EMANUELE FILIBERTO, Duke of Savoy. — Born at Chambéry on 19 Oct. 1528, died at Turin on 30 Aug. 1580. After the death of his elder brothers, he abandoned the ecclesiastical career for which he had been destined; in 1553, upon the death of his father Carlo II, he received the duchy.
This, however, had been invaded and occupied by Francis I in 1536, and only a few towns remained to the duke. Emanuele Filiberto, after having wandered with his father to Vercelli and then to Nice, left in 1545 for the court of Charles V, in whose support he hoped to regain his state. In the imperial army he fought at Ingolstadt and at Mühlberg; later he became supreme commander of the Spanish army in Flanders and on 10 Aug. 1557 won the famous victory of Saint-Quentin. France consented in the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) to restore Emanuele Filiberto’s states. The reconquest, however, was not easy: in 1559 he was able to retake Vercelli, and only in 1563 did he enter Turin.
After the reconquest of his state, Emanuele Filiberto’s policy necessarily became pacific. Between the French monarchy and the Austro-Spanish bloc it was not easy to maintain the proper balance, and here the duke’s skill was fully displayed.
His greatest work, however, and the most glorious, was the reconstruction of the Savoy-Piedmontese state after the devastation of foreign occupation. By permanently transferring the capital to Turin, Emanuele Filiberto directed his efforts to making his state a power in Italy. He took great care to unify it, eliminating municipalism and regionalism in legislation, administration, and finance. Prudently he began to organize a standing army to defend the country’s independence. Already in 1560 he decreed the abolition of serfdom; against the natural tendencies of the population he strove to create in Piedmont an industry that would free the country from foreign dependence; he reorganized the finances.
In the religious sphere, while behaving as a Catholic prince, he resisted pressures from the Roman Curia and the governments of Madrid and Paris, which would have preferred a policy of persecution against heretics. On several occasions he seemed ready to embark on such a course, but always stopped short, though he greatly desired to recover the Calvinist Geneva. To the Waldensians he granted religious freedom in their valleys through the agreement of Cavour (1561). — See pl. XXI.