text stringlengths 13 991 |
|---|
Polyxena is helping Charles to rehearse state speeches when they are visited briefly by the disdainful D'Ormea. Charles believes that he has been summoned to the palace to be disinherited in favour of an illegitimate son. Polyxena suggests that the King's mistress, Marchioness Sebastian, may have influenced Victor in that direction after he was widowed in 1728. |
Victor soliloquises while carrying the regalia. Having foolishly made secret, incompatible deals with Austria and with Spain, he fears that a reconciliation between the two great powers will lead to the revealment of the deception, and justify the annexation of his kingdom. Nothing short of a change in ruler will extricate Sardinia from this situation, he believes. However, he has little faith in Charles, and expects to take power back from his weak son as soon as a renegotiation is complete and the coast is clear. |
When Charles enters, Victor is startled by his tone of accusation, and wonders if D'Ormea (who expects to be made scapegoat) has told him anything. Victor places the crown on Charles's head and announces an intention to abdicate. He will take the name Count Tende and spend his retirement in Chambéry, 150 km away in the extreme northwest of Savoy. Charles is somewhat angry when he learns that Victor has secretly married his old mistress, but the guilt over his earlier suspicion is so great that he refuses even to consider the possibility that his father has ulterior motives for stepping down. When the baffled Polyxena suggests that all may not be as it seems, he turns away from her. |
Victor enters the palace alone, and is surprised by his son while wandering about his old chamber. At first the old man is tactful, but gradually his indignation over his son's failure to adhere to his policies causes him to demand openly the return of his crown. |
Polyxena and D'Ormea enter and remonstrate with him, having overheard. Victor quickly dissembles, modifying the end of his rant to make it appear that he had been complaining about his allowance and living quarters. |
Victor is seized and brought to the palace. He is defiant, but when Charles places the crown on his head he is devastated by the filial piety the gesture represents. Fully reconciled with his son, Victor takes his old seat and passes away. |
Macready wrote in his diary, in the entry for 5 September 1839: "Read Browning's play on Victor, King of Sardinia—it turned out to be a "great mistake". I called Browning into my room and most explicitly told him so." Arthur Symons described it as "the least interesting and valuable of Browning's plays, the thinnest in structure, the dryest in substance." Browning himself called it a "very indifferent substitute" for another play he had hoped to publish. |
It was once generally accepted as historical fact that the abdication had been a ruse. However, modern historians believe that Victor sincerely intended to retire and that his subsequent behaviour was the result of a stroke, and attendant mental illness, possibly prompted by distress over the prison-like environment at Chambéry. Another former explanation, the supposed ambition and scheming of his mistress-turned-wife, was probably a cover story put out by authorities to divert blame and halt further speculation. |
Henri of Savoy (7 November 1625, Paris – 4 January 1659, Paris) was the seventh Duc de Nemours (1652–59), and was also Count of Geneva. |
Henri, as the third son of Henri de Savoie, 4th Duc de Nemours, was not expected to succeed to the dukedom and entered the priesthood. By 1651, he had become Archbishop of Reims. When his brothers Louis and Charles both predeceased him without leaving sons, he was relieved of his vows and became Duc de Nemours in 1652. He married Marie d'Orleans (daughter of Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville and Louise de Bourbon) in 1657, but died two years later without children. On his death, the title of Duke of Nemours reverted to the Crown. He was succeeded as Count of Geneva by his niece, Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Savoie, Duchess of Savoy. |
The Order of the Black Swan ( or ) was a short-lived chivalric order founded by Amadeus VI of Savoy in 1350. It was defunct by 1364, when Amadeus founded the Order of the Collar in its stead. Along with Amadeus, Amadeus III of Geneva and Galeazzo Visconti were the "great lords" ("grans seignours") of the Order. At the time of its founding, the existence of black swans was unknown to Europeans. |
The order was originally composed of fourteen knights. The requirements of membership were the possession of a charger and a palfrey, and the ability to serve at one's own expense for one week whenever required. The Order did collect dues (at least from noblemen, "riches hommes") for purposes "estreordinaire" (extraordinary) according to rank ("puissance"): eight "écus" from a knight banneret, four from what they called a "chivallier simple", and one from any squire. Annually on Saint Andrew's Day the knights assembled and approved expenditures. In the meantime, the monies were stored in several religious establishments. |
The Order's emblem was a black swan with red beak and feet on a white field, and members ("compaignons") were required to display it, usually on their shields. Members swore an oath to defend each other, even against relatives beyond the degree of first cousin, and to submit all disputes between themselves to the judgement of the membership. Any knight who refused to abide by the arbitration of the others was expelled and his former comrades joined in arms against him. |
Antonia of Savoy (died 1500), was Lady of Monaco by marriage to Jean II, Lord of Monaco. |
Antonia or Antoinette of Savoy was the illegitimate daughter of Philip II, Duke of Savoy and his mistress Libera Portoneri. She was raised in the household of the queen of France, Charlotte of Savoy. In 1487, she was arranged to marry the heir to the throne of Monaco in a peace agreement between Monaco and Savoy supported by France. The marriage was of high importance to Savoy, and part of a process in which was completed in 1489, when Savoy acknowledged the independence of Savoy. |
The couple had a daughter, Marie Grimaldi, wo was in 1515 married to Geronimo della Rovere and was forced to renounce her rights to the throne upon her marriage. |
Princess Bona of Savoy-Genoa, later Princess Bona of Bavaria (Maria Bona Margherita Albertina Vittoria; 1 August 1896 – 2 February 1971), was a daughter of Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa and Princess Isabella of Bavaria. |
Bona was the third of six children born to Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa and his wife Princess Isabella of Bavaria. Her father was a grandson of King Charles Albert of Sardinia. Among her siblings were Ferdinando, 3rd Duke of Genoa; Filiberto, 4th Duke of Genoa; and Eugenio, 5th Duke of Genoa. Her mother Isabella was a granddaughter of Ludwig I of Bavaria. |
Bona was born at Castle d'Agliè, Piedmont. Her father had bought the eleventh-century castle shortly before his marriage with Isabella. They passed their honeymoon there. |
On 8 January 1921, Bona married her second cousin, Prince Konrad of Bavaria. He was the youngest son of Prince Leopold of Bavaria and Archduchess Gisela of Austria. Through his father, he was a great-grandson of Ludwig I of Bavaria, and through his mother was a grandson of Franz Joseph I of Austria. The wedding took place at Castle Agliè in Piedmont, Italy (where she was born). It was attended by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, Crown Prince Umberto, and the Duke of Aosta, among others. The wedding is notable for being the first royal marriage between two enemy houses since World War I began and ended. It was also remarkable as a gathering of royalty representing the Houses of Habsburg, Savoy, and Wittelsbach. |
At the end of the Second World War, Prince Konrad was arrested by the French military at Hinterstein. He was brought to Lindau and temporarily interned in the hotel Bayerischer Hof, together with among others the German Crown Prince Wilhelm and the former Nazi diplomat Hans Georg von Mackensen. Princess Bona, who worked during the war as a nurse, stayed afterwards with her relatives in Savoy. She was prohibited from entering Germany and was not reunited with her family until 1947. In later years Prince Konrad worked on the Board of German automaker NSU. |
Bona died on 2 February 1971 in Rome. Her tomb can be found in the church of the Andechs Abbey, in Germany. Her husband Prince Konrad died on 6 September 1969. |
Thomas Francis of Savoy, 1st Prince of Carignano (; ; 21 December 1596 – 22 January 1656) was an Italian military commander and the founder of the Carignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946. |
Born in Turin, Thomas was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of the sovereign Duke Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy by his consort Caterina Micaela of Austria, a daughter of King Philip II of Spain and the French princess Elisabeth of France. His mother died the following year. While still a young man, Thomas bore arms in the service of the king of Spain in Italy. |
Although in previous reigns, younger sons had been granted rich appanages in Switzerland (Genevois, Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours, Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regional secession. Not only did Thomas have older brothers, he was but one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring by noble mistresses, appear to have been generously endowed or dowered during their father's lifetime. |
The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km. south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance. Instead of receiving a significant patrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 to Marie de Bourbon; she was sister to and co-heiress with Louis, Count of Soissons, who would be killed in 1641 while fomenting rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu. |
In anticipation of this inheritance Thomas and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's capital, Turin, but dwelt in Paris, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of a "princesse du sang", being a second cousin of King Louis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among the "princes étrangers" at the French court—taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerful House of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereign Duke of Lorraine was more remote. He was appointed "Grand Maître" of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorous "Grand Condé". He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtier Claude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children. |
The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision to legitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon, "chevalier" de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignano". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as a secundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas, the senior branch of his descendants repatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses. |
After seeking Spanish support late in 1638 for action against Regent Christine Marie, "Madame Royale", Thomas went to Spanish Milan early in 1639, and alongside Spanish forces invaded Piedmont, where many towns welcomed him. He took Turin by trickery, but the French continued to control its citadel. In 1640, he held the city in the multi-layered siege of Turin. After repeated bouts of negotiations with the Regent and the French, Thomas made peace with both in the first half of 1642, and unblushingly changed sides and started fighting with the French against the Spaniards. |
During his absence, Regent Christine had gained control of the fortresses granted to Thomas as part of the settlement of the Piedmontese Civil War (legally, these reverted to ducal control when the Duke came of age), which under Piedmontese law Charles Emmanuel did in 1648, though his mother remained in control of the government; Christine, accompanied by her son and part of the ducal army, entered Ivrea and dismissed Thomas' personal garrison; she appointed Thomas instead as governor or Asti and Alba, positions which sweetened the blow but were entirely under ducal control, not guaranteed by treaty. When he returned to Piedmont, Thomas had no choice but to accept the fait accompli, and soon after this he went to live in Paris. |
After the 1655 campaign, Thomas returned to Turin where he died the following January; the suggestion in Spanheim that he died "at" the siege of Pavia is not supported - malaria, a common problem in the marshes of the Po valley, carried him off, as it carried off his successor as allied commander-in-chief, Francesco I d'Este. |
Thomas and Marie de Bourbon had seven children (Italian names in parentheses): |
The House of Savoy-Carignano (; ) originated as a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. It was founded by Thomas Francis of Savoy, Prince of Carignano (1596–1656), an Italian military commander who was the fifth son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. His descendants were accepted as "princes étrangers" at the court of France, where some held prominent positions. They eventually came to reign as kings of Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946. The Savoy-Carignano family also, briefly, supplied a king each to Spain and Croatia, as well as queens consort to Bulgaria and Portugal. |
Born in Turin, Thomas Francis of Savoy was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of Charles Emmanuel I, sovereign Duke of Savoy, by his wife, Catherine Micaela of Spain (daughter of King Philip II of Spain and his consort, Elizabeth of Valois, a French princess). While still a young man, he bore arms in Italy in the service of the King of Spain. |
Although in previous reigns, younger sons of Savoy had been granted rich appanages in Switzerland (Genevois, Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours, Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regional secession. Not only did Thomas Francis have older brothers, but he was just one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring by noble mistresses, appear to have been generously endowed or dowered during their father's lifetime. |
The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty kilometers south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance. Instead of receiving a significant patrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 to Marie de Bourbon, sister and co-heiress of Louis, Count of Soissons, who would be killed in 1641 while fomenting rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu. |
In anticipation of this inheritance, Thomas Francis and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's ducal capital, Turin, but dwelt in Paris, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of a "princesse du sang", being a second cousin of King Louis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas Francis, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among the "princes étrangers" at the French court —- taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerful House of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereign Duke of Lorraine was more remote. He was appointed "Grand Maître" of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorous "Grand Condé". He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtier Claude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children. |
The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision to legitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon, "chevalier" de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignan". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as a secundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas Francis, the senior branch of his descendants repatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses. |
When France launched the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), Thomas Francis served under the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV in the Spanish Netherlands. Piedmont was reluctantly dragged into the fighting alongside the French, consequently Thomas Francis was, strictly, fighting against his own homeland. He was completely defeated and his army entirely killed, captured or scattered - the first in an unbroken career of military defeats. He managed to rally the remnants at Namur, then retreated before the numerically-superior French and Dutch forces; and he probably served the rest of the campaign with Ferdinand. |
In 1636, Thomas Francis served with the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand who organised a joint Spanish-Imperialist army for a major invasion of France from the Spanish Netherlands. The invasion was initially very successful, and seemed capable of reaching Paris, where there was a great panic; if Ferdinand and Thomas had pushed on, they might have ended the war at this point, but they both felt that continuing to Paris was too risky, so they stopped the advance. Later in the campaign, Thomas had problems with the Imperialist general Ottavio Piccolomini, who refused to accept orders from the Prince as a Spanish commander, arguing that his Imperialist troops were an independent force. |
In this year, when his brother-in-law Louis de Bourbon, comte de Soissons fled from France after his failed conspiracy against Cardinal Richelieu, Thomas Francis acted as intermediary between Soissons and the Spanish in negotiations which led to a formal alliance between the count and Philip IV of Spain concluded 28 June 1637 - although within a month Soissons had reconciled with France. In 1638, Thomas served in Spanish Flanders, helping to defend the fortress-city of Saint-Omer against a French siege. |
After seeking Spanish support late in 1638 for action against the Regent Christine of Savoy, "Madame Royale", Thomas went to Spanish Milan early in 1639, and alongside Spanish forces invaded Piedmont, where many towns welcomed him. He took Turin by knavery, but the French continued to control its citadel. In 1640, he held the city in the multi-layered siege of Turin. After repeated bouts of negotiations with the Regent and the French, Thomas Francis made peace with both in the first half of 1642, unblushingly changed sides, and started fighting with the French against the Spaniards. |
In 1645, now commanding with Du Plessis Praslin, he took Vigevano, and repulsed a Spanish attempt to block his withdrawal at the River Mora, the nearest he ever came to a success in the field. In 1646, Thomas Francis was put in command of the French expedition sent south to take the Tuscan forts, after which he was to advance further south to Naples, drive out the Spanish and put himself on the throne of the kingdom; but the expedition set off late, and when he besieged Orbetello, the supporting French fleet was defeated by the Spanish and he was forced to raise the siege and conduct a difficult retreat, which he performed poorly. |
In the 1647 campaign, Thomas Francis is mentioned as commanding alongside the French general in the forces sent across north Italy to work with the Duke of Modena Francesco I d'Este who had just allied with France and opened up a 'second front' against the Spaniards in Milan, though Mazarin confessed that he had appointed Thomas only because he feared that, if left behind in Piedmont, the Prince's restless spirit would make more trouble. |
During his absence, Regent Christine had gained control of the fortresses granted to Thomas Francis as part of the settlement of the Piedmontese Civil War (legally, these reverted to ducal control when the Duke came of age, which under Piedmontese law Charles Emmanuel did in 1648, though his mother remained in control of the government; Christine, accompanied by her son and part of the ducal army, entered Ivrea and dismissed Thomas' personal garrison; she appointed Thomas Francis instead as governor or Asti and Alba, positions which sweetened the blow but were entirely under ducal control, not guaranteed by treaty. When he returned to Piedmont, Thomas had no choice but to accept the fait accompli, and soon after this he went to live in Paris. |
The Franco-Spanish war had been continuing in north Italy, and late in 1654, increasing Piedmontese hostility to the current French commander Grancey led to a search for a new allied commander-in-chief; the French would have preferred to send the Duke of York (later King James II), but he too was unacceptable to Turin, so Thomas Francis was appointed as joint commander - though his wife was held in France almost as a hostage for his good behaviour. On 16 December 1654 he arrived in Turin, to a ceremonial welcome by the French troops and an unexpectedly friendly reception by Duke Charles Emmanuel. After the 1655 campaign, Thomas Francis returned to Turin where he died the following January. |
Among the children of Prince Thomas Francis and Marie de Bourbon-Soissons were: |
The subsequent Princes of Carignano, with their respective dates of tenure in brackets, were as follows: |
Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, 2nd Prince of Carignano (20 August 1628 – 23 April 1709), Prince of Carignano, was the son and heir of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano. He constructed the Palazzo Carignano in Turin. |
He was born deaf, at Moûtiers, Savoy, now part of France. His being deaf greatly concerned his family. However, he eventually learned to communicate with others by lip-reading, and to speak a few words, though with great difficulty. |
As a youth he was sent to the Spanish priest Don Manuel Ramirez, a famous teacher of the deaf in Spain. Under his guidance, Emmanuel Philibert learned to read and to write. He went on to study a range of sciences under the guidance of Alessandro Tesauro, showing great aptitude. His sister, Princess Louise Christine was the wife of Hereditary Prince Ferdinand Maximilian of Baden-Baden, they were the parents of the famous "Türkenlouis", Ludwig Wilhelm of Baden-Baden. |
In his 20s Emmanuel Philibert followed his father Thomas in the last of his campaigns in Lombardy, acquitting himself with great valour, and two years later he was named a colonel of cavalry in the service of his distant cousin Louis XIV, King of France. |
In 1658 Emmanuel Philibert was created a lieutenant-general by his first cousin Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, in the latter's absence, and in 1663 was appointed governor of the city of Asti. When Charles Emmanuel died in 1675, his son and heir Victor Amadeus was only nine years old, and Emmanuel Philibert became heir presumptive to Savoy unless and until Victor Amadeus had a male heir in turn (which was not to happen until 1699). |
A great connoisseur of architecture, Emmanuel Philibert commissioned the Palazzo Carignano in Turin, built between 1679 and 1684. He also commissioned major renovations to the castle of Racconigi. Guarino Guarini rebuilt an older dwelling, while the project for the park was entrusted to André le Nôtre who realised magnificent French-style gardens. |
In November 1701, he acted as Philip V of Spain in a proxy marriage between Philip V and his cousin Maria Luisa of Savoy. He also acted as god father to Maria Luisa's sister, Princess Maria Adelaide, mother of Louis XV. |
Emmanuel Philibert died in Turin on 21 April 1709. In 1836 his remains were brought to the church of San Michele della Chiusa in that city. |
On 10 November 1684 in the Castle of Racconigi, Emmanuel Philibert, by now in his fifties, married Maria Angela Caterina d'Este, the beautiful daughter of the late General Borso d'Este, a member of the ducal family of Modena, and Ippolita d'Este, Borso's niece. This match was opposed by Louis XIV of France, who had wanted Emmanuel Philibert to marry a French princess, given his position as heir to the duchy of Savoy (Marie Thérèse de Bourbon or one of her sisters were the proposed bride's, as Louis XIV had no surviving legitimate daughters). |
In 1685, after the intercession of Vittorio Amadeo II, Emmanuel Philibert obtained permission from Louis XIV to return to Turin. He and Caterina had two girls and two boys, of whom only their son Vittorio Amadeo would have children. |
Anna Carlotta Teresa Canalis di Cumiana (23 April 1680 – 13 April 1769) was the morganatic wife of Victor Amadeus II, King of Sardinia. She was created Marchesa of Spigno. |
Born at the Palazzo Canalis, Turin in 1680, she was a daughter of Francesco Maurizio Canalis, Count of Cumiana and his wife Monica Francesca San Martino d'Agliè. Receiving education as a nun at the Convent of the Visitation in Turin, she was introduced to the ducal court of Savoy in 1695. She was made a lady-in-waiting to Marie Jeanne of Savoy, mother of the ruler, Victor Amadeus II. She was styled as "Mademoiselle de Cumiana". |
She was married on 21 April 1703 to Ignazio Francesco Novarina, the Count of San Sebastiano, by whom she purportedly had eight children. The marriage was arranged by Duchess Marie Jeanne, to whose household she belonged and who had noticed her son's wandering eye looking in the direction of the beautiful and unmarried Anna. |
The couple's first child is widely believed to have been fathered by Victor Amadeus but San Sebastiano accepted paternity. Victor Amadeus and Anna were in correspondence and she soon became a confidante in place of his wife, Anne Marie. Leaving the court in 1723 with her husband who had a good career, she soon became a widow at her husband's death on 25 September 1724. Left with limited means, Victor Amadeus called her back to court where she was made a lady-in-waiting to Polyxena, Princess of Piedmont, wife of Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Piedmont and heir apparent of Victor Amadeus II. She was later elevated to the position of Polyxena's lady-in-waiting, where she was given a position equivalent to Lady of the Bedchamber. |
In August 1728 Victor Amadeus's consort Anne Marie d'Orléans died after a series of heart attacks. Two years later he married Anna in a private ceremony on 12 August 1730 in the Royal Chapel in Turin, having obtained permission from Pope Clement XII. Victor Amadeus created her Marchesa of Spigno. The title was attached to a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, acquired as spoils of the War of the Spanish Succession and subsequently owned by an illegitimate brother of Victor Amadeus. |
The couple made their marriage public on 3 September 1730, much to the dismay of the court. A month later, Victor Amadeus announced his wish to abdicate the throne and did so in a ceremony at the Castle of Rivoli on the day of his marriage. His son succeeded him as Charles Emmanuel III. |
King Victor Amadeus having died in September 1732, Anna was imprisoned in the Convent of San Giuseppe di Carignano. She was later moved to the Convent of the Visitation in Pinerolo where she died aged 88. Her son later left the Savoy court in disgrace but succeeded to the marquisate of Spigno. She was buried at Pinerolo in a grave without a headstone. |
The Perfect Fusion () was the 1847 act of the Savoyard king Charles Albert of Sardinia which abolished the administrative differences between the Mainland states (Savoy and Piedmont) and the island of Sardinia, in a fashion similar to the Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800. |
The once Iberian Kingdom of Sardinia had become a possession of the House of Savoy in 1720, and it had continued to be ruled as during the ages of the Spanish Empire. |
Although the Sardinian populace had been showing hostility against the new Piedmontese rulers since the failed insurrection in 1794, the island's separate status from the Mainland became a problem for the local notables from two major cities of Cagliari and Sassari when liberal reforms began to be put in force in Turin, and some of them started to see their own legal system as a handicap more than a privilege; a minority of other Sardinian notables, like Giovanni Battista Tuveri and Federico Fenu, were not in favour of the idea, fearing that further moves toward the centralisation of the Savoy-led Kingdom might have followed thereafter. King Charles Albert eventually solved the problem by transforming all his dominions into a single, centralized state. |
A new legal system entered into force in Sardinia, and the last viceroy, Claudio Gabriele de Launay, left Cagliari on 4 March 1848. The island was divided into three provinces ruled by their prefects, following the system already used in Piedmont since 1815. |
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna (1306–1365) was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second spouse of Andronikos III Palaiologos. She served as regent during the minority of her son from 1341 until 1347. |
Anna was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, and his second wife, Maria of Brabant. She was betrothed to Andronikos III Palaiologos in September 1325, during which time he was involved in a civil war with his paternal grandfather Andronikos II Palaiologos. |
The marriage took place in October 1326. She joined the Eastern Orthodox Church and took the name Anna. In 1328, Andronikos III entered Constantinople and finally deposed his grandfather. |
On 14-15 June 1341, Andronikos III died. He was succeeded by their son John V who was still three days short of his ninth birthday. Anna was appointed regent for her son. However Andronikos III had entrusted the administration to his advisor John Kantakouzenos. Anna did not trust the powerful advisor. |
At about the same time, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia launched an invasion of Northern Thrace. Kantakouzenos left Constantinople to try to restore order to the area. In his absence, Patriarch John XIV of Constantinople and courtier Alexios Apokaukos convinced Anna that the senior advisor was her enemy. Anna declared Kantakouzenos an enemy of the state and offered the title of eparch of Constantinople to Apokaukos. |
Kantakouzenos was still in control of part of the Byzantine army. On 26 October 1341, he answered by proclaiming himself emperor at Didymoteicho. This was the beginning of a civil war that would last until 1347. Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria soon allied with the faction under John V and Anna while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI. Both rulers were actually taking advantage of the civil war for their own political and territorial gains. In time John VI would ally himself with Orhan I of the nascent Ottoman emirate. |
At the same time Anna was attempting to gain support from Western Europe. In Summer, 1343 an emissary proclaimed her loyalty to Pope Clement VI in Avignon. In August, 1343, Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels to the Republic of Venice for 30,000 ducats as part of an attempt to secure more finances for the war. However Anna at last lost the war. |
On 3 February 1347, the two sides reached an agreement. John VI was accepted as senior emperor with John V as his junior co-ruler. The agreement included the marriage of John V to Helena Kantakouzene, a daughter of John VI. John VI entered Constantinople and took effective control of the city. |
In 1351, Anna left Constantinople for Thessaloniki. She held her own court in the city, issuing decrees in her name and even controlling a mint. She was the second Byzantine empress to hold court in Thessaloniki, following Irene of Montferrat. Her rule there lasted to about 1365. |
Her last official act was the donation of a convent in the memory of "Agioi Anargyroi" (Greek: «Άγιοι Ανάργυροι» "The Holy Unmercenaries"). Agioi Anargyroi is the joined description of Saints Cosmas and Damian, who supposedly |
offered free medical services. Their devotees usually pray for healing. The donation may indicate Anna suffering from poor health and hoping for a cure. A little later she became a nun and died under the name "Anastasia" ca. 1365. |
Count Thomas III (c. 1246 – 16 May 1282), called "Thomas of Savoy" or "de Savoie", was the lord of Piedmont and a claimant to the county of Savoy from 1268. |
He was the eldest son of Thomas II of Savoy and Beatrice di Fieschi, niece of Pope Innocent IV. |
Upon the death of his father, Thomas became Count in his paternal estates in Piedmont. |
When his first cousin Boniface, Count of Savoy died in 1263, the 15-year-old Thomas regarded himself as the successor of the deceased, and claimed the county and the headship of the house. However, his late father's younger brother Peter II, Count of Savoy, a sonless nobleman who had resided in England for much of his life, was recognized as count. After Peter's death in 1268, Thomas continued his claim although Philip of Savoy, archbishop of Lyon, the youngest surviving brother of his father and also sonless, succeeded in the county and was recognized. |
Thomas III, as he was the eldest son and heir of Thomas II, felt an injustice in being surpassed by younger brothers of his father, and claimed unsuccessfully Savoy from his uncles. |
Thomas III married in 1274 to Guia of Burgundy, the stepdaughter of his uncle Philip I of Savoy and they had five children: |
Philip and Thomas were in dispute much of their reigns 1268–82. Thomas' marriage was a rather unsuccessful attempt to patch up things and get Philip to recognize hims as the successor in Savoy, which would have belonged to Thomas, him being the eldest son of Thomas II and thus the founder of the genealogically senior line of the House of Savoy. Philip’s will charged his niece Eleanor of Provence and her son King Edward I of England with the inheritance of Savoy. |
Thomas III was fatally wounded in a border dispute with Humbert I of Viennois in 1282. |
Prince Umberto of Savoy (22 June 1889 – 19 October 1918) was a member of the Aosta branch of the House of Savoy and was styled the Count of Salemi. |
Umberto was born in Turin, the fourth son of Prince Amadeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, the only one by his second wife and niece Princess Maria Letizia Bonaparte (1866–1926) the daughter of Prince Napoléon and Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy. His father, a former king of Spain, died when he was just a year old. He had three older half-brothers: the Duke of Aosta, the Count of Turin and the Duke of the Abruzzi. |
In 1908 Umberto began studies at the Naval Academy in Livorno. In May 1911, while still at the academy, he was accused of theft. His cousin King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy wanted him arrested, but his mother took him to Turin and challenged the king to carry out the arrest. In July Victor Emmanuel ordered that he be detained at the Castle of Moncalieri and then spend eighteen months aboard a man-of-war, during which time a Carabinieri colonel would act as his tutor and keeper. |
During the First World War Umberto volunteered to serve in the Royal Italian Army. He joined the army as a lieutenant and served in a Catania cavalry regiment. During the war he was awarded a silver medal for bravery displayed while acting as a bombing officer. |
Umberto died a month before the end of the war. The official court bulletin recorded that he was killed in action, but in fact he was a victim of the 1918 influenza pandemic. He was buried in the cemetery of Crespano del Grappa. In 1926 his remains were moved to the Sacrario Militare del Monte Grappa. |
Eugenio of Savoy (Eugenio Ilarione; 21 October 1753 – 30 June 1785) was a prince of the House of Savoy and founder of the Villafranca branch of the royal family of Italy that survived until 1888. He was a brother of Queen Marie Antoinette's tragic confidante, the "Princesse de Lamballe". |
Born in Turin, he was the next to youngest of the nine children of Louis Victor of Savoy, Prince of Carignano and his German wife, Christine of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. Although their family seat was the principality of Carignano 20 kilometers south of Turin, of which they were nominally suzerains, as princes of the blood royal in the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Savoy-Carignanos were in attendance at the royal court of the Savoys in Turin, while also maintaining a residence in Paris and frequenting the French court. |
"Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter" (Prince Eugene, the Noble Knight) is an Austrian-German folksong about the victory of Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1717 during the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–1718. It tells of the bravery of Prince Eugene, his companion Prince Ludwig who lost his life in the battle, and their soldiers in defeating the Turks and recovering the city of Belgrade for the Holy Roman Empire. The oldest known record of the song comes from a handwritten songbook of 1719. The lyricist is unknown. |
The song is a narrative of the Siege of Belgrade (1717). The text diverts from historical accuracy in two aspects. The day of the final assault on the defenders is given as the 21 August although it was 16 August. Second, the song tells of the death of one Prince Louis ("Prinz Ludewig"). Eugene had two brothers named Louis but none of them fell at Belgrade. The younger one, Louis Julius (1660–1683) who had entered Imperial service prior to Eugene was killed by Crimean Tatars at Petronell, whereas the older one, Louis Thomas (1657–1702) had died at the Siege of Landau (1702). |
The author of the song is unknown. The melody derives from "Als Chursachsen das vernommen" (1683) and has also been adopted in the period before the German revolutions of 1848–1849 to (Whether we [wear] red or yellow collars). Josef Strauss composed in 1865 his Prinz Eugen March, Op. 186, for the unveiling of a statue of Prince Eugene at the Heldenplatz in Vienna; it uses elements of the folksong. |
The First Churchills is a BBC serial from 1969 about the life of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and his wife, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. It stars John Neville as the duke and Susan Hampshire as the duchess, was written and produced by Donald Wilson, and was directed by David Giles. It is notable as being the first programme shown on PBS's long-running "Masterpiece" series in the United States. Wilson and Giles were fresh from their success in writing and directing "The Forsyte Saga", which also starred Susan Hampshire and Margaret Tyzack. |
The serial presents the lives of John and Sarah Churchill from their meeting in 1673 until a time shortly after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and illustrates, along the way, much of the context of contemporary English politics. Like many BBC serials of the era, it was made on a low budget, with sound-studio sets, and generally avoided battle and crowd scenes because they were unable to stage them in a convincing manner. The series is based on the Marlboroughs' famous descendant Winston Churchill's life of his ancestor the Duke, and as such presents a very favourable portrait of the Marlboroughs. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.