Savoy, House of

SAVOY, House of. - It appears in the history of western Italy at the beginning of the 11th century. Its first feudal domains are found in the Alpine valleys: on the eastern slope, in the Val d'Aosta; on the western slope, in the valleys of the Maurienne, of Savoy and also in the Viennois. The first representative of the dynasty is Count Humbert, later called Biancamano. All attempts to trace his ancestors have failed; he was probably a feudatory linked with various feudal dynasties of the region. After the death of Rudolph III, last king of Burgundy (d. 1032), he helped the emperor Conrad II in the acquisition of the Kingdom by repelling the competitors. Thanks to his loyalty to the Empire, Odo, son of Humbert, received from Henry III the government of the March of Turin and consent for the marriage with Adelaide, heiress of the local marquessal House. Because of the discord between the emperors and the counts of S. these soon found grave difficulty in preserving the March: the relations between the S. and the emperors of the House of Hohenstaufen were, throughout the 12th century, either of coldness or of hostility. The counts of S. assumed an attitude of absolute independence and knew how to ally themselves with the Houses of France and England and to procure cordial support against the Empire.

The political crisis of the 13th century following the struggle between Papacy and Empire allowed the S. to acquire notable importance in international relations, both between popes and emperors and between the kings of France and England. In the expansionist policy of the S. three directions become clear in the 13th century: in the Po valley, on the Swiss plateau, in the Rhone valley. Apparently their policy has a simple patrimonial character. In Italy they assert their property rights over all the territories that two centuries earlier had formed part of the March of Turin and of which they had preserved only a few points in the Val di Susa and between the Chisone and the Pellice; they aimed to reach Turin by overcoming the claims of the local Commune, of the bishop, of the marquis of Montferrat. Beyond the mountains the program is to transform slowly into continuous and compact territorial possession that network of feudal rights, of monastic and ecclesiastical protectorates, already formed with the less avowed purpose of reconstituting the Burgundian unity between the Rhine and the Rhone which only they could attempt from that Savoy which was the principal crossroads of routes. Thus the Alps for the S. are not a boundary line, but the true center and unifying point of their activity. While not disdaining the use of arms, they entrust their advance in the three theaters preferably to a skillful policy of marriage negotiations, of cessions, of enfeoffments on the part of princes, bishops, abbots; often relying on the voluntary submissions of populations that see in them not figures of cruel tyrants and exploiters, but rough, simple princes, disposed to grant protection against violent princes, against territorial indiscipline. Everywhere the S. clash against harsh resistance. In Italy against these Lords who descend from the Alps there oppose themselves first the marquises of Saluzzo and of Montferrat, the counts of Piedmont of the House of Anjou, then the Visconti of Milan. On the Swiss plateau, after the dukes of Zahringen, the counts of S. clash with the counts of Kyburg and then with the counts of Habsburg. Thus in the Rhone valley the most tenacious opposition is that of the Dauphins of the Viennois. From Frederick II in Italy they obtain the two cities of Turin and Ivrea (1248): the possessions of the valleys of the two Dore tend to be linked. The two cities are lost, but they are regained: Turin definitively in 1281, Ivrea a few decades later. On the Rhone the Bresse is absorbed, and one casts an eye on imperial Lyon, coveted unfortunately by the monarchy of Paris. On the Swiss plateau they take root in the Valais and in the Vaud facing the Habsburgs. And all this while overcoming the inevitable family dissensions, the minorities of the princes often not brief, such as those of Humbert III and of Thomas I. In 1263 with Boniface, son of Amadeus IV, the eldest branch dies out: the county passes successively to the younger brothers of Amadeus IV, Peter II, then Philip I. In 1285 the inheritance of the S. is gathered by a nephew, Amadeus V, who detaches the domains of Piedmont for the son of his already deceased brother Thomas, Philip, called of Achaea because of the principality brought to him as dowry by his consort Isabella of Villehardouin; thus he creates for his brother Louis the county of Vaud. Three dynasties, therefore, three centers of activity and expansion.

When, in 1418, the duke of S. unifies all the domains of the House, the Savoyard power demonstrates the progress of a little more than a century. Modest on the Swiss plateau around

Lake Geneva; on the Rhone, the kings of France have replaced the Dauphins of the Viennois and the advance south toward the sea to reach the happy annexation of Nice seems impossible. Prodigious, on the other hand, is the expansion in the Po region: the marquises of Saluzzo and of Montferrat have been confined within the narrow circle of their old domains, the Visconti of Milan have been driven back to the line of the Sesia, the domains of the Angevins have disappeared. The Savoyard State of Piedmont now includes flourishing cities: Ivrea, Chieri, Biella, Mondovì, Cuneo, Fossano, Savigliano. More than a State it is a complex of cities and territories that obey the same Lord. Amadeus VIII (v.) in 1418 obtained from the Emperor Sigismund the title of Duke and occupies a distinct place among the European princes; from the Duchy of Milan he manages to obtain Vercelli and all its territory up to the Sesia and from there he looks to the line of the Ticino and meditates on how to obtain by adoption or succession the entire Duchy of Milan. His abdication allows him to offer himself to the Council of Basel as a candidate for the papal throne and, having now succeeded in becoming pope, Felix V (v.) strives to serve the interests of the family and of the country in the question of Milan. In the middle of the 15th century the process of fortune and development of the Savoyard dynasty is interrupted. In France, the monarchy, having ended the war with England, can resume its old policy of expansion in Italy. The S. are too weak to resist alone; they lean on the dukes of Burgundy, but after the collapse of the power of Charles the Bold they no longer have supports. Amadeus IX leaves the government to his consort Yolande of France;

the sons who followed him, Philibert I and Charles I, ascended the throne as minors with limited possibilities. In 1496 a new branch of the family came to power: Philibert II, called the Landless, the younger son of Ludovico. These were sad years for Italy and for the S.

In 1536 Francis I resolutely decided on the occupation of the Savoyard Duchy so as to counterbalance the Habsburg occupation of the Duchy of Milan. To close to France the gateway to Italy, more than out of affection for the grandson of S., Charles V sheltered the young heir of the House, Emmanuel Philibert, and supported his rights. Only after the battle of St. Quentin, however, once France and Spain were reconciled, did the great captain regain his states, on condition of marrying the sister of Henry II, the long-disputed Margaret of Valois. Contrary to expectation, from the union was born the continuer of the dynasty, Charles Emmanuel. Only then were the S. secure in the possession of their ancestral domains. The peace that reigned for some decades after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis gave Emmanuel Philibert the opportunity to attend to the reconstruction of the State.

Among the Italian states, the S. now asserted themselves with an authority and a military force such as no one else had.

The religious wars of France gave Charles Emmanuel I the means to resolve the problem of Saluzzo through the exchange of Bresse established in the Treaty of Lyon (1601). This was the first example of the policy of territorial exchanges with France in order to obtain aggrandizements in Italy. Charles Emmanuel, however, failed to resolve the problem of Montferrat, although he did not hesitate to go to war with Spain without any help. Victor Amadeus I, his heir, closed the great conflict with an unhappy solution, though a provisional one; by the Treaty of Cherasco (1631) he obtained part of Montferrat - Alba and Trino - but had to abandon to France the possession of Pinerolo. The French thus recovered the gateway into the peninsula and the S. had to bite the bit. So it was during the two reigns of Victor Amadeus I (1630-37) and of Charles Emmanuel II (1638-75), an age in which the European conflicts barely touched the Italian peninsula. But the great wars that began in the last decade of the century brought Italian questions back to the forefront. Victor Amadeus II sought to exploit the possibilities for recovering independence and resuming the projects of expansion by maneuvering among the contending parties. From the War of the Spanish Succession he drew Alessandria and that part of Montferrat which his grandfather Victor Amadeus I had not obtained at the Peace of Cherasco; the Lomellina and the Valsesia so as to complete the territory of Vercelli; Sicily with the royal title. He was then forced to exchange Sicily for Sardinia, which was easier to govern and to fit into the Savoyard domains. And the royal title too had its importance.

Charles Emmanuel III continued his father's work. The Wars of the Polish and Austrian Succession led him to the conquest of all the territories as far as Lake Maggiore and the Ticino; south of the Po the possession of the Oltrepò Pavese allowed him to make contact with the Emilian Duchies. A great State, then, was this complex of lands called Piedmont, with its old name, which had started in the 12th century from the Cottian Alps, and to which the problem of relations with Genoa was more than ever imposed. Unstable was the equilibrium of the Savoyard State after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle: the movement of ideas that manifested itself in Turin in the middle of the 18th century expressed this situation of uncertainty, of contrast between aspirations and present difficulties, the fear that the real forces of the country were not such as to sustain the edifice that the diplomacy and arms of the Savoyard princes had built. And after 1748 the S. withdrew into neutrality under the weight of the Bourbon-Habsburg union, and when this broke apart, in the period of the French Revolution, the S. were sacrificed between the covetousness of revolutionary expansionism and the calculations of Austrian policy, eager to recover what the S. had obtained during the 18th century. Victor Amadeus III preferred the alliance of Vienna to submission to France: from this followed, after the heroic defense in the Alps, the armistice of Cherasco, then the abandonment of Turin and the withdrawal into loyal Sardinia.

In 1814 Victor Emmanuel I, having returned to Turin, wished to restore the dynastic tradition. But the problems of the eighteenth century reappeared. Even increased by Liguria, the Savoyard State could not remain

Naples and especially by Rome, was destined to find and did find in Turin every possible obstacle for evident dynastic and prestige reasons. The S. thus came more and more to identify their policy with the liberal, unitary, independence program which at least apparently coincided with the expansionist tendencies of the two preceding centuries, ever since Charles Emmanuel I had appealed to all Italian forces against the foreigner. The policy of Charles Albert and then that of Victor Emmanuel II (v.) appeared, therefore, more than it really was, as the straight unfolding of a program that concluded with the construction of the Kingdom of Italy; so that after 1870 the S., at the head of the Italian State, devoted their care to the ordering of the political and social forces of the nation, carrying out as far as possible the content of the constitutional Charter established in 1848 by King Charles Albert. - See plates CXXXI-CXXXII.

EUGENIO

He belonged to the cadet branch of S.-Carignano, begun by Thomas, Prince of Carignano, son of Charles Emmanuel I. Born in Paris on 18 Oct. 1663, to Maurice of S., Count of Soissons, and Olympia Mancini, niece of Cardinal Mazarin.

Destined, as a cadet, for the ecclesiastical life, in 1683 he decided upon a career in arms, and in the face of Louis XIV's hesitation he left Paris and reached the imperial army in time to take part in the liberation of Vienna from the Turks: he never again left the Emperor's service. His gifts of cold calm and lucid vision of military situations won him the esteem and confidence of his commanders. His career was very rapid: in 1694 he received command of the imperial forces in Italy in the War of the League of Augsburg and intervened in Piedmont in aid rated to the past. After the conservative policy of Charles Felix (1821-31), the new branch of the S.-Carignano, having come to the throne with Charles Albert, once again made its own that program of expansion along the Po valley already outlined by the subalpine politicians of the eighteenth century. The idea of an Italian confederation had already shown its frailty when it had appeared in Turin on the eve of the Revolution; in the discussions of the Risorgimento, precisely because it started from of his cousin Victor Amadeus II, Duke of S.; in 1697 he assumed supreme command of the imperial forces in Hungary against the Turks, and the resounding victory of Zenta (11 Sept. 1697) consecrated his fame. In the War of the Spanish Succession he commanded the imperial armies in Italy, where he won the victory of Turin (7 Sept. 1706), and in Flanders, where he won repeatedly at Oudenarde, Malplaquet and Höchstädt in Bavaria. He then took part in the peace negotiations at Utrecht, displaying the same gifts of clarity and firmness. The Treaty of Rastatt of 1714 was his particular merit. The resumption of the war with the Turks recalled the prince to the Danube: in 1716 he won at Peterwardein, in 1717 he conquered Belgrade, in 1718 he made the Peace of Passarowitz. After 1720 he lived in Vienna, occupied in the highest offices of government, and devoted his leisure to creating in his Belvedere palace a great library and a marvelous collection of paintings, for his spirit was open to the enjoyment of letters and the arts. In 1733, when the War of the Polish Succession broke out, despite his advanced age he resumed command of the army. He died in Vienna on 21 Apr. 1736 and was buried in St. Stephen's. He left a great reputation behind him among friends and enemies alike for his uprightness and his spirit of Faith. He did not want a family and avoided the turmoil of the passions; for in all his life he knew only the love of duty.

MAURICE of S

Cardinal, third-born son of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of S., and of Catherine of Austria (Spain), b. in Turin on 10 Jan. 1595, d. on 4 Oct. 1657.

Destined for the ecclesiastical life, he obtained the hat as cardinal deacon from Paul V in 1607. He remained however at the court of Turin; in 1615, during the war of Montferrat, he was lieutenant for his father in Piedmont; in 1618 he went to Paris to contract, in the name of his brother Victor Amadeus, the marriage with Christine of France. In 1622 he settled in Rome, where he assumed the political dignity of cardinal protector of France, and again in 1630 he went to Paris to finalize the peace agreements. In 1635, however, he went over to the party of Spain. After the death of his brother Victor Amadeus I, he began, in agreement with his brother Thomas, Prince of Carignano, the struggle to wrest from his sister-in-law Christine the guardianship and regency of the new duke Charles Emmanuel II, still a boy. To this end he concluded agreements with Spain and with the Empire. The long civil struggle in Piedmont ended with an agreement in 1642: having laid aside the cardinal's dignity, he married his young niece Ludovica, sister of Charles Emmanuel II, and received the office of governor of Nice. He had no children. In Turin he had built on the hill a magnificent villa (the so-called villa della Regina, now the Institute of the Daughters of the Military) where he had created the academy of the Solinghi.

The blessed and the venerable of the House of S. are treated separately under their respective names.