VITTORIO EMANUELE I of SAVOY, King of SARDINIA. — B. in Turin on 24 July 1759, d. at Moncalieri on 10 January 1824. Second son of Vittorio Amedeo, Duke of Savoy, heir to the throne, and of Maria Antonia of Bourbon-Spain, he bore at birth the title of Duke of Aosta.
More than to his elder brother Carlo Emanuele, Prince of Piedmont, Vittorio Emanuele I was bound by temperament and by the education he received to the three younger sons — Maurizio, Duke of Montferrat, Carlo Felice, Duke of Geneva, and Giuseppe Benedetto, Count of Maurienne — with whom he shared the governor Casimiro Gabeleone di Salmour, who gave the four princes a predominantly military training, inspired in politics by monarchical absolutism. The Barnabite Giacinto Sigismondo Gerdil, future cardinal and close to ascending the papal throne in the Venetian conclave of 1800, directed their religious instruction, making them fervent Catholics, though without the mysticism of Carlo Emanuele. Yet Vittorio Emanuele’s studies were neither broad nor profound; this did not prevent him from assuming, while still very young, the rank and functions of captain general of the army. Reared in the strict morality of the Savoyard court, at the age of thirty he married Maria Teresa of Habsburg-Lorraine (1773–1832), daughter of Archduke Ferdinand, governor of Lombardy, and of Maria Beatrice, last of the Este family. From this marriage were born Carlo Emanuele, who died at the age of three, and four daughters: Maria Beatrice, later Duchess of Modena; Maria Anna, later Empress of Austria; Maria Teresa, later Duchess of Lucca; and the Venerable Maria Cristina, later Queen of Naples. Thus Vittorio Emanuele I was also deprived of the possibility of perpetuating the dynasty, which had no heir from the firstborn son.
At the head of his troops, Vittorio Emanuele I fought with ill fortune against the French invasion from 1792 onward and vainly sought to oppose the weakness of his father and then of his brother, who ascended the throne in 1796, suggesting measures of desperate energy to secure the defence of the state. All was in vain: Carlo Emanuele IV allowed himself to be induced to cede Piedmont and Savoy to France and to take the path of exile. While the greater part of the royal family took refuge in Sardinia, Vittorio Emanuele I remained on the mainland, a guest of friendly courts, in the hope of a political reversal that would allow him to set foot again in Turin; this was prevented in 1799 by Austrian jealousy. Only in 1820 — when he had already been king for four years by the abdication of Carlo Emanuele IV — did he rejoin his family in Cagliari, forced to leave Naples by the Napoleonic advance. From then on he governed the island wisely, awaiting better times, which came in 1814 with the fall of Napoleon. The First Treaty of Paris restored to Vittorio Emanuele I his dominions, except Annecy and Chambéry, but with the notable addition of Genoa and Liguria. A few months later, the diligence with which he organized an army and marched it against France during the Hundred Days also earned him the restoration of the two Savoyard districts.
Welcomed back to Turin with delirious enthusiasm, Vittorio Emanuele I, ill-advised by his ministers, committed the irreparable error of fully re-establishing the institutions of 1789, without any regard for the changed political conditions. To revive royal absolutism and feudal rights meant not to understand the times and to disappoint the hopes of the people and the bourgeoisie, who had never ceased their loyalty to the exiled sovereign. But Vittorio Emanuele I did not sense the new demands and believed that the reforms granted with a paternalistic mentality, or the firm foreign policy toward France and Austria, would suffice to make his peoples happy. He had to recognize his error at the outbreak of the liberal movements of 1820–21: equally reluctant to grant the requested constitution and to suppress the insurrection by force of arms, he preferred to abdicate the throne in favour of his brother Carlo Felice and to entrust the regency to the presumptive heir Carlo Alberto of Savoy-Carignano, with the well-known consequences.
Having left the capital on 14 March 1821, he again took the path of exile; but a few months later the new king wished him to return to the country, whereupon he settled at Moncalieri, rigorously keeping himself aloof from politics so as not to undermine his brother’s authority. Of his piety, highly esteemed by the popes and especially by Pius VII, who held him in great affection, a splendid monument is the grand temple of the Gran Madre di Dio, which he had erected in Turin in thanksgiving for the restoration of 1814.