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Made a Knight of the Annunciation in 1696, he married, at Moncalieri on 7 November 1714, Marie Victoire Françoise of Savoy (1690–1766), legitimised daughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, King of Sardinia and of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue.
His father-in-law showed affection for him but ended up depriving him, in 1717, of his 400,000 livres of annual income because of excessive spending. It was then that he ran away to France, at the end of 1718, in order to take possession of his inheritance.
Since he had lost the Château de Condé to Jean-François Leriget de La Faye when it was confiscated from his family by Louis XIV on 6 March 1719, he established himself in the hôtel de Soissons, which he transformed, with his wife who had followed him there, into a "sumptuous gaming house" which for a time sheltered the economist John Law. He died, ruined, and his hôtel was razed to construct in its place a grain-trading hall, now the site of the Bourse de commerce de Paris.
Next to his mother-in-law, Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue, he counted in the 1730s among the most influential amateurs and art collectors in Paris. He gathered in an important painting collection which was sold after his death in 1742 partly to Louis XV, King of France, and to August III of Poland, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.
He had a passion for the Paris Opéra, and was named intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs by Louis XV. He brought about the disgrace of the tax farmer Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière after he caught him in the company of his mistress, the actress Marie Antier.
Victor Amadeus I (; 8 May 1587 – 7 October 1637) was the Duke of Savoy from 1630 to 1637. He was also known as the "Lion of Susa".
He was born in Turin, Piedmont to Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy and Catherine Micaela of Spain, daughter of King Philip II of Spain. He spent much of his childhood in Madrid at the court of his grandfather Philip II. He stayed there until the king's death in 1598, when Victor Amadeus was eleven. When his brother, Filippo Emanuele, died in 1605, he became heir-apparent to the Duchy of Savoy and received the homage of the court at Racconigi on 21 January 1607.
Victor Amadeus became Duke of Savoy after his father's death in 1630. Charles Emmanuel's policies had brought a great instability in the relationships with both France and Spain, and troops were needed to defend the Duchy. As money was lacking to recruit mercenaries or train indigenous soldiers, Victor Amadeus signed a peace treaty with Spain.
With the Treaty of Cherasco, Savoy was forced to give Pinerolo to France. This gave France a strategic route into the heart of Savoy territory and on into the rest of Italy. The rulers of Savoy from that point resented this loss, and worked for decades with the goal of regaining that loss. Subsequently, under the direction of Cardinal Richelieu, Victor Amadeus attempted to create an anti-Spanish league in Italy. He achieved two victories against the Spanish: In 1636 in the Battle of Tornavento and on 8 September 1637 in the Battle of Mombaldone.
On 25 September 1637, Victor Amadeus fell ill after a dinner offered by the Duke of Créqui. He was carried to Vercelli, where he died on 7 October, aged 50.
In 1619, he married Christine Marie of France (1606–1663), a daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici. Following his death, she served as regent of the Duchy from 1637 to 1663. They had children including:
Victor Amadeus of Savoy, 5th Prince of Carignano (31 October 1743 – 10 September 1780) was a member of the House of Savoy and Prince of Carignano. He was the brother of the murdered "princesse de Lamballe" and grandfather of King Charles Albert of Sardinia.
Born in Turin to Louis Victor of Savoy and his wife Christine of Hesse-Rotenburg, he was the couple's second child and eldest son. As a male line descendant of the Duke of Savoy, he was a "Prince of Savoy" by birth. He was named after his cousin King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia. At his father's death he succeeded to the style of Prince of Carignano. Expecting to find military glory, his namesake created him Lieutenant General of the Sardinian Army. His career was cut short by his death.
On 18 October 1768 at Oulx Victor Amadeus married Princess Joséphine of Lorraine, daughter of Louis de Lorraine, Prince of Brionne and Louise de Rohan. The couple had one child who succeeded Victor Amadeus as Prince of Carignano in 1780. In 1786 he was moved to the Royal Basilica of Superga outside Turin. The current Prince of Naples is a direct male line descendant.
Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; , , "Vītoriyo Āmanu’ēli"; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) reigned as King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. In addition, he was Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–1941) and King of the Albanians (1939–1943). During his reign of nearly 46 years, which began after the assassination of his father Umberto I, the Kingdom of Italy became involved in two world wars. His reign also encompassed the birth, rise, and fall of Italian Fascism and its regime.
During the First World War, Victor Emmanuel III accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Paolo Boselli and named Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (the "premier of victory") in his place. Following the March on Rome, he appointed Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister and later deposed him in 1943 during the Allied invasion of Italy of the Second World War.
Victor Emmanuel abdicated his throne in 1946 in favour of his son Umberto II, hoping to strengthen support for the monarchy against an ultimately successful referendum to abolish it. He then went into exile to Alexandria, Egypt, where he died and was buried the following year in St. Catherine's Cathedral of Alexandria. In 2017 his remains were returned to rest in Italy, following an agreement between Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Victor Emmanuel was also called by some Italians "Sciaboletta" ("little saber"), due to his height of , and "il Re soldato" (the Soldier King), for having led his country during both world wars.
Unlike his paternal first cousin's son, the 1.98 m (6-foot 6") tall Amedeo, 3rd Duke of Aosta, Victor Emmanuel was short of stature even by 19th-century standards, to the point that today he would appear diminutive. He was just 1.53 m tall (just over 5 feet). From birth until his accession, Victor Emmanuel was known by the title of the Prince of Naples.
On 24 October 1896, Prince Victor Emmanuel married Princess Elena of Montenegro.
On 29 July 1900, at the age of 30, Victor Emmanuel acceded to the throne upon his father's assassination. The only advice that his father Umberto ever gave his heir was "Remember: to be a king, all you need to know is how to sign your name, read a newspaper, and mount a horse". His early years showed evidence that, by the standards of the Savoy monarchy, he was a man committed to constitutional government. Indeed, even though his father was killed by an anarchist, the new king showed a commitment to constitutional freedoms.
Though parliamentary rule had been firmly established in Italy, the Statuto Albertino, or constitution, granted the king considerable residual powers. For instance, he had the right to appoint the prime minister even if the individual in question did not command majority support in the Chamber of Deputies. A shy and somewhat withdrawn individual, the King hated the day-to-day stresses of Italian politics, though the country's chronic political instability forced him to intervene on no fewer than ten occasions between 1900 and 1922 to solve parliamentary crises.
When World War I began, Italy at first remained neutral, despite being part of the Triple Alliance (albeit it was signed on defensive terms and Italy objected that the Sarajevo assassination did not qualify as aggression). However, in 1915, Italy signed several secret treaties committing her to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente. Most of the politicians opposed war, however, and the Italian Chamber of Deputies forced Prime Minister Antonio Salandra to resign. At this juncture, Victor Emmanuel declined Salandra's resignation and personally made the decision for Italy to enter the war. He was well within his rights to do so under the "Statuto," which stipulated that ultimate authority for declaring war rested with the crown.
The economic depression which followed World War I gave rise to much extremism among Italy's sorely tried working classes. This caused the country as a whole to become politically unstable. Benito Mussolini, soon to be Italy's Fascist dictator, took advantage of this instability for his rise to power.
In 1922, Mussolini led a force of his Fascist supporters on a March on Rome. Prime Minister Luigi Facta and his cabinet drafted a decree of martial law. After some hesitation the King refused to sign it, citing doubts about the ability of the army to contain the uprising without setting off a civil war.
Fascist violence had been growing in intensity throughout the summer and autumn of 1922, climaxing in rumours of a possible coup. On 24 October 1922, during the Fascist congress in Naples, Mussolini announced that the Fascists would march on Rome "take by the throat our miserable ruling class". General Pietro Badoglio told the King that the military would be able without difficulty to rout the rebels, who numbered no more than 10,000 men armed mostly with knives and clubs whereas the "Regio Esercito" had 30,000 soldiers in the Rome area armed with heavy weapons, armoured cars, and machine guns. During the "March on Rome", the Fascist "squadristi" were halted by 400 lightly armed policemen, as the "squadristi" had no desire to take on the Italian state.
By midday on 30 October, Mussolini had been appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister), at the age of 39, with no previous experience of office, and with only 32 Fascist deputies in the Chamber. Though the King claimed in his memoirs that it was the fear of a civil war that motivated his actions, it would seem that he received some 'alternative' advice, possibly from the arch-conservative Antonio Salandra as well as General Armando Diaz, that it would be better to do a deal with Mussolini.
Victor Emmanuel was disgusted by what he regarded as the superficiality and frivolity of what he called the "so-called elegant society" of Rome, and as such, the king preferred to spend his time out in the countryside where he went hunting, fishing and reading military history books outside. A taciturn man who felt deeply uncomfortable expressing himself in conversation, Victor Emmanuel was content to let Mussolini rule Italy as he regarded "Il Duce" as a "strong man" who saved him the trouble from meeting various politicians as he had done before 1922.
In 1926, the king allowed Mussolini to do what he prevented Orlando from doing in 1919, giving permission to open negotiations with the Vatican to end the "Roman Question". In 1929, Mussolini, on behalf of the King, signed the Lateran Treaty. The treaty was one of the three agreements made that year between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See. On 7 June 1929, the Lateran Treaty was ratified and the "Roman Question" was settled.
The Italian monarchy enjoyed popular support for decades. Foreigners noted how even as late as the 1930s newsreel images of King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena evoked applause, sometimes cheering, when played in cinemas, in contrast to the hostile silence shown toward images of Fascist leaders.
On 30 March 1938, the Italian Parliament established the rank of First Marshal of the Empire for Victor Emmanuel and Mussolini. This new rank was the highest rank in the Italian military. His equivalence with Mussolini was seen by the king as offensive and a clear sign that the ultimate goal of the fascist was to get rid of him.
As popular as Victor Emmanuel was, several of his decisions proved fatal to the monarchy. Among these decisions was his assumption of the imperial crown of Ethiopia, his public silence when Mussolini's Fascist government issued its notorious racial purity laws, and his assumption of the crown of Albania.
Prior to his government's invasion of Ethiopia, Victor Emmanuel travelled in 1934 to Italian Somaliland, where he celebrated his 65th birthday on 11 November. In 1936, Victor Emmanuel assumed the crown as Emperor of Ethiopia. His decision to do this was not universally accepted. Victor Emmanuel was only able to assume the crown after the Italian Army invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia) and overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
Ethiopia was annexed to the Italian Empire. The League of Nations condemned Italy's participation in this war and the Italian claim by right of conquest to Ethiopia was rejected by some major powers, such as the United States and the Soviet Union, but was accepted by Great Britain and France in 1938. In 1943, Italy's possession of Ethiopia came to an end.
The term of the last acting Viceroy of Italian East Africa, including Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, ended on 27 November 1941 with surrender to the allies. In November 1943 Victor Emmanuel renounced his claims to the titles of Emperor of Ethiopia and King of Albania, recognizing the previous holders of those titles as legitimate.
The crown of the King of the Albanians had been assumed by Victor Emmanuel in 1939 when Italian forces invaded the nearly defenceless monarchy across the Adriatic Sea and caused King Zog I to flee. The Italian invasion of Albania was generally seen as the act of a stronger nation taking unfair advantage of a weaker neighbour.
In 1941, while in Tirana, the King escaped an assassination attempt by the 19-year-old Albanian patriot Vasil Laçi. Later, this attempt was cited by Communist Albania as a sign of the general discontent among the oppressed Albanian population. A second attempt by Dimitri Mikhaliov in Albania gave the Italians an excuse to affirm a possible connection with Greece as a result of the monarch's assent to the Greco-Italian War.
As Italy's fortunes worsened, the popularity of the King suffered. One coffee-house ditty went as follows:
On the night of 25 July 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism voted to adopt an "Ordine del Giorno" (order of the day) proposed by Count Dino Grandi to ask Victor Emmanuel to resume his full constitutional powers under Article 5 of the "Statuto." In effect, this was a motion of no confidence in Mussolini.
The following afternoon, Mussolini asked for an audience with the king at Villa Savoia. When Mussolini tried to tell Victor Emmanuel about the Grand Council's vote, Victor Emmanuel abruptly cut him off and told him that he was dismissing him as Prime Minister in favour of Marshal Pietro Badoglio. He then ordered Mussolini's arrest. Victor Emmanuel had been planning this move to get rid of the dictator for some time.
On 8 September 1943, Victor Emmanuel publicly announced an armistice with the Allies. Confusion reigned as Italian forces were left without orders, and the Germans, who had been expecting this move for some time, quickly disarmed and interned Italian troops and took control in the occupied Balkans, France and the Dodecanese, as well as in Italy itself. Many of the units that did not surrender joined forces with the Allies against the Germans.
Fearing a German advance on Rome, Victor Emmanuel and his government fled south to Brindisi. This choice may have been necessary to protect his safety; indeed, Hitler had planned to arrest him shortly after Mussolini's overthrow. Nonetheless, it still came as a surprise to many observers inside and outside Italy. Unfavourable comparisons were drawn with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who refused to leave London during the Blitz, and of Pope Pius XII, who mixed with Rome's crowds and prayed with them after Rome's working-class neighborhood of Quartiere San Lorenzo had been destroyed by bombing.
On 12 September, the Germans launched Operation Eiche and rescued Mussolini from captivity. In a short time, he established a new Fascist state in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic ("Repubblica Sociale Italiana"). This was never more than a German-dominated puppet state, but it did compete for the allegiance of the Italian people with Badoglio's government in the south.
By this time, it was apparent that Victor Emmanuel was irrevocably tainted by his earlier support of the Fascist regime. At a 10 April meeting, under pressure from ACC officials Robert Murphy and Harold Macmillan, Victor Emmanuel transferred most of his constitutional powers to his son, Crown Prince Umberto. Privately, Victor Emmanuel told General Noel Mason-MacFarlane that by forcing him to give power to Umberto, the Allies were effectively giving power to the Communists.
By this time, however, events had moved beyond Victor Emmanuel's ability to control. After Rome was liberated on 4 June, when he turned over his remaining powers to Umberto and named him Lieutenant General of the Realm, while nominally retaining the title of king.
In any event, once the referendum's result was certified, Victor Emmanuel and all other male members of the House of Savoy were required to leave the country. Taking refuge in Egypt, where he was welcomed with great honour by King Farouk, Victor Emmanuel died in Alexandria a year later, of pulmonary congestion. He was interred behind the altar of St Catherine's Cathedral. He was the last surviving grandchild of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. In 1948, "Time" magazine included an article about "The Little King".
On 17 December 2017, an Italian air force military plane officially repatriated the remains of Victor Emmanuel III, which were transferred from Alexandria to the sanctuary of Vicoforte, near Turin, and interred alongside those of Elena, that had been transferred two days earlier from Montpellier, France.
The abdication prior to the referendum probably brought back to the minds of undecided voters the monarchy's role during the Fascist period and the King's own actions (or lack of them), at the very moment monarchists hoped voters would focus on the positive impression created by Umberto and his wife, Maria José, over the previous two years. The "May" King and Queen, Umberto and Maria José, in Umberto's brief, month-long reign, were unable to shift the burden of recent history and opinion.
At one point, there was an avenue in Paris named Avenue Victor-Emmanuel III, but the king's support of the Axis Powers led the road to be renamed Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue following the end of World War II.
In 1896 he married princess Elena of Montenegro (1873–1952), daughter of Nicholas I, King of Montenegro. Their issue included:
Reference 4: James Rennell Rodd [British Ambassador to Italy before and during the Great War].
Social and Diplomatic Memories. Third Series. 1902–1919. London, 1925.
Philip II (5 February 1438 – 7 November 1497), surnamed the Landless, was the Duke of Savoy for a brief reign from 1496 to 1497.
He spent most of his life as a junior member of the ducal family. His original apanage was the district of Bresse, close to the French and Burgundian border, but it was lost and therefore Philip received his sobriquet "the Landless", or "Lackland".
He married Margaret of Bourbon (5 February 1438 – 1483) and had:
He married Claudine de Brosse of Brittany (1450–1513), daughter of Jean II de Brosse and Nicole de Châtillon, and they had:
He also had eight illegitimate children by two mistresses.
Philip is an ancestor, through an illegitimate daughter of Honorat II of Savoy, of Joséphine de Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon.
Victor Amadeus III (Vittorio Amadeo Maria; 26 June 1726 – 16 October 1796) was King of Sardinia from 1773 to his death. Although he was politically conservative, he carried out numerous administrative reforms until he declared war on Revolutionary France in 1792. He was the father of the last three mainline Kings of Sardinia.
Born at the Royal Palace of Turin, he was a son of Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia and his second wife Polyxena of Hesse-Rotenburg. He was styled the "Duke of Savoy" from birth until he succeeded to his father's throne. He was the eldest son of his parents and was the heir apparent from birth which was greeted with much celebration. His father had had a son with his first wife, Countess Palatine Anne Christine of Sulzbach who was also named Victor Amadeus, Duke of Aosta, but died in 1725. His education was entrusted to Gerdil Giacinto Sigismondo, with a particular emphasis on military training. Throughout his life he would have a great interest in the state military on which he lavished attention.
As a young prince, he surrounded himself with intellectuals and ministers, many of whom would come to prominence in his reign. He was privately conservative and very religious person, who, as a young boy, stayed far from public life. His father felt him to be unsuitable to hold power.
Good-natured but naive, Savoy would be loved by his subjects for his generosity.
He married Infanta Maria Antonia of Spain (1729–1785), youngest daughter of Philip V of Spain and Elisabeth Farnese. They were married on 31 May 1750 at Oulx and later had twelve children. He had a loving relationship with his wife who exerted little influence over her husband. The marriage had been arranged by Maria Antonietta's half brother, the ruling Ferdinand VI of Spain. The Spanish Infanta had been previously rejected by Louis, Dauphin of France. The union was used to strengthen relations between Madrid and Turin having fought on opposing sides in the War of the Austrian Succession. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war.
When Victor Amadeus came to the throne in 1773 he started working on bureaucratic and military aspects of the reign. He was suspicious of anything innovative. However, he did implement several public works as well as paying a great deal of attention to his administration and armed forces. He approved and set up two new important cultural state institutions on the advice of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy alike. He started works of improvements in the port of Nice, and had dams in the Arce and the road of the Côte built.
He died on 16 October, 1796 at the Castle of Moncalieri having suffered an attack of apoplexy. Victor Amadeus died leaving an economically damaged kingdom and two key provinces – Savoy and Nice – devastated having suffered at the hands of French revolutionary forces. He was buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin.
In 1786 Victor Amadeus III moved the remains on many of his ancestors and kinsmen to the Basilica of Superga, where he himself rests today. He established the Gold Medal of Military Valor 21 May 1793. Like his parents, he carried out improvements to the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi outside Turin. Victor Amadeus III also encouraged the extension of the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Torino as well as the Società Agraria di Torino, which he created in 1785. His first cousin the Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg was named after him.
Charles III of Savoy (10 October 1486 – 17 August 1553), often called Charles the Good, was Duke of Savoy from 1504 to 1553, although most of his lands were ruled by the French between 1536 and his death.
He was a younger son of Philip (Filippo) the Landless, an aged younger son of the ducal family, and his second wife Claudine de Brosse of the family that unsuccessfully claimed the Duchy of Brittany. His grandparents were Duke Louis of Savoy and Anne of Cyprus. As a child, there were next to no expectations for him to succeed to any monarchy. He was christened as a namesake of the then-reigning Duke, Charles I of Savoy, the Warrior, his first cousin.
However, when he was ten years old, his father unexpectedly succeeded his grandnephew Charles II of Savoy as duke and head of the Savoy dynasty, which had now also received the titles of the kingdoms of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia. However, Charles's father was not the heir general of the deceased duke, only the male heir. Jerusalem, Cyprus and certain other claims and possessions could go to a different heir, and they did, in principle, going to Charles II's sister Yolande Louise. Charles's father was not ready to relinquish those, and he took such titles to his own titulary, staking a claim. He also had Yolande marry his son, Philibert the Handsome, in 1496, to ensure the male line of succession.
In 1497, Charles's half-brother Philibert succeeded their father as Duke of Savoy, etc. Philibert however died childless in 1504, surprisingly, and now Charles succeeded, at age eighteen.
Charles faced down challenges to his authority, including from Philibert Berthelier.
After Yolande's death in 1499, the "de jure" rights of Jerusalem and Cyprus were lost to the Savoy family. Charles however, as some sort of heir-male, took those titles, which his successors also used. In 1713, Charles's great-great-great-grandson Victor Amadeus II of Savoy received confirmation to that title from the Kings of Spain and France, who also claimed it. The rights, according to succession of heirs general, i.e. not excluding female lines, had gone, until Charles's death, to the House of La Trémoille, the French lords of La Tremoille, Princes of Talmond and Taranto.
In response to the riots between Catholic and Protestants within Geneva, Charles launched a surprise attack in July 1534, but his army was beaten back. A second siege in October 1535 was attempted, and again Charles' army was defeated when forces from Berne arrived to assist Geneva. Charles was allied with the Habsburg camp in Western European politics, where Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V battled for ascendancy. France invaded Savoy in 1536, and held almost all of Charles' possessions. He spent the rest of his life practically in exile, at the mercy of relatives. He died in 1553 and was succeeded by his only surviving child, Emanuele Filiberto.
He was the duke who imprisoned François Bonivard, the "prisoner of Chillon" in 1530.
Charles married the rich, beautiful and ambitious Infanta Beatrice of Portugal (1504–1538), daughter of the richest monarch in Europe at the time Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon. Beatrice was both first cousin and sister-in-law of the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. They had nine children, but only one child, Emmanuel Philibert, would reach adulthood:
The Counts of Villafranca and later the Counts of Villafranca-Soissons are legitimate male line descendants of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano the founder of the Carignano line of the House of Savoy. The title was created in 1778 for Prince Eugenio of Savoy (1753–1785). The third count Prince Eugenio Emanuele married in 1863 to Felicita Crosio (1844–1911) in what was a morganatic marriage. His wife was created Countess of Villafranca-Soissons in 1888 so the descendants of the marriage bear the title Count/Countess of Villafranca-Soissons. The current head of the Villafranca-Soissons line is Count Edoardo Emanuele Filiberto (born 1945) the grandson of the first count of Villafranca-Soissons via his second son Count Giuseppe Carlo (1904–1971).
Emmanuel Philibert (), known as Testa di ferro, , "Ironhead", because of his military career (8 July 1528 – 30 August 1580), was Duke of Savoy from 1553 to 1580. He is remembered for the Italianization of the House of Savoy, as he recovered the Savoyard state (invaded and occupied by France when he was a child) following the Battle of St. Quentin (1557) and subsequently moved the capital to Turin and made Italian the official language in Piedmont.
Born in Chambéry, Emmanuel Philibert was the only child of Charles III, Duke of Savoy, and Beatrice of Portugal to reach adulthood. His mother was sister-in-law to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the future duke served in Charles's army during the war against Francis I of France, distinguishing himself by capturing Hesdin in July 1553. A month later, he became Duke of Savoy on the death of his father, but this was a nearly empty honour, as the vast majority of his hereditary lands had been occupied and administered by the French since 1536. Instead, he continued to serve the Habsburgs in hopes of recovering his lands, and served his cousin Philip II of Spain as Governor of the Netherlands from 1555 to 1559.
In this capacity, he personally led the Spanish invasion of northern France and won a brilliant victory at Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557. He was also a suitor to Lady Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII of England. With the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis between France and Spain signed in 1559, the duchy was restored to Emmanuel Philibert and he married his first cousin once removed, Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry, the sister of King Henry II of France. Their only child was Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.
Following the death of his uncle, Henry I of Portugal, on 31 January 1580, Emmanuel Philibert fought to impose his rights as a claimant to the Portuguese throne. However, he soon realised that he had quite a fragile position due to the claims of Philip II, who gained control of the country, thus uniting Spain and Portugal.
Emmanuel Philibert spent his rule regaining what had been lost in the costly wars with France. A skilled political strategist, he took advantage of various squabbles in Europe to slowly regain territory from both the French and the Spanish, including the city of Turin. He also purchased two territories. Internally, he moved the capital of the duchy from Chambéry to Turin and replaced Latin as the duchy's official language with Italian. He was attempting to acquire the marquisate of Saluzzo when he died in Turin. Later, he was buried in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud of the Turin Cathedral, to which he had moved the Sindone in 1578.
Philip of Savoy, Duke of Nemours (149025 November 1533) was a French nobleman. He was a son of Philip II, Duke of Savoy, and his second wife Claudine de Brosse. He was a half-brother of Louise of Savoy, the mother of Francis I of France. He was the founder of the Nemours branch of the house of Savoy which eventually settled in France.
Originally destined for the priesthood, he was given the bishopric of Geneva at the age of five, but resigned it in 1510, when he was made count of Genevois. He served under Louis XII, with whom he was present at the battle of Agnadello (1509), under the emperor Charles V in 1520, and finally under his nephew, Francis I.
In 1528 Francis gave him the duchy of Nemours and married him to Charlotte of Orleans, a daughter of Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville. They had two children:
Amadeus VIII (4 September 1383 – 7 January 1451) was a Savoyard nobleman, the son of Amadeus VII, Count of Savoy and Bonne of Berry. He was nicknamed the Peaceful. After the death of his father in 1391, his mother acted as a regent, because of his youth. He was a claimant to the papacy from 1439 to 1449 as Felix V in opposition to Eugene IV and Nicholas V, and is considered the last historical antipope.
Born at Chambéry, he was the count of Savoy from 1391 to 1416 and was elevated by Emperor Sigismund to duke of Savoy in 1416. In 1418, his distant cousin Louis of Piedmont, his brother-in-law, the last male of the elder branch of House of Savoy, died, leaving Amadeus as his heir-general, thus finally uniting the male-lines of the House of Savoy.
Amadeus increased his dominions and encouraged several attempts to negotiate an end to the Hundred Years' War. From 1401 to 1422, he campaigned to recover the area around Geneva and Annecy. After the death of his wife in 1431, he founded the Order of Saint Maurice with six other knights in 1434. They lived alone in the castle of Ripaille, near Geneva, in a quasi-monastic state according to a rule drawn up by himself. He appointed his son Louis regent of the duchy.
Amadeus' image in history is marred by the account of him as a pontiff concerned with money, to avoid disadvantaging his heirs, found in the "Commentaries" of Pius II. Nor is there any evidence that he intrigued to obtain the papal office, sending the bishops of Savoy to Basel for this purpose. Of the twelve bishops present, seven were Savoyards. After the death of his opponent Pope Eugene IV in 1447, both sides of the church favoured a settlement of the schism, and in 1449 he accepted the authority of Pope Nicholas V.
He married Mary of Burgundy (1386–1422), daughter of Philip the Bold. They had nine children:
Rotruda (or Roza) of Pavia (died after March 945) was an Italian noblewoman. Rotruda was married to Giselbert I of Bergamo and later became the mistress of Hugh of Italy.
Rotruda was the daughter of the "iudex" (judge) Walpert of Pavia. She married Giselbert of Bergamo "c".895. Together they had a son, Lanfranc I of Bergamo.
Probably after Giselbert I’s death (c.927/929), Rotruda became the mistress of Hugh of Italy, with whom she had a daughter, Rotlinda. Because of her relationship with Hugh, Rotruda is mentioned in Liutprand of Cremona's work "Antapodosis".
With Giselbert, Rotruda had the following children:
With Hugh, Rotruda had the following children:
Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini (1837–1914), styled by marriage as "duchessa Litta Visconti Arese", was an Italian noblewoman, philanthropist and hostess of a famous literary salon in Milan.
She was for a time a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy. She is most known for her love affair with King Umberto I of Italy, which lasted from the time of his marriage in 1868 until his death in 1900.
Isabella Boschetti or Boschetto (c.1502 – ?) was a Mantuan noblewoman and lover of Federico II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. She was nicknamed 'La bella Boschetta' (the beautiful Boschetta).
She was the second daughter of Giacomo Boschetti, a courtier and soldier in the Gonzaga court who fought at Fornovo. Her mother was a sister of Baldassarre Castiglione. A few years after she became Federico's mistress she married a nobleman at his court, Francesco Cauzzi Gonzaga, conte di Calvisano, who suffered a violent death in mysterious circumstances. In 1542 she remarried to count Filippo Tornielli.
In 1517 Anna d'Alençon managed to get a betrothal between Federico and her eldest daughter Maria Paleologa, but this was broken off when she was accused of trying to poison Isabella. Federico built the Palazzo Te for Isabella from 1525 onwards, where she entertained and received famous guests. The couple had two children, Alessandro (1520–1580), who became State Councillor of the Duchy of Mantua and served in the Spanish army in Flanders during the Dutch Revolt, and Emilia (1517–1573) who married Carlo Gonzaga (1523–1555) signore di Gazzuolo, with whom she had ten children.
In 1531 Federico commissioned Correggio's "Danaë", apparently intended for the Sala di Ovidio di Palazzo Te, intended for Isabella. Her year of death is unknown.

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