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Victor Emmanuel II

Last king of Sardinia and first king of Italy (1820-1878), born at Palazzo Carignano: he reigned from Turin until the capital moved to Florence in 1865.

Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy (Turin, 14 March 1820 – Rome, 9 January 1878) was the last king of Sardinia and the first king of Italy. The son of Carlo Alberto of Savoy-Carignano and of Maria Teresa of Austria-Tuscany[1], he was born at Palazzo Carignano, the same building where his father had been born and in whose courtyard, forty-one years later, the Unification of Italy would be proclaimed[2]. He reigned from Turin from 1849 to 1865, when the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy was moved to Florence[3].

Education

He spent his early years in Tuscany, where his father had been sent away after showing liberal sympathies during the uprisings of 1821[1]. On 16 September 1822, at the grand-ducal villa of Poggio Imperiale, he nearly died in a fire that broke out in the mosquito net over his bed: he was saved by his nurse, Teresa Zanotti Racca, who paid for the act with her life[3]. In 1830 King Carlo Felice entrusted the princes' education to the chevalier Cesare Saluzzo di Menusiglio, who built it around physical exercise and military training and remained their governor until 1839[3]. It was a course of study of rigid discipline, from which the future king emerged with little taste for books and with a lifelong passion for the mountains, hunting, gambling and horses[1].

On 12 April 1842, at the Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, he married his cousin Maria Adelaide of Austria, daughter of Archduke Rainer. Over twelve years the couple had seven children, among them Maria Clotilde (1843), the future king Umberto I (1844) and Amedeo (1845)[1].

King of Sardinia: from Novara to Moncalieri

He came to the throne in March 1849, when Carlo Alberto abdicated after the defeat at Novara in the First War of Independence, and he had to negotiate the armistice with Marshal Radetzky[1]. A few days later, on 29 March, he explained to the British minister in Turin, Sir Ralph Abercromby, how he meant to reign[3]:

«For my part, I wish to govern constitutionally, but I wish to see the law respected, and I would rather perish than submit to the yoke of a party.»

Victor Emmanuel II to Sir Ralph Abercromby, 29 March 1849

The Camera, with a democratic majority, refused however to ratify the peace of Milan with Austria. On 16 November it suspended debate on the treaty; the king dissolved it and on 20 November, from the castello di Moncalieri, signed the proclamation written by Massimo d'Azeglio, which declared the outgoing Camera hostile to the Crown and asked voters to elect deputies willing to end the war[4][5]. In the elections of 9 December about two thirds of those elected sided with the government; the peace was ratified, together with a war indemnity of 75 million francs[4]. The Statuto had remained in force, and from then on Italians took to calling him the «re galantuomo» ("the gentleman king")[3].

With Cavour towards Unification

The following years were the years of Cavour, with whom the king often had a conflictual relationship. The Regno di Sardegna took part in the Crimean War, which brought no concrete rewards but earned Piedmont a great deal of diplomatic credit[1]. In 1858, after Felice Orsini's attack on Napoleon III, Paris demanded extremely harsh measures against the Piedmontese republican press; the king wrote to his aide-de-camp, General Enrico Morozzo della Rocca, a letter meant to be shown to the emperor: he asked him to make clear «qu'on ne traite pas ainsi un fidèle allié» ("one does not treat a faithful ally this way") and that for his own honour he answered only to God and to his people[3]. In the Speech from the Throne of 10 January 1859 the king spoke the phrase that was to endure: «we are not insensible to the cry of pain that rises towards us from so many parts of Italy»[1]. After the war of 1859 and the Expedition of the Thousand, which he had supported, on 26 October 1860 he met Garibaldi at Teano[3].

The law of 17 March 1861 gave him the title «Vittorio Emanuele II, re d'Italia per grazia di Dio e volontà della Nazione» ("Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy by the grace of God and the will of the Nation")[1]. Unification was proclaimed at Palazzo Carignano, in the courtyard where a temporary chamber for the Camera dei deputati had been set up[2]; the old chamber of the Parlamento Subalpino had closed its last sitting on 28 December 1860 at 2.30 pm, the time and date still shown on the chamber's clock and calendar[6].

The farewell to Turin

Under the September Convention of 1864, agreed with Napoleon III, Italy undertook to move the capital from Turin to Florence. The city rose up: on 21 and 22 September the army fired on demonstrators, above all in piazza San Carlo, killing 52 and wounding 187; the Gazzetta del Popolo wrote of «a slaughter of human flesh»[7]. On 30 January 1865 ladies and gentlemen on their way to the court ball at Palazzo Reale were insulted in the street, and in June 1865 the capital passed to Florence[3]. After the capture of Rome on 20 September 1870 the capital moved again; on 5 December, opening the new legislature, the king declared: «with Rome as the capital of Italy I have kept my promise and crowned the undertaking that, twenty-three years ago, was begun by my magnanimous father»[1].

La Mandria and the «Bela Rosin»

At the castle of La Mandria, in the territory of Venaria Reale, the king had his Royal Apartments, more than twenty rooms decorated to the design of the court architect Domenico Ferri, which he shared with Rosa Vercellana, the «Bela Rosin»[8]. Born in Nice in 1833[9], Rosa was his lasting companion, countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda from 1858 and, from 7 November 1869, his morganatic wife[1]. The apartments at La Mandria, restored with more than a hundred works of art and sixty recovered furnishings, can today be visited as part of the Venaria Reale circuit[8].

Since Rosa was not entitled to the burial reserved for queens, her children had a circular mausoleum built for her between 1886 and 1888, modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, designed by Angelo Demezzi, on strada Castello di Mirafiori, on the border with Nichelino; the Comune bought it in 1970[9].

Death and Turin memory

He died in Rome on 9 January 1878 of a malarial fever[1]. He was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, one of only three members of the House of Savoy who rest there, even though dynastic tradition called for kings to be buried in the basilica di Superga, where twenty members of the Casa Savoia are laid to rest[10].

Turin got a monument in exchange. On 23 January 1878 Umberto I decided to fund it with one million lire, partly to compensate the city for the burial it had been denied; the competition, judged on 1 April 1879, received 46 sketches and 8 designs. The winner was the Genoese sculptor Pietro Costa; the work, begun in 1882, dragged on for a long time and the monument was unveiled on 9 September 1899 on the old piazza d'Armi, at the junction of corso Vittorio Emanuele II and corso Galileo Ferraris[11]. The statue of the king, bare-headed, stands on four Doric columns; at its feet, four female figures represent Unity, Liberty, Brotherhood and Labour, and the eagles at the corners hold garlands bearing the dates 1848, 1859, 1866 and 1870[11]. It is the tallest monument in the city[12]. The events of his reign are recounted in the rooms of the Museo nazionale del Risorgimento, at Palazzo Carignano, where he was born[2].

The picket against Roberto Vannacci outside the hotel NH Torino (18 September 2026)

On 18 September 2026 the arrival in Turin of the former general and member of the European Parliament Roberto Vannacci, a guest at a conference on urban security organised by the Fsp police union at the hotel NH Torino, at number 104 corso Vittorio Emanuele II, is accompanied by a picket of about a hundred people organised by the Askatasuna social centre together with student collectives and movements, joined by Anpi and numerous local union and association groups. The march crosses corso Vittorio Emanuele II between corso Vinzaglio and corso Inghilterra, causing traffic delays and changes to the routes of Gtt lines 55, 60, 68 and Star 1.

The picket against Roberto Vannacci outside the hotel Nh (18 September 2026)

On 18 September 2026 the stretch of corso Vittorio Emanuele II in front of the hotel Nh, at number 104, between corso Vinzaglio and corso Inghilterra, was manned by riot police and by around a hundred demonstrators during the visit of Roberto Vannacci; Gtt announced route changes for lines 55, 60, 68 and Star 1, which run along the corso.

Chronology

  • — The arrival in Turin of Roberto Vannacci for a police union conference is accompanied by a picket on corso Vittorio Emanuele II and by protests from Anpi and local unions and associations. → TorinoToday CronacaQui Torino

Related articles: Carlo Alberto, Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, Massimo d'Azeglio, Protests over Roberto Vannacci's visit to Turin (18 September 2026), Roberto Vannacci, Torino

Pages linking here

Sources

  1. Treccani – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  2. Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano
  3. Treccani – Enciclopedia Italiana
  4. 150anni.it – Comitato per i 150 anni dell'Unità d'Italia
  5. Castello di Moncalieri
  6. Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano
  7. Città di Torino – Ufficio stampa — 20 September 2018
  8. La Venaria Reale
  9. MuseoTorino
  10. Il Mattino
  11. MuseoTorino
  12. MuseoTorino
  13. TorinoToday — 18 September 2026
  14. CronacaQui Torino — 18 September 2026
  15. Obiettivo News — 17 September 2026

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