Tag Archives: House of Savoy

HOUSE OF SAVOY LEADS ITALY INTO THE NEW

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The magnificent Savoyard fortress complex at Fennestrelle erected soon after the House of Savoy joined the ranks of kings in 1713.

World War One – La Grande Guerra in Italian – destroyed four of the great ruling houses of Europe.  The House of Savoy was not one of them.  That would take another war.  The House of Savoy is one of the older families of Europe making it into the rarefied heights of ascendant nobility.  Like most of these families, the family history is complicated by time and politics.  That history becomes confused further by looking at maps of the feudal lands over the years as they waxed and waned with time.  Little bits of color interspersed with each other, seemingly with no rhyme or reason at times.  So much of history tied up in abstruse, rarefied, esoteric stories understood by only a few of the most dedicated students.

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SUPERGA DEMONSTRATES HOUSE OF SAVOY LOVE FOR TORINO

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Basilica atop Superga houses the Royal Tombs of the House of Savoy before Italian Reunification.

Three euros and one hundred thirty-one winding steps leads to the observation platform atop the base of the dome of La Basilica di Superga.  Only so many people are allowed to climb up at one time.  For the best of times, morning. Then, the sun illuminates the snow-clad peaks of the Alps to the west and north.  The city of Torino – Turin – sits far below resting on the banks of the Po River.  It is a magical scene, one allowing for reflection on the utter beauty, natural and urban.  The Basilica also represents the tie between an adopted city and the family that adopted it, the House of Savoy.

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THE ROYAL ALTERNATIVE – DUKE OF AOSTA; “THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT!”

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The Duke stands in the middle of the Third Army Monument in Torino.
The Duke of Aosta stands in the middle of the Third Army Monument in Torino.

Right around the southeast corner of the former Royal Palace in Torino stands an old Roman gate, repurposed on the west side into the Palazzo Madama, the first Senate of the Kingdom of Italy and today a museum of art dating back to the late Middle Ages.  The museum opens up onto Piazza Castello to the west with a statue dedicated to the army of Sardinia which played a significant role in the Risorgimiento.  On the east side, past the two remaining Roman towers, stands a large monument mounted by two groups of four soldiers with a large, somewhat brooding man standing alone, fists clenched, looking to the east.  This man depicted is Emanuele Filiberto Vittorio Eugenio Alberto Genova Giuseppe Maria di Savoia, Duke of Aosta and a a cousin of Italy’s king Victor Emanuel III.  

Filiberto, during World War One, led the Italian Third Army against the Austro-Hungarian forces on the Carso for two years from June 1915 until October 1917.  Erected between 1933 and 1937 after the general’s death in Torino in 1931, the bronze statue stands cast from four captured artillery pieces, the “Statue in a Coat” – “statua in un cappotto”.  The monument memorializes the “Undefeated Duke” of the “Undefeated Third Army” – “la armatta invitta”.

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