CARLO ALBERTO, king of SARDEGNA. — Born on 2 October 1798 in Torino, died on 28 July 1849 in Oporto. The son of Carlo Emanuele, prince of Carignano, of the junior branch of the Savoia, he lost his father at the age of two. He was educated at boarding school in Paris and Geneva, and after the Restoration returned to Piemonte as heir presumptive to the throne, since neither King Vittorio Emanuele I nor his brother Carlo Felice had male children. Born and raised in the revolutionary and Napoleonic climate, C. A., by natural inclination, was favorably disposed toward the new ideas and principles; but alongside this sympathy for the revolutionary conquests, he possessed a very lively sense of duty and of the interests of the State: the majesty of the king was sacred to him, a genuine religious feeling throbbed in his heart, and reforms, including constitutions, appeared necessary to him only if they truly served to strengthen the structure of the State.
When revolution broke out in Piemonte in 1821, C. A., assuming the regency after the abdication of Vittorio Emanuele I and in the absence of the new sovereign Carlo Felice, was unable to contain the movement as he would have wished. Inclined to grant a Charter on the French model, he was compelled to concede a constitution patterned after the Spanish one; inwardly reluctant toward the movement itself, he lacked the moral courage and physical energy indispensable for taking a firm position. Disavowed by Carlo Felice and despised by the revolutionaries, he had to leave Torino, on the king’s orders, after the suppression of the movement. Wishing, therefore, to demonstrate to the sovereign his aversion to revolutionary ideology, he did not hesitate to go to Spain and, following the army of the duke of Angoulême, took part in the capture of the Trocadero. This action served to dispel the doubts that Carlo Felice harbored concerning his nephew’s ideological and political orthodoxy, and he was readmitted to the Sardinian states with his former rank as heir presumptive to the throne. C. A. became king in 1831, at a time when a grave crisis was disturbing all of Europe.
From the outset, the king demonstrated his aversion to these upheavals and warmly supported the cause of the legitimists, both French (duchess of Berry) and Spanish and Portuguese (don Carlos and don Miguel). In domestic policy, a cautious program of reform was undertaken. The Council of State was established; new codes were promulgated on the basis of the Napoleonic ones, though stripped of every anti-Catholic intent; and the kingdom’s economic and financial policy was guided by new principles. During these years C. A. devoted particular attention to the defense of the Catholic religion, which he declared in article 1 of the Civil Code to be the “sole religion of the State.” In 1830 he began negotiations with the Holy See for the restoration of the nunciature in Torino, suppressed in 1753 by Carlo Emanuele III; these negotiations were successfully concluded the following year. He likewise obtained from the Holy See a concordat on the question of parish registers and the personal immunity of the clergy (A. Mercati, Concordati tra la S. Sede e le autorità civili, Roma 1919, pp. 825-38).
The awakening of Italian public opinion in a national and anti-Austrian sense after 1840 also impressed C. A. He then sincerely embraced the
(from M. Costa de Brauzpard, La jeunesse du roi Charles-Albert, Parigi 1895) CARLO ALBERTO, KING OF SARDINIA — Portrait from a miniature of 1818.
will be given to me by this poor list, if what you foresee is carried out; it
will cause me the most intense afflictions that I shall not see you again. He was my faithful companion
in misfortune; he gave me so many tokens of affection that I cannot bring myself
to believe in innocence, no longer seeing you every day as I had been accustomed
for so long; we shall find a void in life that must constantly be keenly
felt, since I think I shall no longer be able to see him!
Vita und
B. Schlegel
(from M. Costa de Beauregard, La jeunesse du roi Charles-Albert, Paris 1895)
CARLO ALBERTO, KING OF SARDINIA - Autograph letter of 20 April 1836 from Nice to Count Gerbaix de Sonnaz.
the Italian cause, although considering it in certain respects
from a particularist point of view. In the second half of 1847 he
granted further reforms and promulgated the Statuto on
4 March 1848, which would subsequently become
the fundamental law of the Kingdom of Italy until
the proclamation of the republic almost a hundred years later.
Having declared war on Austria in March 1848, C. A.,
after the defeat at Novara in February of the following year,
abdicated in favor of his son Vittorio Emanuele II,
and withdrew to Portugal, where he died a few months later.
BIBLI: The bibliography concerning Carlo Alberto is extensive. Up to 1899 it
is listed in D. Carutti, Bibliografia carlo-albertina,
Torino 1899. The fundamental work now is that of N. Rodolico, C.
A., 3 vols., Firenze 1931-43. On relations between State and Church
under C. A., cf. T. Chiuso, La Chiesa in Piemonte dal 1792 ai
giorni nostri, III, Torino 1888, pp. 168-280; P. Pirri, La politica
civileistica di C. A., in Civ. Catt., 1931, III, pp. 385 ff.
495 ff.