CARLO EMANUELE IV di SAVOIA, king of SARDEGNA. — Born on 24 May 1751 in Turin, died on 5 October 1819 in Rome. He was the son of Vittorio Amedeo III and Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain, and was king from October 1796 to June 1802. The education of the young prince was entrusted to the Barnabite Fr. Giacinto Sigismondo Gerdil, later a cardinal, whose teaching instilled in him a profound sense of piety that accompanied him throughout his life, sustained him during the harsh years of exile, and prepared him to don the religious habit a few years before his death. In 1775 he married, with ecclesiastical dispensation, Maria Clotilde di Borbone, sister of Luigi XVI, a woman of outstanding virtue, declared venerable by Pius VII in 1808.
When he ascended the throne in October 1796, after his father’s death, C. E. IV found the state in an especially difficult diplomatic and political situation. The French were de facto masters of Savoy and Piedmont, and hoped to obtain the legal cession of Sardinia through negotiations. In these circumstances, only one possibility remained for the new king: to ally himself with France. Such an alliance became all the more urgent as attempts by republican circles in the kingdom to undermine the monarchy grew more frequent. Thus, after the defeats of Wurmser and Alvinczy and after the Treaty of Tolentino, in April 1797 the king agreed to cede Sardinia to France, subject to the conclusion of peace on the Continent, in return for the uncertain promise of suitable territorial compensation elsewhere in Italy; he also undertook to contribute to France’s war effort by providing a contingent of troops. But the neighboring new republics—the Ligurian and the Cisalpine—poorly tolerated the persistence of the monarchical system in Piedmont, and their envoys in Turin, supported also by the French representative, openly encouraged the innovators to rebel. Conspiracies and uprisings did in fact occur in various parts of the kingdom, but all were promptly suppressed. The émigrés, however, gave C. E. IV no respite, and one of their incursions in the area of Carosio led to war with the Ligurian Republic. France intervened on the pretext of putting an end to the conflict, but, as a guarantee of the king’s good faith, demanded the surrender of the citadel of Turin. During this period, Paris and Vienna considered with interest the project of making C. E. king of Rome to protect the Pope and the Catholic religion, thus leaving France as the arbiter of Piedmont. The king, however, wanted nothing to do with such a transfer. Toward the end of 1798, fear of an attack from the rear by the Piedmontese army led France to drop the mask decisively. During the night of 7–8 December, the king was forced to sign the act of abdication. He then departed for Parma, from where he went to Florence and finally to Cagliari. Having stopped during the journey at the Charterhouse of Florence, he had offered the exiled Pius VI asylum in Sardinia. As soon as he reached his overseas dominion, he protested against French violence and declared null and void the act of abdication, extorted from him by force and threats. After his consort died in Naples on 7 March 1802, he settled permanently in Rome and abdicated the throne on 4 June 1802 in favor of his brother Vittorio Emanuele I. On 11 February 1815 he entered the Society of Jesus, residing in the novitiate house at S. Andrea del Quirinale, in whose church he was also buried.