VITTORIO EMANUELE I of SAVOIA, king of SARDEGNA. — Born in Turin on 24 July 1759, died at Moncalieri on 10 January 1824. The second son of Vittorio Amedeo, duke of Savoy and heir to the throne, and of Maria Antonia of Bourbon-Spain, he received at birth the title of duke of Aosta.
More than to his elder brother Carlo Emanuele, prince of Piedmont, V. E. was bound by temperament and by the education he received to the three younger brothers — Maurizio, duke of Monferrato, Carlo Felice, duke of Genevese, and Giuseppe Benedetto, count of Moriana — with whom he had as governor the rigid Casimiro Gabeleone di Salmour, who gave the four princes an essentially military education, politically inspired by monarchical absolutism. The Barnabite Giacinto Sigismondo Gerdil, the future cardinal who came close to ascending the papal throne at the Conclave of Venice in 1800, directed their religious instruction, making them fervent Catholics, though without Carlo Emanuele’s mysticism. Nevertheless, V. E.’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. Raised in the severe morality of the Savoy court, at the age of thirty he married Maria Teresa of Habsburg-Lorraine (1773–1832), daughter of Archduke Ferdinando, governor of Lombardy, and of Maria Beatrice, the last of the Este family. This marriage produced Carlo Emanuele, who died at barely three years of age, 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 depriving V. E. as well of the possibility of perpetuating the dynasty, since his firstborn brother had had no heirs. At the head of his troops, V. E. fought with ill-fated courage against the French invasion beginning in 1792 and vainly attempted to oppose the weakness of his father and then of his brother, who ascended the throne in 1796, suggesting measures of desperate energy to ensure the defense of the State. Everything was in vain: Carlo Emanuele IV allowed himself to be induced to surrender Piedmont and Savoy to France and to take the road into exile. While most of the royal family took refuge in Sardinia, V. E. remained on the continent, a guest of friendly courts, in the hope of a political upheaval that would allow him to set foot again in Turin; this was prevented in 1799 by Austrian jealousy. Only in 1806 — when he had already been king for four years owing to the abdication of Carlo Emanuele IV — did he join his family in Cagliari, forced to leave the Kingdom of Naples by the Napoleonic advance. From then on he governed the island wisely while awaiting better times, which came in 1814 with the fall of Napoleon. The First Treaty of Paris restored V. E.’s dominions to him, except for Annecy and Chambéry, but with the substantial 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 restitution of the two Savoyard districts.
Welcomed with delirious enthusiasm upon his return to Turin, V. E, badly advised by his ministers, committed the irreparable error of fully restoring the arrangements of 1789, without taking any account of the changed political conditions. Resurrecting royal absolutism and feudal rights meant failing to understand the times and disappointing the hopes of the people and the bourgeoisie, who had never ceased to remain loyal to the sovereign in exile. But V. E. did not perceive the new demands and believed that the reforms granted with a paternalistic mentality, or a firm foreign policy toward France and Austria, would suffice to make his peoples happy. He was forced to recognize his error when the liberal uprisings of 1820–21 broke out: equally reluctant to grant the requested Constitution and to suppress the insurrection by force of arms, he preferred to abdicate the throne in favor of his brother Carlo Felice and entrust the regency to the heir presumptive Carlo Alberto of Savoia-Carignano, with the well-known consequences.
Having left the capital on 14 March 1821, he once again took the road into exile; but a few months later the new King wished him to return to his homeland, and so he settled at Moncalieri, remaining rigorously aloof from politics so as not to diminish his brother’s authority. A notable monument to his piety, highly esteemed by the pontiffs, and especially by Pius VII, who held him very dear, is the grandiose church of the Gran Madre di Dio, which he had erected in Turin in thanksgiving for the restoration achieved in 1814.