Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy (Italian: Vittorio Emanuele II; March 14, 1820 January 9, 1878) was the King of Piedmont, Savoy, and Sardinia from 1849 to 1861. On February 18, 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy, a title he held until his death in 1878.Biography:
Early years and accession to the throne Victor Emmanuel was born in Turin, the eldest son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and Maria Theresa of Habsburg-Lorraine. He lived for some years of his youth at Florence with his father; Victor Emmanuel showed an early interest for politics, the military, as well as a certain aptitude towards sports.
He took part in the First Italian War of Independence under his father, fighting in the front line at the battles of Pastrengo, Santa Lucia, Goito and Custoza.
He became king in 1849 when his father had abdicated the throne after a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at Novara. Victor Emmanuel was immediatebly able to obtain a rather favourable armistice at Vignale by the Austrian commander, Radetzky. The treaty, however, was not ratified by the Piedmontese chamber, and Victor Emmanuel replied by firing Prime Minister Claudio Gabriele de Launay, replacing him with Massimo D'Azeglio. After new elections, the peace with Austria was accepted by the new Chamber of Deputies. In 1849 he also fiercely suppressed the revolt in Genoa, defining the rebels as a "vile and infected race of cowards".
In 1852, Victor Emmanuel II gave Count Camillo di Cavour the title of Prime Minister. This turned out to be a wise choice because Cavour was a political mastermind and was a major player in Italian unification in his own right. Victor Emmanuel II soon became the symbol of the Italian Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement. He was especially popular in the Kingdom of Sardinia because of his respect for the new constitution and his liberal reforms.
Crimean War:
Following Cavour's advice, Victor Emmanuel joined Britain and France in the war against Russia, in an effort to obtain their good will. After successfully seeking British support and ingratiating himself with France's Napoleon III at the Congress of Paris following the end of the war, Count Cavour arranged a secret meeting with the French emperor. In 1858, they met at Plombières, where they agreed that if the French were to help Piedmont combat Austria, still occupying the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia in northern Italy, France would be awarded Nice and Savoy.
At the time Victor Emmanuel had become a universal symbol of the Italian Risorgimento, the movement pushing towards the unification of Italy.
Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, erected in 1895-1925 in Rome.The Italo-French campaign against Austria in 1858 started successfully. However, scared by the serious casualties for France, Napoleon III secretly made a treaty with Franz Joseph of Austria at Villafranca whereby Piedmont gained only Lombardy. France did receive the promised Nice and Savoy, while Austria kept Venetia, a major setback for the Piedmontese, also because the treaty had been prepared without their knowledge. After several quarrels for the outcome of the war, Cavour resigned, and the king had to find other advisors.
Later that same year, he sent his forces to fight the papal army at Castelfidardo and drove the Pope into Vatican City. Victor Emmanuel II s success at these goals got him excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Then, plebiscites in Naples and Sicily called for union with Sardinia-Piedmont and Italy grew even larger. On February 18, 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was officially established and Victor Emmanuel II became its king. Later, in 1866, Italy was given Venetia as part of the peace settlement after the Seven Weeks War. Five years after that (1871), the Papal States protected by Napoleon III (who had apparently switched sides) fell to Italian troops and Rome became the capital city.
Victor Emmanuel supported Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of Thousand (1860-1861), which resulted in the quick fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in southern Italy. However, the King halted Garibaldi when he appeared ready to attack Rome, still under the Papal States, as it was under French protection. In 1860, through local plebiscites, Tuscany, Modena, Parma and Romagna decided to side with Sardinia-Piedmont. Victor Emmanuel then marched victoriously in the Marche and Umbria after the victorious battle of Castelfidardo (1860) over the Papal forces, after which he gained a Papal excommunication.
The King subsequently met with Garibaldi at Teano, receiving from him the control of southern Italy. Another series of plebiscites in the occupied lands resulted in the proclamation of Victor Emmanuel as the first King of Italy by the new Parliament of unified Italy, on March 17, 1861. Turin became the capital of the new state. Only Rome, Veneto, Trentino and Dalmatia remained to be conquered.
Completion of the unification:
In 1866 Victor Emmanuel allied with Prussia in the Third Italian War of Independence. Although not victorious in the Italian theater, he managed anyway to receive Veneto after the Austrian defeat in Germany.
Tomb of Victor Emmaneul II at the PantheonIn 1871, after two failed attempts by Garibaldi, he also took advantage of the Prussian victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War to capture Rome after the French withdrew. He entered Rome on July 2, 1871, setting there the new capital (after the momentary move to Florence in 1864). The new Royal residence was the Quirinal Palace.
The rest of Victor Emmanuel II s reign was a little less exciting. After the Kingdom of Italy was established he decided to continue on as King Victor Emmanuel II instead of Victor Emmanuel I of Italy. This was a terrible move as far as public relations went as it was not indicative of the fresh start that the Italian people wanted and suggested that Sardinia-Piedmont had taken over the Italian Peninsula, not unified it. Despite this mishap, the remainder of Victor Emmanuel II s reign was consumed by wrapping up loose ends and dealing with cultural issues.
Victor Emmanuel died in Rome in 1878, just after the reversal of excommunication by Pope Pius IX's envoys. He was buried in the Pantheon. His successor was his son Humbert I.
Family:
In 1842 he married his cousin Maria Adelaide of Habsburg (1822-1855). By her he had eight children:
In 1869 he married morganatically his principal mistress Rosa Teresa Vercellana Guerrieri (3 June 1833 26 December 1885). Popularly known in Piedmontese as Bela Rosin , she was born a commoner but made Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda in 1858. Their offspring were:
Vittoria Guerrieri (2 December 1848-1905), married three times and had issue.
Emanuele Alberto Guerrieri (16 March 1851-1894), Count of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda, married without issue.
Padre della Patria - Artefice dell'unità dell'Italia (1861) sino allora divisa. Per questa impresa mise in gioco la sua corona di re di Sardegna che avrebbe perduto se le cose fossero andate male. Per aver tolto Roma e lo Stato Pontificio alla Santa Sede fu scomunicato dal papa Pio IX, il maggior nemico dell'unità d'Italia. Grand-maître de l'ordre de l'Annonciade.
