(Redirected from Amadeus I)
'Amadeo I' (Italian 'Amedeo', sometimes Latinized as 'Amadeus') (
May 30,
1845 –
January 18,
1890) was the second son of King
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy. He was known for most of his life as 'Duke of Aosta', but served briefly as
King of Spain from
1870 to
1873.
Granted the hereditary title
Duke of Aosta in the year of his birth, he founded the Aosta branch of Italy's royal
House of Savoy, which is junior in
agnatic descent to the branch descended from
King Umberto I that reigned until 1946, but senior to the branch of the
Dukes of Genoa.
Background
Prince Amedeo of Savoy was born in
Turin,
Italy. He was the second son of
Victor Emmanuel II (King of
Piedmont,
Savoy,
Sardinia and, later, first King of Italy) and of Archduchess Mary Adelaide of
Austria.
In
1867 his father yielded to the entreaties of parliamentary deputy Francisco Cassins, and on
May 30 of that year, Amedeo was wed to
Donna Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo,
Princess della Cisterna (b. August 9, 1847 - d. November 8, 1876). The king initially opposed the match on the grounds that her family was of insufficient rank, as well as his hopes for his son's marriage to a German princess.
[1]
Despite her princely title, donna Maria Vittoria was not of royal birth, belonging rather to the
Piedmontese nobility. She was, however, the sole
heiress of her father's vast fortune,
[2] which subsequent Dukes of Aosta inherited, thereby obtaining wealth independent of their dynastic
appanage and allowances from Italy's kings. Maria Vittoria's mother, Countess Louise de Mérode, granddaughter of the Prince de Rubempré and of the Princess van Grimberghe, belonged to one of
Belgium's premier noble houses, and had married the ''Principe della Cisterna'' in 1846 in a double wedding with her younger sister Antoinette, who married
Charles III, the reigning
Prince of Monaco.
[2]
Amedeo and Maria Vittoria had three children:
★
Emanuele Filiberto, 2nd Duke of Aosta (1869-1931), Marshal of Italy
★
Vittorio Emanuele, Count of Turin (1870-1946)
★
Luigi, Duke of Abruzzi (1873-1933), mountaineer and explorer.
Yet by March or 1870, the Duchess found herself appealing to the King to remonstrate with his son for marital infidelities that caused her hurt and embarrassment. But the King wrote in reply that, while understanding her feelings, he considered that she had no right to dictate her husband's behavior and that her jealousy was unbecoming.
[4]
King of Spain
After the Spanish
revolution deposed
Isabella II, the new ''Cortes'' decided to reinstate the
monarchy under a new
dynasty. The Duke of Aosta was elected King as Amadeus (Amadeo) I on
November 16,
1870. He swore to uphold the
constitution in
Madrid on
January 2,
1871.
The election of the new King coincided with the
assassination of
General Juan Prim, his main backer. After that, Amadeo had to deal with difficult situations, with unstable Spanish politics, republican conspiracies,
Carlist uprisings, separatism in
Cuba, same-party disputes, fugitive governments and assassination attempts.
He could only count on the support of the progressive party, whose leaders were trading off in the government thanks to parliamentary majority and electoral fraud. The progressives divided into monarchists and constitutionalists, which made the instability worse, and in
1872 a violent outburst of interparty conflicts hit a peak. There was a Carlist uprising in the
Basque and
Catalan regions, and after that, republican uprisings happened in various cities dispersed across the country. The artillery corps of the army went on strike, and the government instructed the King to discipline them.
With the possibility of reigning with no popular support, Amadeus issued an order against the artillery corps and then immediately
abdicated from the Spanish throne on
February 11,
1873. At ten o'clock that same night, Spain was proclaimed a
republic, at which time Amadeo made an appearance before the
Cortes, proclaiming the Spanish people ungovernable.
Post-abdication
Completely disgusted, the ex-monarch left Spain and returned to Italy, where he resumed the title of
Duke of Aosta.
After the death of his first wife, he married his French niece, Princess Marie Laetitia Napoléon (
20 November 1866 –
25 October 1926).
They had one child:
Umberto (1889-1918), killed in WWI.
Amadeo remained in Turin, Italy until he died on 18 January 1890.
He is the namesake of
Lake Amadeus in central
Australia.
The
first Spanish Republic lasted less than one year, and in
1875 Alfonso XII, the son of Isabella II, was proclaimed king, with
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Spanish
prime minister from 1873 until his assassination in
1893, briefly
regent.
Trivia
The wedding day of Prince Amedeo and Donna Maria Vittoria was marred by the following tragic events:
★ The best man shot himself.
★ The Palace Gatekeeper slit his throat.
★ The King's aide died after falling from his horse.
★ The bride's wardrobe mistress hanged herself.
★ The colonel leading the wedding procession collapsed from sunstroke.
★ The stationmaster was crushed to death under the wheels of the honeymoon train.
[Rogar L. Williams, ''Gaslight and Shadow'', pp.156-57]
Ancestors
References
1. Spain's Forgotten Queen, , Sabrina, Pollock, European Royal History Journal,
2. ''Ibid'': page 25.
3. ''Ibid'': page 25.
4. ''Ibid'': page 26.
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