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Christine of France

Daughter of Henry IV, Duchess of Savoy and the first "Madama Reale": regent from 1637, she ruled the duchy until 1663 and shaped Baroque Turin.

Image from the publication of Consorzio delle Residenze Reali Sabaude – La Venaria Reale
From the publication of Consorzio delle Residenze Reali Sabaude – La Venaria Reale

Christine of France (Paris, 10 February 1606 – Turin, 26 December 1663), Duchess of Savoy and the first "Madama Reale", governed the duchy for over a quarter of a century: regent from 1637 for her sons Francesco Giacinto and Carlo Emanuele II, she remained in effect at the head of the State until her death.[1] For Turin her name means above all a season of building works: the Castello del Valentino, the new Piazza Reale with the church of Santa Cristina,[1] the apartment at Palazzo Madama,[2] the push behind the royal residence of Venaria.[3]

From the court of Paris to Piedmont

The third daughter of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici, she was promised, before turning twelve, to the Prince of Piedmont Vittorio Amedeo I, eldest son of Duke Carlo Emanuele I. The marriage contract was signed in Paris on 11 January 1619 by Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, the groom's brother, and the wedding was celebrated privately at the Louvre on 10 February 1619; a few months later the bride reached Turin and took the title of "Madama Reale".[1] Her arrival was greeted with celebrations and stage settings; in the following years ballets and carousels were often devised by the marquis Filippo d'Agliè.[2]

Her father-in-law gave her, as a wedding gift, the castle of Valentino, on the bank of the Po.[4] Christine transformed it over about twenty years according to French taste and made it her palace of representation.[4] In his profile for the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Enrico Stumpo recalls that "she indeed had the castle of Valentino rebuilt to designs in the French taste".[1] From 1633 Isidoro Bianchi and his workshop frescoed the rooms facing south, with a hall of honour celebrating the bond between the courts of Turin and Paris;[4] the first-floor rooms took thematic names such as "Green", "of the Roses", "of the Zodiac".[5] In 1628 her birthday was celebrated in the castle on piazza Castello, today's Palazzo Madama, with the stage machine of the "Ship of Happiness".[2]

The regency and the "war of the brothers-in-law"

Vittorio Amedeo I, duke from 1630, fell gravely ill in Vercelli in September 1637 and died.[1] The Senate of Piedmont, Stumpo reports, "declared C. legitimate guardian of duke Francesco Giacinto and regent of the duchy".[1] The country was emerging from the plague of 1630 and was once again a battlefield between France and Spain; the court split between the "madamisti", loyal to the regent and the French alliance, and the "principisti", aligned with her pro-Spanish brothers-in-law, Cardinal Maurizio and Prince Tommaso of Carignano.[1] On 3 June 1638 Christine signed a league with France; on 4 October the same year the young duke Francesco Giacinto died, and the heir became his brother Carlo Emanuele, still a young child.[1]

In 1639 the princes, with troops paid by Spain, took Chivasso on 28 March and Ivrea in early April, and on 27 July Tommaso occupied Turin itself; the regent moved her son to safety in the Savoyard fortress of Montmélian.[1] With Agliè she had taken refuge in the citadel, the only part to hold out; on 4 August the two of them had to leave the capital and withdraw to Savoy.[6] In Grenoble she met her brother Louis XIII and Richelieu; she had to accept new French garrisons at Chambéry and in Valle d'Aosta, but refused to send her son to France.[1] In 1640 the French army of the count of Harcourt freed Casale and then Turin; on 18 November Christine and Agliè returned to the city.[1][6] At the end of the year the favourite was arrested by the French, on Richelieu's orders, and locked up in the tower of the Château de Vincennes, from which he returned only after the cardinal's death, in December 1642; in prison he composed the allegory La prigione di Fillindo il Costante.[6]

The agreement of 14 June 1642 ended the civil war: Christine remained guardian of the duke, Maurizio received the lieutenancy of Nice and Tommaso that of Ivrea and Biella, both entered the regency council, and the cardinal, having given up the purple, married his niece Maria Ludovica, Christine's eldest daughter.[1] Rumours of a private bond between the duchess and Agliè, even of a secret marriage, circulated at court and were used by Richelieu as a political weapon.[6]

The "concealed regency"

On 20 June 1648 Carlo Emanuele II turned fourteen and came out of guardianship: Christine went with him to Ivrea, stripped Tommaso of that governorship and proclaimed before the Council of State the end of the regency.[1] Power, however, did not change hands. The historian Ercole Ricotti called the years 1648–1663 the "concealed regency": right up to the end the duchess herself signed the acts of government in her son's name.[1] She reformed the Council of State, in 1653 brought the number of Piedmont's provinces to eighteen, created what would become the "Delegation for the good government of the Comuni" and introduced in 1659 a new land tax, the military subsidy; through the sale of offices she opened judicial and financial posts to legal and mercantile families.[1] In 1655 the repression of the revolt in the Waldensian valleys, entrusted to the marquis of Pianezza, drew protests from Protestant states, from Cromwell to the United Provinces, and ended on 18 August with an agreement mediated by the French ambassador Servient.[1]

The Peace of the Pyrenees of 7 November 1659 returned Vercelli to Savoy and confirmed Trino and Alba; the news, Stumpo writes, "was received at the court of Turin with genuine relief" after twenty-four years of almost continuous war.[1] In 1663 Carlo Emanuele II married Françoise d'Orléans, chosen to please his mother.[1]

Festivities, ballets and building works

With Agliè as court choreographer and director, the "feste di Madama Reale" marked the shift of ballet from a palace entertainment to an art form; titles such as Gli habitatori dei monti were also staged again in Paris.[1] In 1644 La fenice rinnovata was staged, in 1645 the carousel L'oriente guerriero e festeggiante;[6] on 10 February 1645 the castle of Rivoli hosted the celebration for the birthday of the "first Madama Reale".[7]

In 1638 the regent chose as her permanent residence the old castle of the Acaja in piazza Castello: Carlo di Castellamonte enclosed the medieval courtyard, and her apartment looked out onto the square, with a balcony used as a stage for public celebrations.[2] The name Palazzo Madama, however, is tied above all to the second Madama Reale, Maria Giovanna Battista di Savoia-Nemours, for whom Filippo Juvarra built the façade.[8] From 1642, once the war was over, work also resumed on the Valentino with Amedeo di Castellamonte.[5]

It is to her that the city owes its expansion towards the Po, begun in 1646, the piazza Reale (today San Carlo) with the church of Santa Cristina, the church of Santa Teresa, the convent of San Francesco, the Ospedale della Carità and the new city hall; in 1657 work began on the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, started by Bernardino Quadri and completed by Guarino Guarini.[1] It was she who encouraged her son to build the hunting lodge entrusted to Amedeo di Castellamonte, today La Venaria Reale.[3] On the hill she had the architect Andrea Costaguta build a villa,[1] the Vigna di Madama Reale, today villa Abegg, in whose construction Agliè took part as master of works.[6]

Death and remembrance

In her last years, ill, she alternated governing with retreats to the convent next to Santa Cristina; she died in Turin on 26 December 1663.[1] Carlo Emanuele II immediately removed Agliè from all his posts; the count withdrew and was buried at the Monte dei Cappuccini, where his skeleton was accidentally found in 1989.[6]

The harsh judgement of nineteenth-century historiography, made up of commonplaces according to Stumpo, has since been revised: the duchess left a State weaker on the international stage but intact,[1] and

"on the external political level the duchess managed to preserve and maintain the integrity and political independence of the duchy"

Enrico Stumpo, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 31, 1985

Today Turin remembers her with piazza Madama Cristina in San Salvario, where in 1876 the market of piazza Bodoni was moved.[9]

Pages linking here

Related articles: Castello del Valentino, Castello di Agliè, La Venaria Reale, Monte dei Cappuccini, Palazzo Madama, Piazza Castello

Sources

  1. Treccani – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani —
  2. Palazzo Madama – Museo Civico d'Arte Antica
  3. Consorzio delle Residenze Reali Sabaude – La Venaria Reale
  4. Consorzio delle Residenze Reali Sabaude
  5. MuseoTorino
  6. Mole24 — 3 April 2026
  7. Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea
  8. Mole24 — 22 February 2020
  9. Mole24 — 2 November 2025

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