by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2021

The Kingdom of Sardinia: The House of Savoy had been Counts and then Dukes of Savoy, since the 11th century and ruled from the city of Turin in the Duchy of Savoy, now in northern Italy. Vittorio Amedeo II, Duke of Savoy became King of Sicily in 1713 as a result of his participation in the War of the Spanish Succession. However, in 1720, Vittoria Amedeo II was forced to exchange the Kingdom of Sicily for the less important Kingdom of Sardinia after objections from the Quadruple Alliance (Great Britain, France, Habsburg Austria, and the Dutch Republic).

Sardinia, now in Italy, is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily, also now in Italy, but the Kings of Sardinia of the House of Savoy ruled from Turin, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy. They styled themselves as Kings of Sardinia because the title was superior to their original lesser title as Dukes of Savoy. However, they retained the regnal numerical order of the Dukes of Savoy.

Vittorio Emanuele II became the last King of Sardinia upon the abdication of his father in 1849. He then became a driving force behind the Italian unification movement along with Giuseppe Garibaldi, a general and nationalist, and Giuseppe Mazzini, a politician and journalist. Garibaldi conquered Naples and Sicily, the territories of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, while the Sardinian troops occupied the central territories of the Italian peninsula, except Rome and part of Papal States. With all the newly acquired land, Vittorio Emanuele II was proclaimed the first King of the new, united Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

Note: Children of Kings of Sardinia were often styled “of Savoy” as their fathers were also Dukes of Savoy from the House of Savoy.

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Vittorio Amedeo III, King of Sardinia, Duke of Savoy was born at the Royal Palace in Turin, Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy on June 26, 1726. He was the eldest of the two sons and the eldest of the six children of Carlo Emanuele III, King of Sardinia and his second wife Polyxena of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg. Vittorio Amedeo’s paternal grandparents were Vittorio Amedeo II, King of Sardinia and his first wife Anne Marie d’Orléans.  Ernst Leopold, Landgrave of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg and Eleonore of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rochefort were his maternal grandparents. His maternal grandmother Anne Marie d’Orléans was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, son of King Louis XIII of France, and his first wife Princess Henrietta of England, daughter of King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France.

Vittorio Amedeo III had five younger siblings:

• Princess Eleonora of Savoy (1728 – 1781), unmarried
• Princess Luisa of Savoy (1729 – 1767), unmarried
• Princess Maria Felicita of Savoy (1730 – 1801), unmarried
• Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Duke of Aosta (1731 – 1735), died in childhood
• Prince Carlo of Savoy, Duke of Chablais (born and died 1733)

Vittorio Amedeo III had one elder half-brother from his father’s first marriage to Anna Christine of Sulzbach, who died giving birth to her son:

• Prince Vittorio Amedeo Teodoro of Savoy (1723 – 1725), died in early childhood before Vittorio Amedeo III was born

Vittorio Amedeo’s mother Polyxena fell seriously ill in June 1734 and died at the Royal Palace in Turin, Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy, on January 13, 1735, aged 28. Her eldest son Vittorio Amedeo was only eight years old. Two years after Polyxena’s death, Vittorio Amedeo’s father married Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine, daughter of Leopold Joseph, Duke of Lorraine and Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans, the daughter of King Louis XIV of France’s only sibling Philippe I, Duke of Orléans and his second wife Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, known as Liselotte.

Vittorio Amedeo III had three half-siblings from his father’s third marriage to Elisabeth. Sadly, like Carlo Emanuele III’s first two wives, Elisabeth Therese also died young, dying in 1741, aged 29, from puerperal fever (childbed fever), thirteen days after giving birth to her third child Benedetto:

• Prince Carlo Francesco of Savoy (1738 – 1745), died in childhood.
• Princess Maria Vittoria of Savoy (1740 – 1742), died in infancy
• Prince Benedetto of Savoy (1741 – 1808) married his niece Princess Maria Anna of Savoy, no children

Vittorio Amedeo III married Infanta Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain, daughter of Felipe V, King of Spain and his second wife Elisabeth Farnese. The marriage was arranged by Maria Antonia Ferdinanda’s half-brother Ferdinand VI, King of Spain to strengthen relations between Spain and Sardinia/Savoy as they had fought on opposing sides during the War of the Austrian Succession. Vittorio Amedeo and Maria Antonia Ferdinanda were married by proxy in Madrid, Spain on April 12, 1750, and then were married in person on May 31, 1750, at Oulx, near Turin in the Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy.

Vittorio Amedeo III was a great-great-grandson of King Charles I of England from the House of Stuart. After King James II, a son of King Charles I, lost his throne via the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Jacobite (from Jacobus, the Latin for James) movement formed. The goal of the Jacobites was to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England/VII of Scotland and his Roman Catholic heirs to the thrones of England and Scotland. When the line of the deposed King James II of England died out in 1807, the Jacobite claims to the British throne descended from the line of his sister Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orléans. In 1807, Vittorio Amedeo’s son Carlo Emanuele IV, King of Sardinia became the Jacobite heir from the House of Savoy.

• Unofficial Royalty: The Jacobite Succession – Pretenders to the British Throne

Vittorio Amedeo III and Maria Antonia Ferdinanda had twelve children:

• Carlo Emanuele IV, King of Sardinia (1751 – 1819), married Princess Marie Clotilde of France, no children
• Maria Elisabetta Carlotta of Savoy (1752 – 1755), died in childhood
• Maria Giuseppina of Savoy (1753 – 1810) married Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, the future King Louis XVIII of France, no children, died before her husband became King of France
• Amedeo Alessandro of Savoy (1754 – 1755), died in infancy
• Maria Teresa of Savoy (1756 – 1805), married Charles, Count of Artois, the future King Charles X of France, had four children, died before her husband became King of France
• Maria Anna of Savoy (1757 – 1824), married her uncle Prince Benedetto of Savoy, no issue
• Vittorio Emanuele I, King of Sardinia (1759 – 1824), married Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este, had six daughters and one son who died at age three from smallpox
• Maria Cristina Ferdinanda of Savoy (1760 – 1768), died in childhood
• Maurizio of Savoy, Duke of Montferrat (1762 – 1799) died unmarried from malaria
• Maria Carolina of Savoy (1764 – 1782), married Anton, Electoral Prince of Saxony, no issue, Maria Carolina died from smallpox, her husband became King of Saxony after her death
• Carlo Felice, King of Sardinia (1765 – 1831), married Princess Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily, no children
• Giuseppe of Savoy, Count of Asti (1766 – 1802), died unmarried from malaria

Vittorio Amedeo III became King of Sardinia in 1773 following the death of his father. His wife Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain died on September 19, 1785, at the Castle of Moncalieri in Turin, Duchy of Savoy, now in Italy, and was buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin. Vittorio Amedeo survived her by eleven years. In 1786, he moved the remains of many of his ancestors and relatives to the Basilica of Superga, which became the traditional burial site of the House of Savoy.

Vittorio Amedeo III’s daughters Maria Giuseppina and Maria Teresa married French princes and at the start of the French Revolution, Vittorio Amadeo III allowed his two sons-in-law and their families to stay in the Kingdom of Sardinia under his protection. During Napoleon‘s Italian campaign, Vittorio Amedeo’s troops were defeated by the French at the 1796 Battle of Milessimo. Vittorio Amedeo was forced to sign the 1796 Treaty of Paris, abandoning the First Coalition against the French Republic. The treaty stipulated that Vittorio Amedeo recognize the French Republic, cede the original Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice to France, and give the French Army free passage through his territory towards the rest of Italy.

Five months after signing the devastating Treaty of Paris, Vittorio Amadeo III died from a stroke, aged 70, on October 16, 1796, at the Castle of Moncalieri in Turin. He was buried in the Hall of the Kings at the Basilica of Superga in Turin. Vittorio Amedeo III was succeeded by his eldest son Carlo Emanuele IV, leaving him an economically damaged kingdom because of the results of the 1796 Treaty of Paris. In 1814, during the reign of Vittorio Emanuele I, the second surviving son of Vittorio Amedeo III, two-thirds of Savoy was restored to the Kingdom of Sardinia following Napoleon’s abdication.

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Works Cited

• En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Antonia_Ferdinanda_of_Spain> [Accessed 21 June 2021].
• En.wikipedia.org. 2021. Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Amadeus_III_of_Sardinia> [Accessed 21 June 2021].
• Flantzer, Susan, 2021. Carlo Emanuele III, King of Sardinia, Duke of Savoy. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/carlo-emanuele-iii-king-of-sardinia/> [Accessed 21 June 2021].
• It.wikipedia.org. 2021. Vittorio Amedeo III di Savoia – Wikipedia. [online] Available at: <https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Amedeo_III_di_Savoia> [Accessed 21 June 2021].