Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy has died: son of Umberto II, last king of Italy

Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy has died

AND Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy died, fson of Umberto II, the last king of Italy, and Maria José. She would have turned 87 on February 12. Death in Geneva.

The announcement in a note from the 'Royal House of Savoy': 'At 7.05 this morning, 3 February 2024, His Royal Highness Vittorio Emanuele, Duke of Savoy and Prince of Naples, surrounded by his family, passed away peacefully in Geneva. The place and date of the funeral will be communicated as soon as possible.

Vittorio Emanuele lived in exile until March 15, 2003, when, having canceled the XIII provision which prohibited the return of male descendants to Italy, he returned after 57 years of exile.

He was married to Marina Doria and had a son, Emanuele Filiberto. He was considered the pretender to the throne of Italy despite the dispute with the other Savoy branch, led first by Amedeo and then by Aimone of Savoy-Aosta. From his grandfather he had received the title of Prince of Naples and from his father, that of Prince of Piedmont. He lived in exile for many years, until 2002. The Italian Republican Constitution of January 1, 1948, established that former sovereigns and male descendants of the House of Savoy could not enter Italy.

He left Rome on 7 August 1943 with his mother Maria Jose' and his sisters, on orders of the king to go to Piedmont due to the well-known historical events connected to the Second World War. Subsequently, the family received orders to move to Switzerland, on the evening of 8 September 1943. Upon his grandfather's abdication on 9 May 1946, he became crown prince.

On 5 June, shortly after the votes for the institutional referendum of 2 and 3 June 1946, Umberto II again ordered Maria Jose' to leave Italy with her children, protecting the family from the risks of the outcome of the referendum votes . Umberto then left Italy after the government conferred the powers of provisional head of state to the Prime Minister on the night between 12 and 13 June 1946. From his marriage to Marina Doria, Emanuele Filiberto was born in 1972.

Vittorio Emanuele was responsible for the reorganization of the dynastic orders of the House of Savoy. During the exile he lived in Switzerland, in Geneva and worked as a financial intermediary. In 1978 the episode that in some way marked the rest of his life: the death of the young Dick Hamer on the island of Cavallo, after a shootout which saw, according to the prosecution, the prince shoot and kill Hamer.

So much so that Vittorio Emanuele was arrested. After a long judicial process, in November 1991 he was acquitted by the Parisian Prosecutor's Office of the charge of voluntary homicide and sentenced to 6 months suspended for illegally carrying a firearm “outside his home”. In 2002, once the constitutional rule that kept male heirs away from Italian soil was abolished, he was able to return.

And again in 2002 he distanced himself from the racial laws, for the first time in the history of the House of Savoy and made some declarations in which he accepted the end of the monarchy by swearing in writing and unconditionally loyalty to the Republican Constitution and to the President of the Republic. However, he asked the Italian state for 260 million euros in compensation for his exile and the restitution of confiscated assets.

In 2006 he was arrested again on charges of criminal association aimed at corruption and forgery, and criminal association aimed at the exploitation of prostitution as part of an investigation linked to the Campione d'Italia casino. In 2010 he was cleared because “the fact does not exist”. In 2022, he requested the return of the Savoia family jewels held by the Bank of Italy.