It brought about the Treaty of Paris in 1259, where differences were resolved. Beatrice and all her four daughters participated in the talks. While the family was still gathered, Louis IX finally persuaded Beatrice to surrender her claims and control in Provence in exchange for a sizeable pension to be paid to her. Charles also paid back the loan henry had made to the previous count, clearing his claims in the county.


In 1262, Beatrice was part of the family discussion to try again to bring peace between Henry and Simon de Montfort. When Henry was captured in 1264, Beatrice's brother Peter II, Count of Savoy took his army to join the efforts to free the king. He left Beatrice in charge of Savoy while he was gone.


Beatrice outlived her third daughter Sanchia and came close to outliving her youngest daughter Beatrice, who died months after her mother (Beatrice the elder died in January, Beatrice the younger died in September). Beatrice of Savoy died on 1265 or 1266–1267.


Louis II (1283×94 – 1348×49), son of Louis I of Vaud of the House of Savoy, was the Baron of Vaud from 1302 until his death. A military man, he fought widely in Italy and, during the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, in France. As a diplomat he visited England and the papal court in Rome and Avignon, and he served as regent of the County of Savoy between 1343 and his death, during which period he was the leader of the House of Savoy.


Louis married Isabelle, daughter of John I, lord of Arlay, of the House of Chalon. With her he had at least one son and one daughter:


In 1308 Louis was one of those representing the Savoyards at the coronation of Edward II of England in Westminster Abbey. In 1310 he joined the expedition of Henry VII into Italy to be crowned Emperor, and was himself made a Senator of Rome. He continued to serve Henry's cause in Italy until 1313. His grandiloquent title at this time was "Louis of Savoy, a magnificent man, by the grace of God a most illustrious senator of the city of Rome".


After 1337 Louis was frequently in France serving Philip VI with his troops during the war with the England, the Edwardian War. In 1339 Louis's only son was killed at the Battle of Laupen, and his son-in-law Azzo also died, leaving his daughter Catherine as a widow and a potential heiress. Louis's requested and received from Count Aymon permission to name her his heir in the barony, an exceptional privilege given the customs of Savoy.


Question of the Dauphiné and the Piedmont.


In 1343 Louis was tasked with presenting Savoyard fears about the agreed upon sale of the Dauphiné to Philip, Duke of Orléans, a younger son of the French king, to the chancellor of France. Nothing seems to have come of Louis's diplomacy, but he and fellow regent Amadeus III had been reconciled to the plan by January 1344, when they agreed to a marriage between their youthful charge and Joan, a daughter of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon, and thus a grand-niece of the French king.


"After sixty years of active and adventurous life", Louis died late in 1348 or early the next year, certainly before 29 January 1349, possibly of the Black Death then sweeping Europe. He was succeeded by his daughter Catherine, who, twice widowed, ruled for two years jointly with her mother. The two were known as "les Dames de Vaud", the ladies of Vaud.


Matilda of Savoy (, ; – 3 December 1157/58) was Queen of Portugal, after her marriage to King Afonso Henriques, the first sovereign of Portugal, whom she married in 1146.


She was the second or third daughter of Amadeus III, Count of Savoy and Maurienne, and Mahaut of Albon (the sister of Guigues IV of Albon, "le Dauphin"). One of her aunts, Adelaide of Maurienne, was queen consort as the wife of King Louis VI of France, and one of her great-granduncles was Pope Callixtus II whose papacy lasted from 1119 until 1124, the year of his death.


Her father had participated in the Second Crusade and this could have been one of the reasons why she was chosen as the consort of Portugal's first monarch. Such an alliance would contribute to expelling the Moors from Portuguese territory and would also show the new King's independence by selecting a wife outside the sphere of influence of the Kingdom of León. It is also possible that he was not able to select one of the infantas from the neighboring Iberian kingdoms due to reasons of consanguinity. The wedding could have also been suggested by Guido de Vico, the papal representative in the Iberian Peninsula who had been one of the witnesses of the Treaty of Zamora in 1143.


Mafalda first appears with her husband on 23 May 1146 confirming a donation that had been made previously by her mother-in-law, Teresa of León, to the Order of Cluny. She was very devoted to the Cistercian Order and founded the Monasterio of Costa in Guimarães and a hospital/hostel for pilgrims, the poor and the sick in Canaveses. She stipulated in her will that this hospital was to be kept always clean, that it should be furnished with good and clean beds and that, if any of those lodged at the institution should die there, three masses were to be celebrated for the salvation of their souls.


Walter Map, in his work, "De nugis curialium", tells a story that "the King of Portugal now living", almost certainly Afonso, had been convinced by evil counselors to murder his pregnant wife out of misplaced jealousy. However, there is no other authority for this account, and it is not generally accepted.


Queen Mafalda died in Coimbra on 3 December 1157 or 1158 and was buried at the Monastery of Santa Cruz where her husband, who survived her by more than twenty-seven years, was later interred. She was survived by six of her seven children, only three of whom, infantes Sancho, Urraca and Theresa, would reach adulthood.


Although the "Annales D. Alfonsi Portugallensium Regis", record that the wedding of Alfonso and Mafalda was celebrated in 1145, it was not until a year later, in May 1146, when they both appear in royal charters. Historian José Mattoso refers to another source, "Noticia sobre a Conquista de Santarém" (News on the Conquest of Santarém), which states that the city was taken on 15 May 1147, less than a year after their marriage. Since at that time no wedding ceremony could be performed during Lent, Mattoso suggests that the marriage could have taken place in March or April of 1146, possibly on Easter Sunday which fell on 31 March of that year. The groom was almost thirty-eight years old and the bride was about twenty-one years old.


Beatrice of Savoy (1250–1292) was the daughter of Amadeus IV the Count of Savoy and his second wife, Cecile of Baux. She was a member of the House of Savoy by birth, by her second marriage she became known as Lady of Villena.


Beatrice was a full sister to Boniface, Count of Savoy, as well as two sisters Eleanor and Constance. She had two older half-sisters from her father's first marriage, an elder Beatrice and Margaret.


Upon the death of her father in 1253, Beatrice received an amount of money as an inheritance. Upon the death of her ten-year-old brother Count Boniface, he was succeeded by their uncle as Peter II, Count of Savoy. Upon Peter's death, Beatrice had to renounce her claim on Savoy along with the consent of her mother in favor of the succession of her other uncle as Philip I, Count of Savoy, in the article (dated 21 October 1268) she is referred to as Contesson possibly to distinguish her from her older half-sister of the same name. A charter dated 11 August 1266 by Pope Clement IV presumably tells of Count Philip donating property to his niece "B" most likely referring to Beatrice.


Beatrice was firstly betrothed to James, second son of James I of Aragon however, the contract was broken on 11 August 1266. Ten years after the betrothal was broken, James became King of Majorca.


Beatrice firstly married on 21 October 1268 to Peter of Chalon, Seigneur de Châtelbelin, son of Jean l'Antique. Peter granted property to his wife in 1269. The couple were married for no more than six years when Peter died, they had no children.


A second marriage took place in 1274 to Manuel of Castile; this was a second marriage for both parties, Manuel's first wife Constance (sister to Beatrice's one-time fiancee James) had died leaving him with two children. Manuel and Beatrice had one son Juan Manuel who was born in Escalona on May 5, 1282. Manuel died a year after the birth of their son therefore he was succeeded by their son as Manuel's other son by Constance had died young. Beatrice cared for her son until her own death nine years later, after which time Juan Manuel was left in the care of his uncle, Sancho IV of Castile.


The Kingdom of Sicily was ruled by the House of Savoy from 1713 until 1720, although they lost control of it in 1718 and did not relinquish their title to it until 1723. The only king of Sicily from the House of Savoy was Victor Amadeus II. Throughout this period Sicily remained a distinct realm in personal union with the other Savoyard states, but ultimately it secured for the House of Savoy a royal title and a future of expansion in Italy rather than in France. During this period, the Savoyard monarch used his new title to affirm his sovereign independence.


Victor Amadeus's policy towards Sicily was to bring it more in line with his mainland possessions, but to this end he progressed little in the short span of time he had. His own domain was weakened by the addition of Sicily, becoming more fragmented and extended (geographically), and more composite (legally and socially). He was finally forced to renounce Sicily in exchange for Sardinia.


Acquisition of Sicily by the House of Savoy.


At Victor Amadeus' leaving, many problems with the government of Sicily remained. The Palermitan bureaucracy, and the aristocracy of which its officials formed a part, had been alienated by the crackdown on corruption. The populace remained pro-Spanish and Spanish propaganda was being disseminated from enclaves like Modica. The viceroy Maffei was left with little power to effect reform, but with 10,000 Piedmontese troops stationed on the island by 1718 he had the resources to suppress the endemic brigandage.


In 1717 Victor Amadeus placed the Direttore delle Finanze, the finance minister of Sicily, under the authority of the Generale delle Finanze, the finance minister of his mainland dominions at Turin, and ordered him to adopt Piedmontese accounting practices. This alarmed the baronage, which comprised only about seventy to eighty families. These families controlled both the parliament and the cities, and owned vast tracts of land farmed by a destitute peasantry. The Sicilian system was latifundist and feudal. The Savoyard reforms had barely begun when the island was lost in 1718.


The kings of Sicily had since Norman times possessed the status of an apostolic legate in their kingdom. This special prerogative in ecclesiastical matters was exercised through the Tribunal of the Monarchy. When Victor Amadeus became king, Pope Clement XI, who regarded Sicily as a Papal fief, refused to recognise him. At the same time, the Tribunal was in the midst of a dispute with the Bishop of Lipari, ongoing since 1711, which had in turn led to Papal interference:


In 1711 the bishop had excommunicated some customs officials for levying duty on a couple of pounds of chickpeas belonging to his household. The Tribunal nullified the excommunication, whereupon the bishop imposed an interdict on his diocese and left to seek help at Rome. The Papal curia issued a declaration denying the Tribunal's power to lift ecclesiastical sanctions, which was published early in 1712 by several Sicilian bishops. Counter-measures duly followed from the Spanish viceroy and the Tribunal, so that by the time Victor Amadeus reached Sicily the archbishop of Messina and the bishops of Agrigento and Catania had followed their colleague into exile, the last two leaving their sees under interdict.


Loss of Sicily to Spain and Austria.


In July 1717 the Spanish attacked Sardinia, while Austria was embroiled in a war with the Ottomans. By November the entire island has been subdued. In December Victor Amadeus sent another embassy to Vienna, but the Spanish minister Giulio Alberoni urged him to invade the long-coveted Duchy of Milan, promising Spanish assistance. It was a ruse to distract the Savoyards from the planned Spanish invasion of Sicily.


In September 1726 a British envoy, John Hedges, arrived in Turin to suggest, among other things, that Victor Amadeus be returned Sicily. Victor Amadeus was still asking for compensation for the loss of Sicily as late as November 1729.


Bertha of Savoy (21 September 1051 – 27 December 1087), also called Bertha of Turin, a member of the Burgundian House of Savoy, was Queen consort of Germany from 1066 and Holy Roman Empress from 1084 until 1087 as the first wife of the Salian emperor Henry IV.


Bertha of Savoy was a daughter of Count Otto I of Savoy (also called "Eudes" or "Odo"; c. 1023 – c. 1057/1060) and his wife Adelaide of Susa (c. 1014/1020 – 1091) from the Arduinici noble family. She thereby was the sister of Count Peter I of Savoy (d. 1078), Count Amadeus II of Savoy (d. 1080), and Adelaide (d. 1079), consort of the German anti-king Rudolf of Rheinfelden.


Still during the lifetime of Emperor Henry III, Bertha at the age of four was betrothed to Henry III's son, Henry IV (aged five) on 25 December 1055 in Zürich. Bertha was raised in Germany thereafter. When she was fifteen, Bertha was crowned queen in Würzburg in June 1066 and married Henry on 13 July 1066 at the "Königspfalz" of Trebur.


Although they had grown up together and Bertha was apparently a pretty young woman, the Saxon chronicler Bruno of Merseburg, an avowed opponent of Henry IV, reported on Henry's continual unfaithfulness: "He had two or three concubines at the same time, in addition [to his wife], yet he was not content. If he heard that someone had a young and pretty daughter or wife, he instructed that she be supplied to him by force. (...) His beautiful and noble wife Bertha (...) was in such a manner hated by him that he never saw her after the wedding any more than necessary, since he had not celebrated the wedding out of free will."


During the fierce Investiture Controversy, Bertha's husband was excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII at the Lenten synod in Rome in 1076. In October, the German princes took the occasion and swore an oath at Trebur that they would no longer recognise Henry as king unless this excommunication was lifted. Henry thus had to cross the Alps and travel to Italy in order to meet with Gregory during the winter of 1076/77.


Bertha and their young son, Conrad, accompanied Henry on his dangerous journey. While the South German princes supporting his rival Rudolf of Rheinfelden blocked his path, Henry hoped to travel through one of the Alpine passes controlled by his mother-in-law, but Adelaide extracted a high price before allowing him to do this. Adelaide then accompanied Henry and Bertha on the long and dangerous Walk to Canossa, where from 25 January 1077, Henry and Bertha underwent penance barefoot for three days outside in the cold and begged Gregory VII's forgiveness. Adelaide was among those who acted as an oath-helper to secure Henry's absolution from excommunication.


After the forces of Henry IV had besieged and occupied Rome, he and Bertha were crowned emperor and empress on 31 March 1084 by Antipope Clement III.


Bertha was thirty-six years old when she died in Mainz on 27 December 1087. She was buried in the Salian crypt at Speyer Cathedral. In 1089 Emperor Henry married Eupraxia of Kiev but the marriage failed in 1095.


From her marriage with Henry, Bertha eventually had five children, two of whom died while still young:


Infanta Beatrice of Portugal ( ; 31 December 1504 – 8 January 1538) was a Portuguese princess by birth and duchess of Savoy by marriage to Charles III, Duke of Savoy. She was the ruling countess of Asti from 1531 to 1538.


She was the second daughter of Manuel I of Portugal (1469–1521) and his second wife, Maria of Aragon (1482–1517). Her siblings included King John III of Portugal and Holy Roman Empress Isabella. She was educated under the supervision of her governess Elvira de Mendoza.


In Villefranche-sur-Mer on 8 April 1521, Beatrice married Duke Charles III of Savoy. He had succeeded as the duke of Savoy in 1504, making Beatrice duchess at the moment of her wedding.


Beatrice is described as beautiful, brilliant, and ambitious. In 1531, she received as a fiefdom, from her cousin and brother-in-law, Emperor Charles V, the County of Asti which, on her death, was inherited by her son and permanently included on the Savoy's heritage.


Beatrice and Charles III had nine children:


After the death of the childless Sebastian of Portugal (her grand-nephew), her son fought for his rights to become King of Portugal, however he failed and the throne was given to Isabella's son Philip.


Claudine de Brosse (1450–1513), was a Duchess Consort of Savoy; married in 1485 to Philip II, Duke of Savoy.


She was a daughter of Jean II de Brosse and Nicole de Châtillon.


Catalina Micaela of Spain (; 10 October 1567 – 6 November 1597) was a duchess of Savoy who ruled the duchy as regent several times during the absence of her husband, Charles Emmanuel I. She was the younger surviving daughter of Philip II of Spain and Elisabeth of Valois.


Duke Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy suggested that he should marry Catalina Micaela as a way of gaining Spanish support for his plans to expand Savoy on the coast of the then weakened France. The wedding took place in Zaragoza on 11 March 1585 and the couple made their entrance to Turin in Savoy 10 August 1585.


Catalina Micaela died near the end of 1597; she had miscarried earlier that year. Her father died the following year.


In 1584, she married Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. This marriage produced ten children:


National Institute for the Honour Guard of the Royal Tombs of the Pantheon


The National Institute for the Honour Guard of the Royal Tombs of the Pantheon (Italian: "Istituto nazionale per la guardia d'onore alle reali tombe del Pantheon") is an Italian paramilitary company, originally chartered by the House of Savoy and subsequently operating with authorization of the Italian Republic, which mounts guards of honor at the royal tombs of the Roman pantheon.


The organization was founded in 1878. As of 2014 it had about 4,000 personnel, of whom between 15 and 20 percent were women. Members, uniformed in black berets and cloaks bearing the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy, volunteer to assume shifts guarding the tombs of the Savoy dynasty.


Enlistment in the Honour Guard is open to Italian citizens who "share the aims of the Institute" and pay an initiation fee of €100, however, a majority of the total membership must be veterans of the Italian Armed Forces.


Beatrice of Savoy ( 1237 – 21 April 1310) ruled as Lady of Faucigny, having succeeded her mother, Agnes of Faucigny. She was the only legitimate child of Peter II, Count of Savoy, but did not inherit the county, which passed instead to her uncle. Beatrice was also Dauphine of Viennois and Viscountess of Béarn by her two marriages.


In 1253 Beatrice was married to Guigues VII of Viennois, they had been betrothed to each other since 1241, the marriage being the work of Beatrice's maternal grandfather Aymon II, Seigneur de Faucigny.


In 1269, Guigues died and due to the minority of their son John, Beatrice was appointed his regent. Her son was married to Bonne, daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, who was a cousin of Beatrice. However, her son died after a fall from a horse aged around eighteen. He was eventually succeeded by Beatrice's older daughter Anne and her husband Humbert, with future dauphins descending from their marriage. Following the death of her son, Beatrice left for Taninges with his remains, laying them to rest there and praying for his soul in the monastery she founded, Mélan.


Beatrice was married for a second time on April 2, 1273 to Gaston VII, Viscount of Béarn. Her second marriage is confirmed by the agreement dated 15 December 1284 under which Gaston makes an agreement with Anne and Humbert over his claim on the County of Vienne. Beatrice arranged a marriage for stepdaughter Constance of Béarn to Aymon II of Geneva, a relative through her grandmother. Gaston had dealt with domestic problems amongst his daughters from his first marriage and which would succeed him upon death, his sons-in-law Roger-Bernard III, Count of Foix and Gerald VI, Count of Armagnac had battled for power. The marriage between Beatrice and Gaston did not produce any children. After seventeen years of marriage, Gaston died and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Roger-Bernard.


Beatrice did not remarry after the death of her second husband but did have more political involvement with her family back in Savoy. In 1294, she transferred her lands between Seyssel and Freiburg to her cousin Count Amadeus V. In 1296, she gave up her title as "Dame of Faucigny" to her son-in-law Humbert, for the benefit of one of his sons, reserving the usufruct for herself. Beatrice continued to be a powerful force in Savoy, causing torment for her cousin Amadeus especially, when she attempted to claim Savoy for her grandson Hugh. However, the claim proved unsuccessful and Amadeus remained count for the rest of his lifetime.


Beatrice died on 21 April 1310 and was buried at her monastery in Melun beside her son. Her various alliances with relatives and clerics in Geneva and the sharing out of her inheritance during and after her life, led to conflicts amongst her descendants for generations. The disputes between the House of Savoy and Dauphin de Viennois over the territory which the House of Savoy won back from the French in the Treaty of Paris (1355).


The House of Savoy () is a royal dynasty that was established in 1003 in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, the family grew in power from ruling a small Alpine county north-west of Italy to absolute rule of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1713 to 1720, when they were handed the island of Sardinia, over which they would exercise direct rule from then onward.


Through its junior branch of Savoy-Carignano, the House of Savoy led the unification of Italy in 1861 and ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until 1946; they also briefly ruled the Kingdom of Spain in the 19th century. The Savoyard kings of Italy were Victor Emmanuel II, Umberto I, Victor Emmanuel III, and Umberto II. The last monarch ruled for a few weeks before being deposed following the Constitutional Referendum of 1946, after which the Italian Republic was proclaimed.


The name derives from the historical region of Savoy in the Alpine region between what is now France and Italy. Over time, the House of Savoy expanded its territory and influence through judicious marriages and international diplomacy. From rule of a small region on the French/Italian border, the dynasty's realm grew to include nearly all of the Italian Peninsula by the time of its deposition.


The house descended from Humbert I, Count of Sabaudia (Umberto I "Biancamano"), (1003–1047 or 1048). Humbert's family is thought to have originated near Magdeburg in Saxony, with the earliest recording of the family being two 10th century brothers, Amadeus and Humbert. Though Sabaudia was originally a poor county, later counts were diplomatically skilled, and gained control over strategic mountain passes in the Alps. Two of Humbert's sons were commendatory abbots at the Abbey of St. Maurice, Agaunum, on the River Rhone east of Lake Geneva, and Saint Maurice is still the patron of the House of Savoy.


Humbert's son, Otto of Savoy succeeded to the title in 1051 after the death of his elder brother Amadeus I of Savoy and married the Marchioness Adelaide of Turin, passing the Marquessate of Susa, with the towns of Turin and Pinerolo, into the House of Savoy's possession. This diplomatic skill caused the great powers such as France, England, and Spain to take the counts' opinions into account.


They once had claims on the modern canton of Vaud, where they occupied the Château of Chillon in Switzerland, but their access to it was cut by Geneva during the Protestant Reformation, after which it was conquered by Bern. Piedmont was later joined with Sabaudia, and the name evolved into "Savoy" (). The people of Savoy were descended from the Celts and Romans.


By the time Amadeus VIII came to power in the late 14th century, the House of Savoy had gone through a series of gradual territorial expansions and he was elevated by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to the Duke of Savoy in 1416.


In 1494, Charles VIII of France passed through Savoy on his way to Italy and Naples, which initiated the Italian War of 1494–98. During the outbreak of the Italian war of 1521-1526, Emperor Charles V stationed imperial troops in Savoy. In 1536, Francis I of France invaded Savoy and Piedmont, taking Turin by April of that year. Charles III, Duke of Savoy, fled to Vercelli.


When Emmanuel Philibert came to power in 1553 most of his family's territories were in French hands, so he offered to serve France's leading enemy the House of Habsburg, in the hope of recovering his lands. He served Philip II as Governor of the Netherlands from 1555 to 1559. In this capacity he led the Spanish invasion of northern France and won a victory at St. Quentin in 1557. He took advantage of various squabbles in Europe to slowly regain territory from both the French and the Spanish, including the city of Turin. He moved the capital of the duchy from Chambéry to Turin.


The 17th century brought about economic development to the Turin area and the House of Savoy took part in and benefitted from that. Charles Emmanuel II developed the port of Nice and built a road through the Alps towards France. And through skillful political manoeuvres territorial expansion continued. In early 18th century in the War of the Spanish Succession Victor Amadeus switched sides to assist the Habsburgs and via the Treaty of Utrecht they rewarded him with large pieces of land in northeastern Italy, and a Crown in Sicily. Savoy rule over Sicily lasted only seven years (1713–20).


The crown of Sicily, the prestige of being kings at last, and the wealth of Palermo helped strengthen the House of Savoy further. In 1720 they were forced to exchange Sicily for Sardinia as a result of the War of the Quadruple Alliance. On the mainland, the dynasty continued its expansionist policies as well. Through advantageous alliances during the War of the Polish Succession and War of the Austrian Succession, Charles Emmanuel III gained new lands at the expense of the Austrian-controlled Duchy of Milan.


In 1792 Piedmont-Sardinia joined the First Coalition against the French First Republic. It was beaten in 1796 by Napoleon and forced to conclude the disadvantageous Treaty of Paris (1796), giving the French army free passage through Piedmont. In 1798, Joubert occupied Turin and forced Charles Emmanuel IV to abdicate and leave for the island of Sardinia. Eventually, in 1814 the kingdom was restored and enlarged with the addition of the former Republic of Genoa by the Congress of Vienna.


In the meantime, nationalist figures such as Giuseppe Mazzini were influencing popular opinion. Mazzini believed that Italian unification could only be achieved through a popular uprising, but after the failure of the 1848 revolutions, the Italian nationalists began to look to the Kingdom of Sardinia and its prime minister Count Cavour as leaders of the unification movement. In 1848, Charles Albert conceded a constitution known as the "Statuto Albertino" to Piedmont-Sardinia, which remained the basis of the Kingdom's legal system even after Italian unification was achieved and the Kingdom of Sardinia became the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.


The Kingdom of Italy was the first Italian state to include the Italian Peninsula since the fall of the Roman Empire. But when Victor Emmanuel was crowned King of Italy in 1861, his realm did not include the Venetia region (subject to Habsburg governance), Lazio (with Rome), Umbria, Marche and Romagna (with the Papal town of Bologna). Yet the House of Savoy continued to rule Italy for several decades, through the Italian Independence wars as Italian unification proceeded and even as the First World War raged on in the early 20th century.


In April 1655, based on (perhaps false) reports of resistance by the Waldensians, a Protestant religious minority, to a plan to resettle them in remote mountain valleys, Charles Emmanuel II ordered their general massacre. The massacre was so brutal it aroused indignation throughout Europe. Oliver Cromwell, then ruler in England, began petitioning on behalf of the Waldensians, writing letters, raising contributions, calling a general fast in England and threatening to send military forces to the rescue. The massacre prompted John Milton's famous sonnet, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont".


In 1898, the Bava Beccaris massacre in Milan involved the use of cannons against unarmed protesters (including women and old people) during riots over the rising price of bread. King Umberto I of the House of Savoy congratulated General Fiorenzo Bava Beccaris for the massacre and decorated him with the medal of Great Official of Savoy Military Order, greatly outraging a large part of the public opinion. As a result, Umberto I was assassinated in July 1900 in Monza by Gaetano Bresci, the brother of one of the women massacred in the crowd, who had traveled back to Italy from the United States for the assassination. The king had previously been the target of failed assassination attempts by anarchists Giovanni Passannante and Pietro Acciarito.


When the First World War ended, the Treaty of Versailles fell short of what had been promised in the London Pact to Italy. As the economic conditions in Italy worsened after the war, popular resentment and along with it the seeds of Italian fascism began to grow and resulted in the March on Rome by Benito Mussolini.


General Pietro Badoglio advised King Victor Emmanuel III that he could easily sweep Mussolini and his rag-tag Blackshirt army to one side, but Victor Emmanuel decided to tolerate Mussolini and appointed him as prime minister on 28 October 1922. The king remained silent as Mussolini engaged in one abuse of power after another from 1924 onward, and did not intervene in 1925-26 when Mussolini dropped all pretense of democracy. By the end of 1928, the king's right to remove Mussolini from office was, at least theoretically, the only check on his power. Later, the King's failure, in the face of mounting evidence, to move against the Mussolini regime's abuses of power led to much criticism and had dire future consequences for Italy and for the monarchy itself.


On 12 June 1946, the Kingdom of Italy formally came to an end as Umberto transferred his powers to Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi and called for the Italian people to support the new republic. He then went into exile in Portugal, never to return; he died in 1983.


Under the Constitution of the Italian Republic, the republican form of government cannot be changed by constitutional amendment, thus forbidding any attempt to restore the monarchy short of adoption of an entirely new constitution. The constitution also forbade male descendants of the House of Savoy from entering Italy. This provision was removed in 2002 but as part of the deal to be allowed back into Italy, Vittorio Emanuele, the last claimant to the House of Savoy, renounced all claims to the throne.


The Residences of the Royal House of Savoy in Turin and the neighbourhood are protected as a World Heritage Site. Although the titles and distinctions of the Italian royal family are not legally recognised by the Italian Republic, the remaining members of the House of Savoy, like dynasties of other abolished monarchies, still use some of the various titles they acquired over the millennium of their reign prior to the republic's establishment, including Duke of Savoy, "Prince of Naples" previously conferred by Joseph Bonaparte to be hereditary on his children and grandchildren, Prince of Piedmont and Duke of Aosta.


Currently the leadership of the House of Savoy is contested by two cousins: Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, who used to claim the title of King of Italy, and Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who still claims the title of Duke of Savoy. Their rivalry has not always been peaceful — on 21 May 2004, following a dinner held by King Juan Carlos I of Spain on the eve of the wedding of his son Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Vittorio Emanuele punched Amedeo twice in the face.


Some of the activities of members of the House of Savoy have evoked media coverage disappointing to Italian royalists. In November 1991, after thirteen years of legal proceedings, the Paris Assize Court acquitted Vittorio Emanuele of the fatal wounding and unintentional homicide in August 1978 of Dirk Hamer, finding him guilty only of unauthorised possession of a firearm during the incident. On 16 June 2006 Vittorio Emanuele 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. After several days, Vittorio Emanuele was released and placed under house arrest instead. He was released from house arrest on 20 July but was required to remain within the territory of the Republic.


When incarcerated in June 2006, Vittorio Emanuele was recorded admitting with regard to the killing of Dirk Hamer that "I was in the wrong, [...] but I must say I fooled them [the French judges]", leading to a call from Hamer's sister Birgit for Vittorio Emanuele to be retried in Italy for the killing. After a long legal fight, Birgit Hamer obtained the full video. The story was broken in the press by aristocratic journalist Beatrice Borromeo, who also wrote the preface for a book on the murder "Delitto senza castigo" by Birgit Hamer. Vittorio Emanuele sued the newspaper for defamation, claiming the video had been manipulated. In 2015, a court judgement ruled in favor of the newspaper.


Judicially separated since 1976, civilly divorced in 1982 and their marriage religiously annulled in 1987, Amedeo of Aosta's first wife, Princess Claude d'Orléans, revealed that she was aware that her husband fathered a child by another woman during their marriage. Aosta acknowledged paternity of another child, born out-of-wedlock in 2006 during his second marriage, but agreed to contribute financially to the child's care only after being directed to do so by court order.


The patrilineal lineage of the House of Savoy was reduced to four males between 1996 and 2009. In 2008 Aimone of Savoy-Aosta married Princess Olga of Greece, his second cousin, and they became the parents of sons Umberto and Amedeo born, respectively, in 2009 and 2011.


In 2019, Vittorio Emanuele issued a formal decree that modified the medieval law restricting succession to male heirs to place his granddaughter, Vittoria Cristina Chiara Adelaide Marie, in the line of succession. Prince Aimone declared the change illegitimate.


The House of Savoy has held two dynastic orders since 1362 which were brought into the Kingdom of Italy as national orders. Although the Kingdom ceased to exist in 1946, King Umberto II did not abdicate his role as "fons honorum" over the two dynastic orders over which the family has long held sovereignty and grand mastership. Today, following the dispute, both Prince Vittorio Emanuele and Prince Amedeo claim to be hereditary Sovereign and Grand Master of the following orders of the House of Savoy:


In addition to these, Vittorio Emanuele claims sovereignty over two more orders:


Recently, all three of Vittorio Emanuele's sisters (Princess Maria Pia, Princess Maria Gabriella, and Princess Maria Beatrice) resigned from the Supreme Order of the Most Holy Annunciation and the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, alleging that memberships in the orders had been sold to unworthy candidates, a newfound practice they could not abide.


In 1941, in the fascist puppet state Independent State of Croatia, Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta, grandson of Amadeo I of Spain, was formally named as the king under the name "Tomislav II", but was never crowned, never ruled, and formally abdicated in 1943.


In 1396, the title and privileges of the final king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Levon V, were transferred to James I, his cousin and king of Cyprus. The title of King of Armenia was thus united with the titles of King of Cyprus and King of Jerusalem. The title was held to the modern day by the House of Savoy.


"VITTORIO AMEDEO III, per la grazia di Dio Re di Sardegna, Cipro, Gerusalemme e Armenia; Duca di Savoia, Monferrato, Chablais, Aosta e Genevese; Principe di Piemonte ed Oneglia; Marchese in Italia, di Saluzzo, Susa, Ivrea, Ceva, Maro, Oristano, Sezana; Conte di Moriana, Nizza, Tenda, Asti, Alessandria, Goceano; Barone di Vaud e di Faucigny; Signore di Vercelli, Pinerolo, Tarantasia, Lumellino, Val di Sesia; Principe e Vicario perpetuo del Sacro Romano Impero in Italia."


The English translation is: Victor Amadeus III, by the Grace of God, King of Sardinia, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Armenia, Duke of Savoy, Montferrat, Chablais, Aosta and Genevois, Prince of Piedmont and Oneglia, Marquis (of the Holy Roman Empire) in Italy, of Saluzzo, Susa, Ivrea, Ceva, Maro, Oristano, Sezana, Count of Maurienne, Nice, Tende, Asti, Alessandria, Goceano, Baron of Vaud and Faucigny, Lord of Vercelli, Pinerolo, Tarentaise, Lumellino, Val di Sesia, Prince and perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire in Italy.


These titles were used during the unified Kingdom of Italy which lasted from 1860–1946.


The land reforms done in the Duchy of Savoy, beginning at 1720, was the first land reform that emancipated peasants in France from the bondages of Feudalism.


During the Middle Ages, most lands in Savoy, as in most of Europe, were owned by Feudal lords. Peasants were bound to their lords by heavy duties. The "mainmorte" system allowed a lord to inherit all the property of a peasant who died childless. This caused the estates of the lords to grow larger and larger. Both peasants and lords had little incentives to invest in agricultural or industrial improvements.


In 1720, Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, the duke of Savoy, had financial problems. To increase his income, he expropriated all estates held by lords who could not produce title to their lands. Subsequently, he began levying taxes on the nobility. These were the first steps in reducing the power of the feudal lords.


His son Charles Emmanuel III continued his reforms, and in 1762 he abolished all "mainmorte" on the royal estates and personal mainmorte on private estates. In 1771 he also abolished real-estate mainmorte on private estates. In this year he also declared that all duties of peasants towards their lords could be redeemed on terms to be set by negotiation between peasant and seigneur. If no agreement was reached, the duke himself would set the terms. This provision gave leverage to the peasants.


Negotiations were long and slow, but by 1792, when the French Revolution came to Savoy, all estates had been at least partially emancipated. At 1793, the Revolutionary Government of France declared full emancipation with no further redemption price.


The Savoyan League (, ) was a regionalist and populist political party based in Savoy, France.


Founded in 1995, the party supported the independence of Savoy from France and the unification of the two departments of Savoy, named Savoie and Haute-Savoie, which have belonged to France since the Treaty of Turin in 1860. Formerly a member of the European Free Alliance, the party was generally pro-European in outlook, while lying on the right of the political spectrum. The League co-operated with the Savoy Region Movement, which does not support independence but rather federalism and Savoyard autonomism.


In the 1998 regional elections, the League won 5.39% in Savoy (4.42% in Savoie and 6.05% in Haute-Savoie) and therefore won a seat in the Rhône-Alpes Regional Council. It did not participate in the 2004 regional elections.


At the party's 17th Congress on 21 October 2012, the Savoyan League suspended its activities.


Samuel Guichenon (18 August 1607, Mâcon - 8 September 1664) was a French lawyer, historian and genealogist.


He was one of three sons born to Grégoire Guichenon and Claudine Chaussat, a Calvinist family originating in Châtillon-les-Dombes. His father was a surgeon at Bourg-en-Bresse and his mother was the daughter of a rich merchant from Bourg-en-Bresse, but they settled in Mâcon to be closer to the Protestant community at Pont-de-Veyle. He had an active adolescence "with prodigious humour and a tender heart" and studied law in Annonay before completing his doctorate in Lyon.


He displeased the House of Savoy by disputing traditional chroniclers and disproving its hereditary rights to several lost territories such as Geneva and Cyprus. He clarified certain obscure points in its history and revealed some well-kept secrets, which led to many polemical disputes with other historians. Finally, under pressure, he recognized the House's traditional claim to Saxon origins and a dynastic link with the Holy Roman Emperor and endorsed the Duke of Savoy's policy of regional expansion towards Italy and of renouncing its claims to lands in western Europe which were too difficult to capture or hold onto due to French pressure.


In 1658 Louis XIV of France ennobled Guichenon and made him official historian of France. His "Histoire généalogique de la Royale Maison de Savoie" was published in Lyon in 1660 and presented to Christine of France - it marked the start of a new age in history-writing in which research was founded on the authenticity of sources and rational study. He was awarded the Cross of Saint Maurice. Never published, his last work was "Le Soleil en son apogée", a panegyric of Christine, edited during the last months of his life. He is buried in the église des Jacobins at Bourg-en-Bresse. He was highly thought of until the end of the 18th century.


The Medulli were a Gallic tribe dwelling in the upper valley of Maurienne, in the modern region of Savoie, during the Roman period.


They are mentioned as "Medullorum" by Vitruvius (late 1st c. BC), "Méd(o)ulloi" (Μέδ<ο>υλλοι) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), "Medulli" by Pliny (1st c. AD), and as "Medoúllous" (Μεδούλλους) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).


The Gaulish ethnonym "Medulli" is generally derived from the Celtic root "medu"-, meaning 'mead, alcoholic drink' (cf. Olr. "mid", MW. "medd", OBret. "medot"), and thus may be translated as 'those inebriated by mead'. This interpretation is encouraged by the mention, in Vitruvius' "De architetura", of a "kind of water" ("genus aquae") drunk by the Medulli. Alternatively, Javier de Hoz has proposed to glose the name as 'those who lived in the middle', or 'in the border woods', by connecting it to the root *"medhi/u"- ('middle').


The Medulli dwelled in the upper Maurienne valley, along the upper course of the Arc river, near the modern town of Modane. Their territory was located east of the Graioceli (themselves east of the Vocontii), north of the Brigianii and Quariates, west of the Segusini, and south of the Ceutrones (themselves south of the Allobroges).


They belonged to the tribes governed by Cottius in Alpes Taurinae and were later integrated into the province of Alpes Cottiae.


The Medulli were subjugated by Augustus (27 BC–14 AD). They are mentioned in the Trophy of the Alps.


According to Vitruvius, they were particularly prone to suffer from goitre.


The Treaty of Turin concluded between France and Piedmont-Sardinia on 24 March 1860 is the instrument by which the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice were annexed to France.


Emperor Napoleon III of France and the Count of Cavour, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, met in secret at Plombières-les-Bains on 21 July 1858. They agreed that France would support the unification of Italy by Sardinia, provided that the pope should retain control of Rome. In return Sardinia was asked to cede the Duchy of Savoy to France along with, more contentiously, the predominantly Italian speaking County of Nice.


In April 1859, Austria, complaining that Sardinia had been supplying arms to Lombard separatists, declared war on Sardinia. The Franco-Sardinian forces defeated the Austrians in several battles: Palestro, Montebello, Magenta, and Solferino.


But Napoleon III, who had taken personal command of his army, professed himself horrified by the extent of the bloodshed involved and resolved to end the war. The fighting ended with the armistice of Villafranca on 12 July 1859. The armistice led to the Treaty of Zurich of 10 November 1859, which transferred Lombardy to Sardinia. Complete Italian unification was deferred, though as matters turned out, not for long.


The late King Charles Albert of Sardinia (1798–1849) had been an active Italian nationalist. Among the liberal elites in francophone Savoy, the idea had grown up that the "House of Savoy" in Turin had little concern for their province beyond Mont Blanc. In practical terms, at a time when the extent of state activity was increasing across Europe, this was manifest in a perceived discrimination against French speakers when making government appointments. On 25 July 1859 about 30 leading citizens of Chambéry presented an address to Napoleon III, calling for Savoy to be annexed to France.


Elsewhere in Savoy, especially in the north, opposition to the idea of French annexation began to mobilise. The formerly Savoyard province of Carouge, adjacent to Geneva, had been transferred to Switzerland in 1816 under an earlier Treaty of Turin, as part of the unbundling of Napoleon I's First French Empire. Scenarios now under discussion included continuing with Savoy as a province of Sardinia, or joining more or even all of the territory with Switzerland, an outcome favored by Great Britain. There was very little support for the idea of a totally autonomous Savoy, the vulnerability of small quasi-autonomous territories having been vividly demonstrated within living memory by Napoleon I.


Art. 1. His Majesty the King of Sardinia consents to the annexation ("réunion") of Savoy and of the "arrondissement" of Nice ("circondario di Nizza") to France, and renounces for himself and all his descendants and successors his rights and claims to the said territories. It is agreed between their Majesties that this "réunion" shall be effected without any constraint upon the wishes of the populations, and that the Governments of the Emperor of the French and of the King of Sardinia shall concert together as soon as possible on the best means of appreciating and taking note of ("constater") the manifestations of those wishes.


Art. 2. It is also understood that His Majesty the King of Sardinia cannot transfer the neutralized portions of Savoy except upon the conditions upon which he himself possesses them, and that it will appertain to His Majesty the Emperor of the French to come to an understanding on that subject as well with the Powers represented at the Congress of Vienna as with the Helvetic Confederation, and to give them the guarantees which result from the stipulations alluded to in the present article.


Art. 3. A mixed commission will determine, in a spirit off equity, the frontiers of the two States, taking into account the configuration of the mountains and the necessity of defence.


Art. 4. One or more mixed commissions will be charged to examine and to resolve, within a brief delay, the divers incidental questions to which the annexation will give rise,–such as the decision of the contribution of Savoy and of the arrondissement of Nice to the public debt of Sardinia, and the execution of the obligations resulting from contracts entered into with the Sardinian Government, which, however, engages to terminate itself the works commenced for cutting a tunnel through the Alps (Mont Cénia).


Art. 5. The French Government will take into account, as regards functionaries of the civil and military order belonging by their birth to the province of Savoy, or to the "arrondissement" of Nice, and who will become French subjects, the rights which they have acquired by services rendered to the Sardinian Government; they will especially enjoy the benefits of life appointments in the magistrature and of the guarantees assured to the army.


Art. 6. Sardinian subjects originally of Savoy, or of the "arrondissement" of Nice, or domiciled actually in those provinces, who would wish to maintain the Sardinian nationality, will enjoy during the period of one year, dating from the exchange of the ratifications, and in virtue of a previous declaration made to the competent authorities, the faculty of removing their domicile to Italy, and settling there, in which case their qualifications as Sardinian citizens will remain to them. They will be at liberty to keep their landed property situate on the territory annexed to France.


Art. 7. For Sardinia the present treaty will become law as soon as the necessary legislative sanction has been given by the Parliament.


Art. 8. The present treaty shall be ratified and the ratifications exchanged at Turin within the delay of ten days, or earlier if possible.


In faith of which the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed it and affixed their seals thereunto.


Done in duplicate at Turin the 24th day of the month of March of the year of grace 1860.


Such were some of the indications of public sentiment at the time when the French garrisons were taking their places. It was evident that the people were not to be easily overawed.


But the efforts of the government had only just begun. Immediately after the occupation of the country by French troops, there was published an order transferring the civil government of the provinces to France. The French provisional governor, Lubonis, made haste to use the power thus placed in his hands for the advantage of his imperial master, and his example was speedily followed by Lachinal. Many of the mayors and local authorities were utterly opposed to the idea of French annexation, and without their co-operation it was felt that a vote of the people in favor of the measure could not be insured. Accordingly, the following circular, filled out as might in each case be required, was issued:


Considering that Monsieur ——— , mayor of the commune of ——— , seems not to have accepted favorably the consequences of the Treaty of the 24th of March last; considering that it is important, under the present circumstances, to have at the head of the administration of each commune men devoted to the new order of things;


1. Monsieur ——— , present mayor of the commune of ———— , is dismissed from his functions.


2. The municipal counselor ——— is charged, until a new order, with the administration of said commune.


3. The above will be transmitted to Messieurs ——— and ——— , for their guidance.


In commenting upon this transfer of civil authority to the sole interests of the Emperor, the French journals gave evidence of abundant zeal. One of them, "Le Bon Sens", remarked:


The military and civil machinery thus in order, the authorities now devoted themselves to the more immediate work of manufacturing the requisite majority. First of all, the public was informed not only that it was prohibited to hold any meetings to discuss the affairs of Nice, but also that no canvassing on the part of those opposed to French annexation would be permitted, and that no placards or circulars would be allowed to be issued by the Italian party. At the same time, documents of various kinds were issued by the officers in authority, appealing to their subordinates and to the people. The provisional governor, Lubonis, issued a proclamation, of which the following is the most important portion:


A proclamation similar to this of Lubonis was issued by Malaussena, Mayor of Nice; and finally, as if to crown all, the Bishop came forward in the same interest, appealing to all loyal members of the Church to vote for annexation. Nor, indeed, was this all. The French Committee sent to all the officials a circular bearing the government seal, and appealing for support to all the authorities in town and country. Referring to the advantages to be derived from annexation, the Committee used these words:


The "necessary measures" to which the committee alluded were amply provided for. A sum of money had been placed at their disposal by the French government; and of this it is stated on good authority that 3,000,000 francs were used in the direct work of bribery, exclusive of the expenses of the government on the day of voting. Drinking booths and "cafés" were erected especially for the purpose by the officials, and a tri-colored cockade or a voting ticket with "oui" upon it entitled the bearer to the gratuitous enjoyment of all their privileges.


Another device which appealed to the religious zeal of the people was that of blessing the standards of the imperial party. This official blessing of the French flags was calculated to work an immense effect upon the ignorant and somewhat superstitious population. The authorization ran in this way:


"MM. les Commissaires will distribute the flags which MM. les Curés are authorized, and indeed invited, to bless. These standards will be in this case presented by the Commune, at the head of the inhabitants, to MM. les Curés, who will receive them at the entry of the church. Finally, you will understand the importance which I attach to this last recommendation. You will take care that official proclamations, manifestoes, and notices are preserved intact. All appeals to the passions—any notice whatever affixed without the required authorization—will be immediately torn down."


Side by side with this was posted the following official manifesto:


"The Mayor of Bonneville notifies that the Communal Council will assist at the benediction of the flags which the Imperial Government has presented to the Commune; that this religious ceremony will take place on Sunday, the 22nd, at seven o'clock, A. M.; that the "cortège" will leave the Hotel de Ville to go to the church. All electors are invited to this ceremony, which will immediately precede the opening of the voting-urns. In the morning the Hotel de Ville will be decorated with the French flags and the national colors. All the inhabitants are invited to decorate their houses with flags of the same colors.


"The Imperial Government has made its "début" by a signal benefit in giving us the customs "zone", which has hitherto been refused. It assures to us the prosperity of the country. Its generosity will not end here. French engineers have explored the province, have begun to study the banks of the rivers, the state of the roads, and the public works most useful to the country. The numerous mines of Faucigny will be worked, the condition of our "collége" will be improved. Let us show our gratitude to the Emperor. Let us give a free course to our sympathies, so long restrained, and prove by a compact and unanimous vote that we are as much French as our fathers were.


As the day of voting approached, the Central Committee issued the following circular:


"SIR, The Central Annexationist Committee, upon whose proceedings no restrictions were placed, has named you member of the Special Committee for the parish of ———. You will have the goodness, sir, to concert with your colleagues, Messrs. ———, measures which may unite and bring to the poll on Sunday next the greatest possible number of electors, and take any steps which appear expedient, "in order that the vote of the population may be at the same time a striking manifestation of its sentiments towards France and towards the Emperor"."


In addition to all the other pressure, the local police authorities openly declared that lists of the "proscrits" would be made out, and that those who abstained from voting would be punished as soon as they became French subjects. The same authorities received orders from headquarters at Nice to collect the peasants on the day of voting and march them into town, with drums beating, and French flags floating at their head. An Englishman, who was at Nice at the time of the election, thus describes what he saw:


The same witness wrote subsequently from Bonneville, where he happened to be on the day of the voting in Savoy:


Historian John A. Davis, said in 2005, "Everyone, it seems, is busy rethinking, revisioning, revisiting, remaking, remapping or demythologizing the Risorgimento. However, it is not the Risorgimento that is being revisited but the changing images that have made it the potent founding myth of the Italian nation for successive generations of Italians." In the 20th century, and especially since the end of World War II, the received interpretation of Italian unification, the "Risorgimento", has become the object of historical revisionism. The justifications offered for unification, the methods employed to realise it and the benefits supposedly accruing to unified Italy are frequent targets of the revisionists. Some schools have called the "Risorgimento" an imperialist or colonialist venture imposed by Savoy.


Some revisionists tend to negatively re-evaluate key characters of Italian national unity, such as Camillo Benso di Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. They grafted in this way in the debate on the causes of the so-called Southern Question ("Questione Meridionale"), and say that the Risorgimento was a true work of colonization, followed by a centralizing policy of conquest, because of which the Italian Mezzogiorno would have fallen into a state of backwardness still manifest. Others consider that the policies of tax, toll and industry implemented in the southern regions by the Savoy government since 1861, together with endogenous factors, have further depleted the area or they have affected its development.


Background and historical basis of revisionism on the Risorgimento.


The ideas behind the revisionist movement already began to awaken and strengthen in the years immediately following the events that led to the Kingdom of Sardinia to become the Kingdom of Italy, even before the birth of a historical debate on the subject. The first doubts about the reasons behind the foreign policy of the House of Savoy were raised by Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the theorists and supporters of Italian unification. In this regard Mazzini suggested in his paper ""Italy of the people" that the government of Cavour was not interested in the principle of a united Italy, but simply to push the boundaries of the Savoy state. Even once Italy was unified, Mazzini returned to attack the Government in respect of the new nation:


Statements of Mazzini are precursors of the dispute on the ideal unification process, which began already during the 20th century, as a continuation of the contentious debate between the moderate and democratic parties of Risorgimento. The first criticism of the hagiographic reconstructions came by the same liberal leaders, who had enthusiastically promoted any political activity that would have contributed to the national cause. Among the main targets, there were contentious politics of the new centralized unitary state, defined negatively by the neologism of "piemontesizzazione"" (homologation to Piedmont).


Parallel to the abovementioned political and ideal dispute, across the late 19th century began to appear the first historiographical contributions alternative to the mainstream historiography on the Italian Risorgimento. These works furnished the substrate on which the later revisionist theories were built.


A prime example was the writer Alfredo Oriani, which put into question the outcome of the events of the Risorgimento in his work "The political struggle in Italy" (1892), which examined the conflict between federalism and unitarianism. Oriani criticized the "royal conquest" as a unilateral action to create a new state, assuming that without the support of a strong democratic movement, it would prove to be weak in its foundations. This work is considered the prototype of the first modern revisionist historiography on Italy, alternately to apologetic historiography of Savoy.


Criticisms against the interpretation of the Risorgimento events were also moved by Francesco Saverio Nitti, who in his works "North and South" (Nord e Sud)(1900) and "Italy at the dawn of the twentieth century" (L'Italia all'alba del secolo XX) (1901), analyzed the consequences of the national Unity from a framework illustrating the political and economic situation in the pre-unification states. According to Nitti, the benefits of the national unification process were not equitably distributed throughout the country, facilitating further development of northern Italy at the expense of the South.


Oriani's ideas influenced the thinking of the liberal Piero Gobetti who in 1926 criticized the liberal ruling class in his collection of essays "Risorgimento without heroes" ("Risorgimento senza eroi"). According to Gobetti, the Risorgimento was the work of a minority who resigned to pursue a deeper social and cultural revolution. From this "failed revolution" a state unable to meet the needs of the masses was born.


In the same vein of political and cultural connotations, but with more openly Marxist-style, is part of the revisionist and anti-apologetic analysis of Antonio Gramsci. In his book "Prison Notebooks" (Quaderni del carcere), published posthumously only after 1947, he describes the Risorgimento as a "passive revolution" suffered by the peasants, the poorest social class of the population. The Southern question, Jacobinism, the construction of the revolutionary process in Italy are the central themes of his analysis on the basis of which he reinterprets the Italian Risorgimento as a process of socio-political transformation began in 1789 with the French Revolution, passively transposed in Italy, and hesitated in the collapse of the Ancien Régime.


The reinterpretation of the Italian Risorgimento's events have not a single origin. The questioning of the assumptions of official history is coming from a part of the academic world and from several independent scholars, including several essayists. The growth of this cultural movement, in particular measure across the last fifty years, has generated the emergence of a growing critical literature of the broader historiography, which has gradually been the subject of increasingly acute dispute and controversy. Across the following paragraphs are presented the contributions to historical revisionism, divided according to the framework of origin.


In the years following the annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the newborn Italian State, contemporary witnesses gave the prints the first works that brought a critical analysis of the political unification of the peninsula.


In his works, he described the unification process as an assault against two sovereign states (the Two Sicilies and the Church), in violation of international law and in particular of the spiritual and civil values of the Neapolitan nation. The thought of de' Sivo was long the subject of ostracism, in spite of Benedetto Croce had highlighted his thickness as a scholar by writing a biography that was included in the work "A family of patriots" (Una famiglia di patrioti).


The years following the unification of Italy also saw the flowering of a vast literature of memoirs in which mainly ex-members of the dissolved Army of Two Sicilies brought their own interpretation of the facts. Among the numerous examples can be mentioned the brothers Pietro and Ludovico Quandel and Giuseppe Buttà. Chaplain of the 9th Battalion Hunters of the Bourbon Army, he was the author of "A Journey from Boccadifalco to Gaeta" (Un viaggio da Boccadifalco a Gaeta) (1875), autobiographical work that tells the story of the landing of the Expedition of the Thousand in Marsala until the Siege of Gaeta as viewed from the vanquisheds' side.


For a description of the events from his point of view Buttà resorted to a cutting language and a tone more sarcastic than de' Sivo's, also sparing no criticism against the Bourbon officers whom he accused of cowardice or treason against the crown. Despite the limitations resulting from transpositions of individual points of view, the memoirs are cited by many revisionist authors, which give them the value of historical documents.


The revisionism of Risorgimento knew a clear radicalization and resumed in the mid-20th century, after the fall of the Savoy monarchy and that of fascism, for which the Risorgimento was considered an intangible myth. The changed political conditions allowed the emergence of a group of scholars which began re-examining the value of the House of Savoy work, and made largely negative reviews in that respect. About a hundred years after De' Sivo, the members of this group also took up the arguments of criticism, charging in particular to the process of national unification the cause of most problems of the Southern Italy.


In the line of cultural descent, Michele Topa follows Carlo Alianello. By his works "Thus ended the Bourbons of Naples" (Così finirono i Borbone di Napoli) (1959) and "The Brigands of His Majesty" (I briganti di Sua Maestà) (1967), helped to outline a new historiographical conception of the Risorgimento, seen from the losers' standpoint.


Another leading and more intransigent figure of revisionism was Nicola Zitara. Along the same cultural lines of Alianello and Topa, the Calabrian writer considered Italy as the result of an operation of military conquest and economic damage to the South against which it would have been put in place an intricate plot. In her works, Zitara expresses his beliefs derived from an economic analysis conducted according to the canons of Marxist ideology.


Over the years, the revisionism of Risorgimento has found other supporters, both southern- and northern-born, which further in-depth research on the controversial events of the unification process. Among them we can mention Lorenzo Del Boca, Gigi Di Fiore, Francesco Mario Agnoli, Pino Aprile, Fulvio Izzo, Massimo Viglione, Antonio Ciano, Aldo Servidio, Roberto Martucci, Luciano Salera and Pier Giusto Jaeger.


Revisionism of Risorgimento is written about, albeit in different ways, by some academic authors, in most cases of non-Italian origin.


The best-known example is perhaps as the British historian Denis Mack Smith, whose work focuses on the history of Italy from the Risorgimento to the present day. He graduated at Cambridge, a member of the British Academy of Wolfson College (University of Cambridge), of All Souls College (Oxford University) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was a collaborator of Benedetto Croce and Grand Officer of the Order Merit of the Italian Republic.


A distinctly different opinion was expressed by the scholar against Mazzini in the biography he dedicated to him, where the Italian thinker was positively judged because of the impulse given to the democratic life of the 19th century, with particular reference to the campaigns in favor of social security, universal suffrage and women's rights.


In his essay "Documentary falsification and Italian biography", Mack Smith finally highlighted as the systematic destruction, rewriting in apologetic terms and concealment of official documents is a practice which all states are in danger of falling, but in some moments of Italian history this has been systematic. Citing specific examples referred to historical personages of great importance (Vittorio Emanuele II, Garibaldi, Lamarmora, Crispi) the historian provided many examples of manipulation of historical events for political use.


Another influential member of the academic revisionism is Christopher Duggan, a student of Mack Smith and Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of Italian Society of the University of Reading.


In his work "The force of destiny – history of Italy from 1796 to today", Duggan expressed strong criticisms of the most popular historiography, with particular reference to the interpretation of the anti-unification movements in the South and of their repression. In particular, he reports that already in occasion of the massacre of Pontelandolfo and Casalduni voices like the one of the Deputy Giuseppe Ferrari, who called what happened a real "civil war" were abruptly silenced, since according to the official interpretation "the "banditry" was responsible for violence in southern Italy and no one else".


According to the English scholar, the governments of the period after 1861 were obliged to represent the furious fighting that occurred in the former territories of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies as solely related to the common crime, as any other interpretation would have clashed sharply with the results of the "plebiscites" which spoke instead of a population unanimously in favor of unity. Duggan also said that efforts to credit the official version were blatantly contradicted by the facts since in 1864, no fewer than 100,000 soldiers (half of the entire Italian Army) were deployed in the South in an attempt to respond to rising.


According to Duggan, the substrate on which these statements were based was a mixture of "self-interest and fear". It was useful, in fact, to paint the southern territories as corrupt and backward, as this allowed the new government to justify the imposition of its own constitution and laws, administrative practices and men according to the approach of "piemontesizzazione". On the other hand, there was deep concern about the possibility of the spread of riots, which would have fragmented the country again, with unforeseeable consequences.


The historian writes that the alleged backwardness of the southern territories was instrumentally used to justify acts of flagrant lawlessness and violence. Over all, it is remembered the event involving the eminent Piedmontan General Giuseppe Govone, which was sent to Sicily with the task of rounding up conscripts and used of methods such as "putting cities under siege, cutting water supply and the kidnapping of women and children." In an attempt to justify his actions in Parliament, Govone made reference to the alleged "barbarism" of the territory, causing an outbreak of turmoil in the courtroom. Francesco Crispi, a Sicilian, challenged to a duel a prominent deputy of Northern origin and 21 Democrats, including Garibaldi himself, resigned.


Duggan also examines the problem of the number of those killed in the years after unification, citing Quintino Sella in what he calls a "real civil war". He makes a comparison between the official figures (5,200 killed in fighting between and executed in the period 1861-1865) and those calculated by using the local testimoniances and foreign press reports, which speak of tens of thousands (and up to 150,000) deaths. He believes these latest figures "unlikely but not impossible" because the very nature of the killings like that of Pontelandolfo makes no trace left of it in official documents.


The English historian criticizes the "transplant (to) the whole of Italy (with) the laws and institutions of the Piedmont" on the grounds that it was done "with so little consultation, and a callousness so fast and big, from seriously offending the sensibilities and local interests". If in fact, the Piedmont could claim a certain moral leadership as the only Italian state to have a constitution (but not the first, as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies' Ferdinand II had in the first enactment of a Constitution in Italy), in other respects such as education, local government and justice, Lombardy, Tuscany and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had better credentials. Only recently, in fact, Piedmont had shed the reputation of being the "rear-most point of the peninsula".


In addition to the former Kingdom of Two Sicilies, a country of long legal tradition, the replacement of the existing codes with the Piedmont's laws caused extensive discontent in Tuscany, in particular the introduction of the death penalty, which did not exist in enlightened local legal traditions. Others widespread discontent was due to the introduction of the "prefects" as reference points of the system of local government. These were for many decades after the unification invariably of Northern or Piedmont origin, and invariably linked by relations of friendship with the Minister of Interior in key locations such as Milan, Florence, Naples and Palermo.


Duggan turns his critical attention also to the construction of the mythology of the Risorgimento, as defined through the words of Francesco Crispi "religion of the country (which we need to give) the greatest solemnity, the maximum popularity".


British historian believes that the idealization of the unified movement was consciously pursued through the exaltation of the figures of Vittorio Emanuele II and Garibaldi, as a catalyst and homogenization of the various and often conflicting, monarchical and republican, federal and unitary, conservative and radicals trends. This myth was sustained by a steady stream of hagiographic literature, especially after the death of two characters (1878 and 1882, respectively) and an equally conspicuous and in many cases forced the construction of monuments.


This operation of iconification on a national scale had accents of the lowest level (such as the placing of plaques on sites in which Garibaldi had spent a few hours to take a bath) and even moments of blatant counterinformation. Duggan reports the case of serious Garibaldi's biography, written by Giuseppe Guerzoni in 1882, where next to the virtues he described Garibaldi's very human flaws. It was immediately branded as "too sophisticated" by Achille Bizzoni, who hastened to write to a watered down version "of the people use".


Duggan also shows that the work of construction of a mythology of the Risorgimento was also extended to the "nationalization" of school curricula in history, the teaching of which was to be made "so that prospective students absorbed by the history of Italy the love of country". Thus was a careful handling of textbooks, in which there had to be made any mention of the possibility of such figures as Cavour, or worse yet, Vittorio Emanuele, had not been in all respects of disinterested patriots.


In particular, for the protection of the latter, whenever a high political figure died, they proceeded to a careful examination of his papers and private correspondence with the king to expunge and secrete in the Royal Library any incriminating documents. Similarly, the correspondence of Cavour was heavily expurgated of the fierce hostility of Garibaldi and the democrats and phrases that were deeply offensive to Italians.


Another member of the academic revisionism is Martin Clark, professor of political history to the University of Edinburgh.


In his book "The Italian Risorgimento – still a controversial story" Clark says the non-sustainability of the "patriotic and progressive" vision of the unification process. British historian rejects the teleological view of the Risorgimento as an inevitable and finalistic process, considering it rather the correlation of different events, some of which random.


The researcher concludes that "patriotic interpretation of the Risorgimento is wrong, if only for the fact that the Italians were divided and not at all anxious to achieve national unity".


The British also recognized that academic scholars of the Southern School ("Meridionalisti", see specific paragraph) have shown that the society of the ancient Kingdom of Two Sicilies was not stagnant, and some institutions strongly disputed by mainstream historians, such as estate, were not an index of socio-cultural backwardness but rather the "most appropriate response to the technological conditions and market circumstances". It was actually the customs and fiscal policies adopted by the new rulers that destroyed the southern economy.


Rigorous analyses of the Risorgimento were also conducted by Lucy Riall, a professor of history at Birkbeck College of University of London.


Italian unification ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (, ; meaning "Resurgence"), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state, the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1871, when Rome was officially designated the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.


Some of the states that had been targeted for unification ("terre irredente") did not join the Kingdom of Italy until 1918, after Italy defeated Austria-Hungary in World War I. For this reason, historians sometimes describe the unification period as continuing past 1871, to include activities during the late 19th century and the First World War (1915–1918), and reaching completion only with the Armistice of Villa Giusti on November 4, 1918. This more expansive definition of the unification period is the one presented, for example, at the Central Museum of the Risorgimento at the Vittoriano.


Italy was unified by Rome in the third century BC. For 700 years, it was a "de facto" territorial extension of the capital of the Roman Republic and Empire, and for a long time experienced a privileged status but was not converted into a province.


After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Italy remained united under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and later disputed between the Kingdom of the Lombards and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. Following conquest by the Frankish Empire, the title of King of Italy merged with the office of Holy Roman Emperor. However, the emperor was an absentee German-speaking foreigner who had little concern for the governance of Italy as a state; as a result, Italy gradually developed into a system of city-states. Southern Italy, however, was governed by the long-lasting Kingdom of Sicily or Kingdom of Naples, which had been established by the Normans. Central Italy was governed by the Pope as a temporal kingdom known as the Papal States.


This situation persisted through the Renaissance but began to deteriorate with the rise of modern nation-states in the early modern period. Italy, including the Papal States, then became the site of proxy wars between the major powers, notably the Holy Roman Empire (including Austria), Spain, and France.


Harbingers of national unity appeared in the treaty of the Italic League, in 1454, and the 15th-century foreign policy of Cosimo De Medici and Lorenzo De Medici. Leading Renaissance Italian writers Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Guicciardini expressed opposition to foreign domination. Petrarch stated that the "ancient valour in Italian hearts is not yet dead" in "Italia Mia". Machiavelli later quoted four verses from "Italia Mia" in "The Prince", which looked forward to a political leader who would unite Italy "to free her from the barbarians".


The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 formally ended the rule of the Holy Roman Emperors in Italy. However, the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty, another branch of which provided the Emperors, continued to rule most of Italy down to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14).


A sense of Italian national identity was reflected in Gian Rinaldo Carli's "Della Patria degli Italiani", written in 1764. It told how a stranger entered a café in Milan and puzzled its occupants by saying that he was neither a foreigner nor a Milanese. Then what are you?' they asked. 'I am an Italian,' he explained."


After Napoleon fell, the Congress of Vienna (1814–15) restored the pre-Napoleonic patchwork of independent governments. Italy was again controlled largely by the Austrian Empire and the Habsburgs, as they directly controlled the predominantly Italian-speaking northeastern part of Italy and were, together, the most powerful force against unification.


An important figure of this period was Francesco Melzi d'Eril, serving as vice-president of the Napoleonic Italian Republic (1802–1805) and consistent supporter of the Italian unification ideals that would lead to the Italian "Risorgimento" shortly after his death.


Meanwhile, artistic and literary sentiment also turned towards nationalism; Vittorio Alfieri, Francesco Lomonaco and Niccolò Tommaseo are generally considered three great literary precursors of Italian nationalism, but the most famous of proto-nationalist works was Alessandro Manzoni's "I promessi sposi" "(The Betrothed)", widely read as a thinly veiled allegorical critique of Austrian rule. Published in 1827 and extensively revised in the following years, the 1840 version of "I Promessi Sposi" used a standardized version of the Tuscan dialect, a conscious effort by the author to provide a language and force people to learn it.


Exiles dreamed of unification. Three ideals of unification appeared. Vincenzo Gioberti, a Piedmontese priest, had suggested a confederation of Italian states under leadership of the Pope in his 1842 book "Of the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians". Pope Pius IX at first appeared interested but he turned reactionary and led the battle against liberalism and nationalism.


Giuseppe Mazzini and Carlo Cattaneo wanted the unification of Italy under a federal republic, which proved too extreme for most nationalists. The middle position was proposed by Cesare Balbo (1789–1853) as a confederation of separate Italian states led by Piedmont.


One of the most influential revolutionary groups was the Carboneria, a secret political discussion group formed in Southern Italy early in the 19th century; the members were called "Carbonari". After 1815, Freemasonry in Italy was repressed and discredited due to its French connections. A void was left that the Carboneria filled with a movement that closely resembled Freemasonry but with a commitment to Italian nationalism and no association with Napoleon and his government. The response came from middle-class professionals and businessmen and some intellectuals. The Carboneria disowned Napoleon but nevertheless were inspired by the principles of the French Revolution regarding liberty, equality and fraternity. They developed their own rituals, and were strongly anticlerical. The Carboneria movement spread across Italy.


Many leading Carbonari revolutionaries wanted a republic, two of the most prominent being Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Mazzini's activity in revolutionary movements caused him to be imprisoned soon after he joined. While in prison, he concluded that Italy could − and therefore should − be unified, and he formulated a program for establishing a free, independent, and republican nation with Rome as its capital. Following his release in 1831, he went to Marseille in France, where he organized a new political society called "La Giovine Italia" (Young Italy), whose motto was "Dio e Popolo" (God and People), which sought the unification of Italy.


Garibaldi, a native of Nice (then part of Piedmont), participated in an uprising in Piedmont in 1834 and was sentenced to death. He escaped to South America, though, spending fourteen years in exile, taking part in several wars, and learning the art of guerrilla warfare before his return to Italy in 1848.


In 1820, Spaniards successfully revolted over disputes about their Constitution, which influenced the development of a similar movement in Italy. Inspired by the Spaniards (who, in 1812, had created their constitution), a regiment in the army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, commanded by Guglielmo Pepe, a Carbonaro (member of the secret republican organization), mutinied, conquering the peninsular part of Two Sicilies. The king, Ferdinand I, agreed to enact a new constitution. The revolutionaries, though, failed to court popular support and fell to Austrian troops of the Holy Alliance. Ferdinand abolished the constitution and began systematically persecuting known revolutionaries. Many supporters of revolution in Sicily, including the scholar Michele Amari, were forced into exile during the decades that followed.


The leader of the 1821 revolutionary movement in Piedmont was Santorre di Santarosa, who wanted to remove the Austrians and unify Italy under the House of Savoy. The Piedmont revolt started in Alessandria, where troops adopted the green, white, and red "tricolore" of the Cisalpine Republic. The king's regent, prince Charles Albert, acting while the king Charles Felix was away, approved a new constitution to appease the revolutionaries, but when the king returned he disavowed the constitution and requested assistance from the Holy Alliance. Di Santarosa's troops were defeated, and the would-be Piedmontese revolutionary fled to Paris.